Moving hives at dusk

A couple of weeks ago, Julia and I went to her friend's house to learn the story of the hives that had been pretty much untouched for four years. We found two good hives and one questionable one. We cleaned things up a bit and left these hives to regroup until we could move them. Moving happened this evening.

Mistake number one: We strapped these boxes together before we blocked the entrance. This brought the bees out in force to see what was disturbing their previously rarely disturbed box.




Julia's husband and friend put on the strap, ratcheted it tight, and we left it for a bit so the bees could calm down a little.

Then Julia's husband and her sister's friend, suited up and all prepared, carried the hive to the back of Ron (the friend's) truck.

The beehive had had a rotten bottom board which we replaced on our earlier visit.  Without the strong wood of the bottom board we would not have been able to staple the #8 hardware cloth to block the entrance.

This was the first hive we loaded onto Ron's truck for delivery to Julia's backyard.