A Swarm on a Mailbox - Never an Easy Collection

 On Monday, I was called to collect a swarm from a mailbox in a neighborhood near mine. It's never easy to collect a swarm from an unmoving landing spot. Some difficult ones I've had in the past included a swarm on a I-beam; a swarm on a chain link fence; and a swarm on a bench. I don't ever like being violent with bees but a gentle shake into a collection box is much easier than trying to seduce the bees away from the solid item they've chosen to land on.

This mailbox, while quite accessible, was a challenge. I took a nuc box filled with drawn comb frames to use to gather the bees. I haven't done this before and it wasn't easy but as time passed (a lot of time - I was there over an hour!) I got better at sort of scooting the drawn frame up under the bees, sliding from the bottom up. In the very end, I had to brush the last of the bees into a scoop but that probably amounted to only about three hundred or so bees. 

Then when I arrived at the community garden to install the hive, I used a method I saw on a Cotswold, England beekeeper's YouTube channel. It was a miracle to watch the bees march into the hive. They looked like a school of fish made of bees as they flowed into the entrance. 

Now we have two hives of bees at the community garden, ready to grow and be a part of the MABA hive inspection program. My first inspection is on March 12!