I have been keeping an observation hive for the circle of bee speakers (three of us) that go to schools , 4H assemblies, and Garden clubs for Show and Tell about bees. It was used today, without me as I had another commitment, and when it was brought back, we, my friend Doug and I, decided to replace the top frame so the bees could work on another foundation. This would keep the bees busy and would also keep them from wanting to swarm.

We were going to find the queen and clip her wing and also mark her so we could find her easier. Before we even found her, we started cleaning the glass panes, when one of them slipped and broke. That made the bees decide that this is not a good place to stay so they swarmed. We still had a bunch of bees left over, so we put the frames in a nuc box until we could get the pane replaced.  Fortunately, the bees balled (landed and clustered up) in a tree in my yard and were easily caught in a swarm catch bucket on a pole. Then we put them into the nuc with the original frames.

While we were waiting for the rest of the bees in the tree to settle down so I could bump them again with the bucket, we spied a swarm of bees in a stack of supers that I had not cleaned yet. We found the queen and she had been busy laying eggs. There was a large section of larva already in the process of being capped. Doug, caught the queen, clipped, and marked her. We changed the super as, the one that the colony was in, was ready to be put into the burn pile.

After Doug left for home, I received a swarm call and took my wife with me to hive them. It was just a little swarm and all I had was a standard brood box. I will get a nuc cleaned in the morning and transfer the swarm to it.

All in all, I had a good day. Two swarms and recapturing the Observation Hive swarm. I will probably have to feed the swarm I had to go get, but the other two will be okay without my help.

Just another day in my life. Hope you enjoyed reading about it.