I never moved the packages from the front of my garage where I stacked them 2 weeks ago after installing 10 packages and becoming a beekeeper.
Today I get a knock on the door, guy asks if I'm a beekeeper. He knows of no other beek in town but saw my packages. Seems he was called when a tree had to be cut down because it was totally rotten and had bees in it. He was able to have the trunk moved to a friends farm and closed all entrances but one and started planning on how to get them out.
Well that was two weeks ago and today became "Today or Spray" and still having no idea how to get them out he asked if I would help. He would provide all the tools and I would get all the bees, comb, and honey. I agreed.
That was 8 hrs ago and we just finished. Turns out it was about a 20in wide hole in the middle of tree running about 9ft from top to bottom. Completely full of comb and angry off bees. Seems they don't like chainsaws and knives taken to their home.
On all 9 frame mediums, we stopped putting honey in frames at 2 boxes and ran out of non-drone brood 2 boxes after that. then we filled 2, 5gal buckets with honey filled comb. Finally got the lid on the hive after putting a 5th box of frames on top. After pushing them with heavy smoke for 15 minutes we still had 3 inches of bees on top that just couldn't get into 4 boxes.
Left the hive open and sitting on the spot the trunk had been sitting. Will pick it up at 6am and bring it home. Never saw the queen but they were fanning hard from the top and bottom so I hope we got her at some point.
Once again I had forgot the gloves so I took about 15 stings to one hand and 10 to the other. One hand as big as a balloon now and the other not swollen at all. TBH I may just be excited about my first cutout but I really think there are more bees in this hive than my other 10 combined at this point.