Now I have 11

[oblib]

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.

[duck]

drop a couple frames of capped brood from that tree into each of your other boxes and look out!

[oblib]

Duck, that never even crossed my mind. I'll have to think hard on that but right off it sounds like a great idea.

[oblib]

Didn't get the queen but they made cells that had emerged by last weekend. Couldn't find any eggs/brood this weekend but, it was completely cloud covered and with my eyes I probably wouldn't see any without full sun over my shoulder. Hopefully next week I'll see some.

Also, got a swarm off the side of a house on Friday afternoon. Was very rough brick and I had to brush them into my box. This got me 5 stings lol. One to each hand, one to each forearm, and one to the chin. Seems they wanted to keep it all even from side to side. That's 12 hives now.

The brushing did damage/kill some bees so to be safe I gave them a frame with some eggs and young larva. Stuffed the entrance with grass but I guess not tight enough because within 90 minutes they had it open enough to get out. By Saturday morning all the grass was out and they were foraging. I will move them from my swarm box to a regular bottom today and look to see if they made a queen cell.

Was a busy weekend. Sunday got another call. Another swarm had arrived at that same house but by the time I got there they had moved into a hole in the side of house. I set up a trapout and hopefully that will be #13 in a few weeks.