I removed this colony from a work trailer at a fire training facility for Delgado Community College. As you will see in the pics, I had to do the entire removal on my back with the hive literally six inches from my face, but man these bees are nice! It was a tough removal but the bees made it pleasurable as they were just fun to work with.
Once the comb sections were removed (and I removed them furthest ones in, to try and get queenie to come forward) I could see that the queen was having no part in my antics as there was this huge ball of bees deep in the floor space.
The one saving grace was that there was space below and forward of the bees which enabled me to usher them to me with bee quick. Once I was able to spray the bee quick in front of them, they had no choice but to come my way.
A huge ball settled where the comb sections had been attached and I literally was pulling handfulls of bees out and gently dropping them atop the frames in the hive set up.
After a few minutes or so, I sat back and observed that we had bees on the hive, on the building, on one of the inner bee vac boxes and bees swirling around in the air.
I have to confess it was a bit chaotic and I in fact told Rick, the fire fighter trainer who was right there with me that I really had absolutely no idea what was happening at the very moment (me being a brat Cindi :-D).
Ok, I have to admit, even though I really had no idea what was going on, I knew the bees had to make a decision, as it was late evening. This is why I could have some fun with Rick!
The bees began making their decisions as they came down and began to congregate on the hive body but also the corner of the building, and wouldn't you know, after several minutes had passed, what do I see on the corner of the building but a marked queen!
Here are the pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pyxicephalus/June112009#Ain't she a beauty?
...JP