Free bees

[Anonymous]

Beth, some of you others may remember about this time last year I reported that I built a 5 frame nuc one afternoon and as soon as I got it finished, a swarm desended onto my 5ft Leland Cypress.  I could tell that they were looking for a home so I clipped the limb and dropped them in.  Well, I've had a more interesting happening this spring. After I cleaned my hive bodies and arranged my hives with the frames that I thought they needed I had two hive bodies and a few frames left over.  Since I didn't have room in my storeroom for the hives, I just put them out where I would put my next colony.  A few weeks later, I needed to get a pattern to make a standard frame so I went to the "stored" hive.  Guess what?  It was about a quarter full of bees.  Of course the girls had their own thoughts about where to build their comb and I had to back them up a little but they were doing well last Saturday.  I have found that luck counts in lots of things and it is a real suprise when they decide to live with me.  I usually have to go after them.  This is my third hive this year and I've finally found the queen in one of them.  I know that all three have queens because I see new larva everytime I inspect.

[Miss Chick-a-BEE]

Well that's a fun surprize! They probably did make a mess of the mostly empty hive, but that's fixable. Congrats.

Beth

[thomashton]

What a cool surprise!

Do you know where they're from? Any beekeepers close to you have a swarm recently? What about you, any recent swarms? Be interesting to know, but probably never will.

[bill]

I have been keeping a hive put together out the back but nothing has moved in yet.  You are just lucky

[drgenegarris]

If you had a spare hive with 10 empty frames in it and you placed a lure into the hive body what are your random chances of having your box filled with bees?

This might be a fun experiment.  Has anyone done this?

[TwT]

NOW THATS GOOD LUCK

CONGRADS!!!

[Michael Bush]

Put some lemongrass oil in a old hive body with a top and bottom and tie it up in a tree.  I've haven't gotten any with them on the ground, but I have gotten them in the trees.