One queen two queens do I hear three queens???

[JP]

Well, I got a call a few days ago from a fella that said his boss had bees in an old horse stable they were tearing down. He said there was a section of wall that they managed to open up without being stung that bad and that that hive was no more, but there was another hive that was totally exposed that they didn't know how to deal with. When I showed up to remove and transfer one hive, I noticed another colony in a plywood wall section. I figured I'd start with the colony that needed opening first.

I had envisioned a horse stable you know, with the walls up, what I walked into was a pile of 2 x 4's and plywood, older than the hills, nails sticking up everywhere. First thing I had to do was clear a couple of paths so I didn't trip over anything and impale myself. As it is its been one week today since the cutoff saw incident. Don't feel like going through that again, I mean, why do they ask you all these dumb questions and make you sign things while you're obviously in some degree of pain and you're bleeding on that pretty emergency room floor?

Anyway, I opened the wall section and saw a pretty sweet lil colony that needed a new home. Been seeing lots of drones lately and this hive was no exception. Wondered if perhaps this queen was of mature age, she sure was putting out some mean offspring, well you know they were mean for a while but seemed to settle down a little later on, so maybe I was thinkin' she wasn't so bad after all, of course all those drones she was laying was of some concern. I made a decision to catch the queen from the exposed hive and use her for this colony. After I had transfered brood and honeycomb to the hive box, I went over and caught the queen from the exposed colony and put her in one of those plastic queen cages. Sorry, no pics of her.

Well wouldn't you know it that I dropped the frame while trying to secure the caged queen and I dropped the queen cage which freakishly, best I could tell hit the edge of my trailer, got jarred open and some kind of weird way pinched the queen. She wasn't doing so good but I put her in the hive box anyway to attract bee numbers while I went and tried to get the other queen now, you know, the one I did'nt want.

There was a mighty large cluster on an old pallet which I started pulling appart while searching for the queen. One board had a ton of bees clustered so I figured she was amongst them. Strolled back over to my trailer where I had moved the hive body to and commenced to gently shake bees in to the hive box while searching for the queen. Didn't see her but the bees were going down into the hive like no tomorrow so I figured I must have got her, Perhaps, maybe, but...

Went on over to where the pallet was to do a survey just to see what the bees were doing to determine if I had indeed got that queen. Oh yeah check out the picture of the boot. I really thought I was going to find that queen in there, it was just covered with bees, oh well, would have been a nice addition to the story.

About 8' from where the pallet was, what do I see but this huge mass of bees in a cluster on a piece of lumber. I'm talking 25,000 plus. (Sorry for the lack of pictures, I must be slippin'). Now this piece of 2 x 10 is entangled in a piece of chicken wire but I know there's a friggin' queen in the middle of this monstrosity so I go in and look and tug and look and tug and I'm of course frustrated cause of this darn chicken wire and this darn 2 x 10 and I'm yankin' and bees are just being thrown all over the place, would you believe that amongst this mess I happen to catch this little ball of perhaps 20 bees and I go right on in cause here's my chance, I am doing the Michael Bush thing, I am imagining she is there, I have the karma going, that positive energy, be the bee be the bee. Ok, back to reality, I can just smack myself silly sometimes, oh well, anyway, what do I see in the palm of my hand amongst this little ball of bees? Yep, in all her glory. Now the only thing I can't figure out is, did I put two or three queens in that box today? Was this mass a swarm that I just didn't see? I'm gonna check tomorrow and I'll be sure to take pictures. Ok, that is it, sorry, I had a lot to tell.

http://picasaweb.google.com/pyxicephalus/March62008OldHorseStable

....JP

[Michael Bush]

Sometimes you find a swarm with several queens.

[Cindi]

JP, wow, what a story!!!  That boot, oh brother, looks like it has seen much better days. quite an amazing thing going on over there.  Yes, that rumble down tumble down ol' barn looked like a disaster, just waiting to happen.  Eeks.  Have a wonderful, awesome day, Cindi