9/2/10

The mail box bees


LA Backwards Beekeeper Roxana writes on her blog:
While lamenting the loss of our Birdhouse Bees my friend Jamie called to say that a swarm had appeared in her neighbors mailbox and could I come and get them. How auspicious we thought! Thus we organized all our supplies and treked out to Northridge, stopping at John Lyons to borrow his bee suit. We choose to arrive close to dusk so that we could capture the swarm and bring them home immediately.

The white mailbox was shaped like a little house and had a pretty large swarm inside. Thanks to fellow BB member Michael who suggested we unscrew the top of the box, which is exactly what Greg did. After removing the very long bolt Greg took the box off and made a clean dump into the nuc box. Regrettably, due to the pitched roof, only a portion of the bees had gone into the box. Thus came the tedious task of scooping out all the bees into the box with the rest of their clan...

BeeVille (via Roxana's blog)