[USCBeeMan]

Must have been 50,000 bees in the hive. Got almost all of them. Had to use the vacuum. Too many bees to try and remove the comb. Ended up with 8 medium frames of honey/pollen/larva/capped brood. Hopefully also some eggs. Don't know about the queen. Hope I have her too. Still have some comb with honey that I will try and put in medium frame(s).

These bees are special at least to me. I have never extracted, trapped or caught a swarm of bees that were as small as these bees. Heck, the drones were no larger than some normal size worker bees. For the most part they were gentle untill the very end when they got hot on me. What makes them even more special is that this brick area is on the outside of the house on the side corner. The only covering is a deck on the second floor about 12' up. Wooden cover on containment area was pulled off back in January and never put back on!! So these bees were basically living in the frigid cold we had in late Jan and February. That's tough bees. Saw some SHBs, but nothing major considering the size of the hive. Probably saw 30 or so beetles and killed a bunch of those.

Got stung a couple of times but the stings didn't seem to hurt as bad as most biee stings.

Another weird thing I noticed, not one robber bee at the hive. All the bees coming and going showed normal activity. No fighting at all.

 

[Beaver Dam]

Yea, been doing swarm colection and cut-outs for 3 years. I too have knoticed different sizes. I think a want to bee sting by the little ones.

 

[tnmx]

Congrats Ken. Let us know how they are doing and if Queen survived the trip down the hose.
Marty

 

[USCBeeMan]

Will do. Have to put the 2 boxes together as 1 hive that I used with the Robo Vac and cutout frames. Pulled out the wire cloth between the two boxes when I got home so that all of the bees could reunite and protect the brood and have the honey to eat if needed. When I pulled the screen partially back you should have heard them buzz inside.