That Was Quick

This morning, I had just finished telling friends at the local dog park that I hope to have bees soon, and before I could walk home, I had a phone call telling me there was a swarm with my name on it!

I am grateful to Christine, one of the most knowledgeable beekeepers I know (I think she's kind of a bee whisperer) for being available to get the email from the homeowner, and for contacting me and providing tremendous mentoring and help to get the bees into my box - which I'm calling the mobile home.

We left them all day to go in, then I got a call from the homeowner around 6:30 saying he thought there was no more activity and that they were all in. I have a little concern because the nuc door had fallen shut, but the host assured me that he'd seen them flying in and out recently. One girl was still outside the closed box, but I didn't dare open it again (and I couldn't catch her anyway) so the poor thing was left behind. Still, no bees were harmed in our process of getting them into the box this morning, so I think that it could have been worse.

In the early morning, I'll transfer them to the medium that's prepped for them and hope they can make it through. It's a small swarm, but Christine has known them to do fine. I'll have to look for queen cells or eggs in a week or so. Super, super excited about this!!

Here they are, first with Christine cutting away to get to the branch where they'd clumped by (you can see the mass of them, under her hand):

and then as they started to go into the nuc box: