Providential Bee Keeper

My daughter found a wild swarm of bees, about 50 feet from our house. 

They were surrounding the queen and hunkering down for the night. 

So, we got on the phone, realizing that this might just be Father's Providence at work in our lives, once again, and called the phone number I had gotten off a gas station bulletin board a few days prior..."want bees?", it said...YES, yes I did. We arrived at the bee keepers house around 10 pm, he told us everything we needed to know about our new hive. He also gave us a slat that had established comb already in it just to make it easier for the colony to reestablish itself. We poured simple syrup into it so they colony had something to feast on in the morning.

 So, after hours of researching in actual books, because we have no internet, we found out how to capture a wild swarm. We went outside at 1:30 am, cut the branch off and set it down in the cardboard box on top of the hive. The box acts as a funnel and the idea was that the bees would find their way down into the hive in the morning. Most of them did, and we set out to remove the box, and put the lid on the hive.

The only thing I had to use as a veil was an old lace curtain that I cut up and tied around my head over my straw hat. I put rubber bands around my sleeves and put on my gloves and went to work. 

First I lifted the lid, tapped the bees off, and then lifted the box and did the same. 

Then the branch was exposed and there was still a cluster of bees on it. I tapped the branch into the hive to make sure all the bees were removed. 

They took a bit of manipulating to get all of them off. 

I gently sat the inner lid on, accidentally squishing a few. Whoops

Then the telescoping lid.

There it is! Now tonight we have to move it to it's permanent location. We should have done it last night, but they were quite angry.

We are SO excited! This is an amazing adventure and we feel very blessed.