One of my hives began swarming at around 9 am, and Pattie noticed it. The bees seemed to settle down, and it appeared they were going back into the parent hive, when I heard some buzzing in the side yard, and found that they were beginning to ball up on a tree branch.
I initially tried to catch them in a bait hive, but that was not a sure thing. They were up there about 18'-20', and so while they were getting settled into their "ball", I began to craft a bucket on a pole to catch them.
Once I constructed my "swarm catching bucket," I got on my ladder and realized it was too short, and that was with my ladder on top of my utility trailer. I was using an old wooden curtain rod for my pole. After realizing it was too short, I headed into the back yard and found an old clothes line pole (my Dad taught me well in the art of improvisation). This, I duct taped to my curtain rod pole, and again tried to reach the bees. This time I could get to them.
So, now I ascended my ladder and positioned my bucket under the bees, and with a swift shake, I got a good number of them. After a few seconds, I lowered my pole and shook some of them into my hive box.
The bees found honey to be consumed in the bottom of my box, and they decided that this would make a nice home. Thus on this Lord's Day of August the 28th of the year two thousand and eleven, we have another new hive of honeybees! Yeah!!!
