APRIL 15, 2019 

I got a pretty amazing surprise. I was completely crashed out asleep when the phone rang. My friends, the Hunters, were driving with a swarm they just caught...and they offered it to me!!! So of course I accepted this amazing gift! They drove right over.

They said the swarm had been in a tree, but wasn't too far up so it wasn't hard to catch. I've never caught a swarm, so I'm super impressed. 

photo credit: the Hunters

photo credit: the Hunters

The Hunters brought the bees in a plastic bin with some screen material taped to the top.  It was a pretty cool set up.

I put some new frames in among some honey frames I had in the empty Langstroth hive. We dumped the bees in and they went in the hive with no problem. There's a rock on the frames because there were bees on top, and some might get squished. The rock just held the cover (top) up a little bit. The rock will come out when they settle down.

I'm so excited. I'm back in bees!

Here's the hive all closed up with the rock still in there.  I think I'll call this hive HUNTER HIVE.  

You can see the empty top bar hive in the background and one of the empty Apimaye hives to the right. 

I have quite a few empty hives now. On the other side of the bee yard, there's another empty Apimaye hive. There's also a kiddie pool, which has water for the bees. There's rocks in there too, so the bees  have something to rest on and they don't drown.

I think the next order of business is to make some sugar syrup to feed the bees since there may not be that much nectar flowing yet. 

Isn't this the sweetest present ever?