Since our capture of Thing 1 went so smoothly, we were both pretty excited when we got another swarm call. This swarm was only about 10 minutes away, so after work we suited up and were on our way! It was about twice the size of Thing 1 and a lot higher off the ground. Without a ladder, we had to improvise. Good thing we brought the SUV!Shark did a great job cutting the branches. Unfortunately on the way down from the SUV gravity won taking a fair amount of the bees to the ground. The rest ended up in the swarm container as planned (we crossed our fingers the queen made it into the box), but now we had a bunch of bees on the ground to deal with.
First, Shark tried picking them up with his hands. T
his is not recommend and resulted in multiple stings, but fortunately the gloves did their job. After these stings, Shark had to keep a bit of distance. It seemed that anytime he got too close the pheromone from the bee stings was angering the rest of the swarm. Next, we sat around for awhile and waited for the bees on the ground to follow the queen into the swarm container. The problem with this was we weren't entirely sure the queen was inside and we did not seem to be making much progress getting the bees in the box. In the end, we enlisted the help of Colonel Sanders and used a KFC cup to scoop the rest of the bees into swarm container.
Lessons learned from Thing 2:1. Bees clinging together can not overcome the force of jumping off an SUV
2. Never scoop up bees with your hands
3. Bee suits really do work
4. Always be ready to improvise
Despite all the excitement, Thing 2 made it back to our porch safe and sound. It seems to be in great shape and tons of bees were out flying around early the next morning--Almost to the point where I began to think keeping colonies of bees on the porch is not such a great idea.
Two swarms in two days. .. I think we may need more hives.
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