For Better or Worse

I spent the entire afternoon working on that feral/exposed hive today and for better or worse the deed is done.

Sorry I didn't take any pictures but I couldn't find anyone brave enough to help me and there was so much honey spread every where and all over me by the time I was done there was no way I was exposing our camera to that mess.

However I will be going back there and checking on the progress over the next few days so I will take some pictures and everyone will be able to see what I did and we should be able to figure out if my plan worked or not.

Basically I got one of my swarm traps placed almost up against the big opening and started scraping out all that comb. The cavity actually went down in there further than I thought but the comb ended just a few inches down passed the cracked wood. I saved a couple of good sized chunks of comb that had brood in it and I hope I didn't leave em exposed so long that I chilled em before I rubber banded them into a couple of open frames.

All in all there were about two five gallon buckets full comb and a lot of it in the back was full of honey as well.

Now we play wait and see if the bees decide to move into the box I provided them or what. Regardless there ain't much comb left in their original colony cavity and it's pretty open so the new box should be more appealing plus have some comb with brood in it. I never saw the queen but figured she ran back into the bottom of the cavity but I suppose it's possible I may have squished her too.

My hope is that as the foragers return they will smell the old comb and nurse bees I got into the trap box and just start going in there and maybe the nurse bees and queen who are still in the cavity will move into the box as well. The entrance should be close enough that they will just be able to smell it and figure that's their colony.

It may work or it may not....

And yes I got stung. Several times actually. I nailed some support boards on the tree and the girls attacked my wrists which were exposed because I had to switch to shorter cuffed work gloves to handle the nails. They zeroed right in on that exposed skin let me tell ya.

We also had two more baby lambs late last night. A boy and a girl this time.

Ya Mom has already named them....smacks forehead....

More to come tomorrow....

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!