Ball of Bees

Lee Ann inspects the "ball of bees" we had loaded into the hive body (see couple posts ago.)  This was from a swarm which showed up near our other bee hives and which may have originated from one of them.  Inspections of the hives later showed they all seemed full of bees but apparently one of them had split and produced this swarm.   Its swarming season as we've had three in the yard over the past few days.  Bees in a swarm are typically easy going and fairly easy to handle.  For this swarm, I simply cut down a cedar tree which I've been planning to cut anyway.  Then I cut the small branch all the bees were on along with their queen and we shook the bees into the hive body.  They like their new home and will soon be making more worker bees, drones and, hopefully, honey for the future.  This clip shows a transfer of the "ball of bees" from a temporary hive body to their permanent new home.  Sugar water is sprayed on them which calms them.  But, you can see how relatively easy they are to move around at this stage.