I ran a few errands Friday afternoon and when I got home I had another swarm on the lantern in the dogwood tree. I was taking photos when a friend, Pearl dropped by to see the bees. She took a few photos as I was getting the new yellow hive ready. While I was getting the things set up the bees started to return to the pumpkin colored hive they had swarmed from. After they settled down I went and checked and found the clipped and marked queen on the ground underneath the hive. I put her in a jar and ran in and called Mr. Charlie (the bee whisperer). He told me to kill the queen. I ask for option two, since she had been a prolific queen and she was only one year old. I was not going to kill her. He told me to take three frames from the hive they swarmed from and put them into the new hive making sure I had no queen cells on any of the frames. I gave them just a little puff of smoke and gingerly took three frames out, checking for queen cells. I replaced the frames for empty ones. The bees were very gentle and I did not get stung. I had the new hive on my wagon and pulled it over to the other end of the new hive stand and it took its place beside the new aqua hive that was set up on Wednesday. I am running out of hive bodies. The girls need to stop swarming for a while and give me time to catch up.
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