Mother's Day Suprise

 We had such a beautiful Mother's Day. The weather couldn't have been nicer. I spent most of the day doing nothing. I was out on the porch looking out over the yard and enjoying the sunshine when I had glanced over towards the bee hives. I always like to watch the bees working. I had noticed that they were unusually heavy around the hives and thought, Uh oh, so I walked over to where they were and as I was watching them I was going to take some pictures.

As I was thinking to myself that they were going to swarm my phone rang. I was talking with my brother and mother. While I was talking with them, lo and behold they swarmed, right in front of me.

Luckily they landed in the tree right where I was standing. After I got done talking with my mom I proceeded to  inform Don that they had just swarmed. Now mind you, Don has just had knee surgery and can't do anything and the bees were in a tree some 30 feet up. My neighbor had just come over to get his bike that we had been storing for him, so I asked him if he could help me catch the swarm. He was excited to, he always had seen it but never was involved. So I got the extra bee hive that we had from the bee colony that we lost last winter and had it cleaned up and ready to go for what ever. He helped me set the hive up right under the tree the bees were in. Got the bee suits on and he proceeded to climb the orchard ladder that we had. I held the bottom while he cut the branches and handed them to me. I put them in the top box, which I had the frames removed, when all the branches were cut, I believe there where four and placed in the box I put the lid on and let them alone for the night. I checked them yesterday morning and they were still clinging to the branches but also working there way into the hive. So I put on my bee suit and went out to work the bees. I took the branches and shook them to get the bees off and as I was doing that I saw the most beautiful Queen. I knew that they would stay in the hive at that time because the queen was there. I put the queen excluder on and then put the frames back in the top box. I added a feeder to the top of that, because they had no food in the box I just put them in. Needed to make sure they had food otherwise they would leave again. I then got the rest of the bees checked. They are all working beautifully making that lovely honey. I checked the new hive last night and they seemed happy. The Lord has replaced the hive we lost last winter. What a great God we have.