Part One: Catching a Swarm

On Thursday, as I was making my superman cape, I got a phone call. It was from Mr. S. He had gotten a call about a swarm that he couldn't take. He gave me the number. I called it and took the address. It was in a woman's back yard. Her daughter had some bee hives back there and one had swarmed. They didn't want to deal with it so it was mine for the taking. No one was gonna be there when I got there so they told me to just let myself around to the back yard and have at it.
I hastily threw some tools in a shoe box and headed off to the house. About twenty minutes I got there and could see the swarm as clear as day. They were in a tree branch about 6 feet off the ground at the high end of the clump. Two things were clear to me at this point. One my Leathermen was not gonna cut that branch with its nips, so I would have to use the saw attachment. Second, the ability for that mass of bees to fit in a shoe box was questionable. 
I got to work. First thing, I set up the shoe box about 5 feet from the swarm and opened it. I dawned my "safety equipment". By safety equipment I mean I put on gloves and got my hair out of the way. Later I would be very glad for the gloves. Then, I grabbed the tree branch just above the mass of bees to steady it as I sawed. I got the branch off with out upsetting them too much. I walked them to the box and with one violent shake got about 80 percent off the branch. This part of the process, they did not like. Immediately four or five bees locked onto my right hand and started trying to sting me. As I ran away from the box/swarm/mess I was able to pull off that glove and only got one sting for my trouble. 
Over the next several minutes I managed to get the box closed. There was still small hole in the box. Theoretically if the queen is in the box and there is a whole the bees will smell her pheromones and march into the box to ball around her. That works in theory, but if you are trying to fit 5 or more pounds of bees roughly 20.000 bees into a shoe box they just can't fit. After about 20 minutes of staring at them really trying to fit themselves in the box I broke down and called Mike. 
"Mike?"
"Yeah?"
"I seem to have gotten my self in over my head catching a swarm. Any advice?
"What'd ya do?"
"I brought a shoe box and I should have brought something bigger." This next thing he said is what keeps me believing there are really good people in the world.
"Where are you?"
About 30 minutes later he was there with a Xerox paper box and a knowing smirk. All I had to do from there was lift up my shoe box and place it in the Xerox box. 
Mike then caught sight of the hive these people were keeping. I had been looking at it for the last hour as I waited. The bees were all lined up at the entrance facing in. Just sitting there. They weren't fanning or anything just sitting. Mike told me that they were getting ready to swarm again. This was a sign that they were way over crowded. Without another word he started taking two boxes from a dead hive next to it and taking the lid off the over crowded hive when he got the lid off they were jam packed in there. Also they were angry. We managed to get two new boxes on top of that hive and with in seconds the bees at the entrance moved back into the hive. It was really amazing that they were able to react that fast to the change in their hive. 
I put my box of bees in my back seat and thanked Mike for probably the 100th time. He told me "Don't give up now. Just cause this one didn't go so well" 
To which I said "Give up? I just now know I always need a bigger box!"
Then I drove home with 20,000 bees in my car. 
"Part Two: The Instillation" will be post tomorrow.