Wild hive collection from Daughter's school

When picking up daughter from school monday afternoon, a teacher mentions a beehive was spotted during the day in the top of a tree

Now her husband is a bee keeper too, but was working rural till weekend and due to students already trying to kick soccer balls into the small hive at the top of the tree  - I suggest I grab the hive!

So had to chat to admin staff to ensure Ok with me grabbing it - but told had to wait til after school care students and staff left for the day - for saftey concerns

I then rushed the 25 minutes back to home to get all the gear I would need - I planned to climb tree take hive down in one peice and place in top half of a double hive. Bottom box with frames, top box with no frames so I could to place the removed hive as a whole in to it - then they could migrate into lower box - removing old comb in a couple of weeks - here's hoping.

My 10 year old daughter was super chuffed at being involved - and like a mini version of her mother had me orgnaized, nibble food sorted and as a priority got her bee suit and gloves ready to help me out

On arrival back at the school we placed all the equipment in all the right places and I climbed the tree 

I cut a few lower branches to ensure I could get the four or so combs out of the tree as a whole, this then to place in top of hive box with as little disturbance as possible

Then came the scary key limb sawing the one main branch with the hive was on 

- dont drop it!

I dropped the saw a couple of times but my helpers passed it back to me - saved me getting out of tree twice! thanks

Once I started lowering the hive attached to the limb - a problem - an unseen tip of a nearby limb was incorporated into the hive cause it to be damaged as I lowered it

First one comb falling to the ground, this followed by two more 

- bugger! 

       bugger 

                bugger!

Once I climbed down, I placed the comb pieces between frames and placed these in lower portion of the double hive 

Amazingly the bees were quite calm through all this disturbance

Bees were in clumps on the ground having fallen off the comb-  I delicately scooped up the bees and placed them in hive box as best I could

I placed the box entance right next to a large clump of nursery bees (given their size?) and hoped they would move into the hive attraced by the scent of the comb filled with capped larva

I luckily spotted the queen and her fat elongated butt in another clump of bees on the grass and quickly placed her in the hive - further encouragment for bees to go into the hive - after queen being found I placed lid on hive boxes and hoped.

I saw a large mass of bees were back up at top of tree on branch next to where the hive originally was before my interferance. might have to get them eventually - these would most likely be older foraging bees used to that spot high in the tree 

So thought to leave the hive there and come back an hour or two after dark once the rest had made their choice to use nice new hive or go back to their tree 

So back home for dinner and once family settled in for the night, I head back to pick up hive and hopefully all the bees had taken up residence in their new home.

On arrival, I saw a couple of guard bees out front hive entrance - couldn't see the clump of bees that had gone back to upper branch of tree. I took a quick look into the lid and saw a large mass of bees in the frames with fallen comb of larva etc. So looks like it had worked!

I placed tape over the entrance and secured hive to transport home. Once home, placed the newly filled hive boxes on the hive stand and removed the tape from the entrance, so that at first light the bees could reorientate themselves in their new location

Next day - an early look at hive showed bees reorientating at hive entrance. Will check for queen activity in a couple of weeks. Here's hoping!

At the school next day they found a smallish lump of bees in top of  tree again - about 300 - hopefully I still have queen in my hive box and those that are just left behind are just the older foraging bees that will eventaully disperse or die off with no hive (sad!) - might get my bee vacuum set up with extension tube and try to get them (???)

So the daughter took photos and video - was  a great help overall - thanks Bub!

I put together a video of her media work - hope you enjoy her commentary!