Busy Bees!

We have two bee hives.  One is not happy - it is apparently lacking a queen so they are a bit aggressive if you get near, and the hive just is not healthy.  We can fix this, but more on that later.  The other hive is flourishing, and Jason knew he needed to split it as it was getting too crowded.  Well, I kept him too busy so he never got to it.  

Last Friday I was working in the yard and heard a large buzzing and looked up and saw a huge flood of bees coming straight for me!  I called the dogs and we ran around the front of the house and went inside.  I watched this huge storm of bees flood the backyard, though only briefly, before moving on.  I called Jason at work and he quickly came home.  They swarmed!  Swarming is a planned event that colonies do when there are too many bees....they leave a bunch of queen cells in the hive, then about 60% of the bees and the queen leave to find a new home.  When Jason got home we went to look for it and quickly found it in the neighbor's yard - we heard it!  It's hard to see here in this photo, but the swarm is on a branch in the lower center of the photo, kind of shaped like a Y.

Jason brought an extra hive box to the swarm and picked up the branch.

Look at all those bees!  Luckily swarming bees are harmless, though I was terrified by it.  They have no interest in you at this point.  They need to find a new home.  Jason took this branch, held it over the hive box and gave it a good whack.  All the bees fell in.  He quickly gathered up as many of the other bees on the ground as he could.  Voila!  Another hive!!  He knew he got the queen into the box because some bees came out of the hive and started doing a little dance and the bees flying around in the air quickly zipped into the hive.

Per friend's suggestions, Jason is outside now combining this swarmed hive with the hive that lacks a queen.  Hopefully this will make everyone happy.