Bees

One of our bee hives swarmed today into the top of our Magnolia tree.

We gathered the supplies necessary to get it down.

A ladder, saw, and an empty hive box to put them in.

First I climbed the ladder to get a picture of the bees before Joe moved them. 

Then I locked myself in the Pathfinder with the kids while Joe cut the branch.

It took him about three trips to get the entire swarm. 

 This is just part of the swarm. 

After the swarm was taken care of we decided to do a little housekeeping with the bees.  This is the bottom side of the top board in a hive.  All of the comb and honey is not supposed to be there, so we raked it off and the kids got their bellies full!

They said it was yummy, but personally I do not really like honey, so I refrained.  We were able to gather enough extra bees to fill our observation hive.  I have been wanting to put one in the house for the longest time and it looks like that will happen soon.  If the queen starts laying, then we will be able to move it.  I'll post pictures as soon as it is ready!

By the way, did you know that the only true way to tell if you are allergic to bees is to get stung and see if you have a reaction?  We now know for sure that Joe, myself, and Noah are not allergic.   Jonah and Micah have yet to be "tested".