Sandi works for a company that orders printing from me all the time. Whenever she would call, I’d bore her with my excitement about bees. At that point I didn’t have any bees and was building swarm bait hives, wondering where I could place them, and in general being hyper about getting some. Eventually, I got some bees. So when Sandi called in late June to say she had a swarm on her property and didn’t want them because she was allergic, I felt obligated to get them. She had suffered through my bee-brain ramblings, so I better come through. I was still smarting from the feral bee hive transfer to Bee Beard Log Hive and didn’t want a third hive, but there was a couple whose daughter had built them a top bar hive that needed bees. I called them and yes, they still wanted bees.
I’m sure there are better ways to capture a swarm. These bees were snug against the trunk of a small fir tree. I couldn’t bend the tree over the bucket to shake them in so I just sort of ‘brushed’ them into the bucket…watching for the bees to stick there rear ends up and fan the pheramone…”the queen is in the bucket.” Hearing the grandkids exclamations are priceless.
I don’t understand it. I got stung 25 times when transferring bees into Bee Beard and didn’t swell up as much as this time with only 5 stings!
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Thats one hell of a hobby 🙂 You could be a boxer with hands that size; well done on getting the swarm.
My stings have gotten less and less itchy, but I went to an allergist just in case. They wanted a huge amount of money to test for bee sting allergy, which I opted out of, but I did get 2 epi-pens for a measly $220 :O I thought it would be a wise thing to have, after reading this post: http://eastvanbees.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/deadly-hobbys-and-swarms/
My friend calls it “Natures botox”
It would work for that alright, but who wants to be stung in the lip? 🙂