Dear Chester:
 
I made the mistake of moving a hive a little too early in the evening, and
not far enough away for them to forget where they came from.  The next
morning I had thousands of bees sitting on the bricks I had left at the spot
where the hive first stood.  That particular hive had an awful lot of bees in
it anyway, so instead of moving the hive back to its original position, I
took a frame of brood out, some capped, some new, with the nurse bees (since
they all came from the same hive).  Within a couple of days they had built
queen cells. A couple weeks later, we had a queen. Now its six weeks later
and the hive is doing well.  It has many less bees than the original, but
it's building very fast with loads of capped brood and one deep super and one
shallow super full of honey above the brood and honey.  I moved them a couple
of days ago to a farm about four miles from here to give them an extra good
chance of building up for the winter.  I heard the farmer next door has a
soybean field and grows flowers for sale.  They bee in bee heaven, right?  I
took along another hive as well since we have three others left in our yard
and I was afraid the neighbors would start complaining.  Two have so many
bees that they are sitting out on their front porches on this warm night.
 All of them came from one hive last year that swarmed three times.  The
daughters must have taken after the mother queen, because they all seem to
fill up the supers extra fast and with the same patterns.  I wish I knew more
so that my young son (the real beekeeper - age 10), could do all the best for
them, but our mistakes proved to be fruitful, and we learned a lotfrom them.
Beverly