A while back I described my plans to take a free hanging colony from the top of a
tree directly above a city street.  Last Friday was the day the deed was done, and
it went almost without a hitch.  The city cherry picker was fantastic!  I want one!!!
The operator was very calm and well suited for the job.  He put me right in
position and it was very easy to cut the combs and lower them to my partner on
the ground using a large plastic bucket on a rope.  
 
Thanks to Conrad Berube for the great suggestion for how to preserve the comb
intact, rather than fitting sections into frames.  
We basically built a modified top bar hive and slung each 
comb under a top bar with a sort of hammock of duct tape and
cotton twine.  It worked remarkably well and the colony is busy at our 4-H yard
now.  Almost all the comb was in brood, and well covered with bees, and there
were 5 combs averaging about 16" x 16".  These bees weren't putting away much
honey, which made the comb remarkably light and easy to handle.  It was also
quite flexible and more durable than I expected.
 
The end of the branch was hollow, about 5" inside diameter by about 18" long,
and full of comb as well.  We cut it off and brought it home.
The only problem we encountered was that the shutter on my camera stuck open
and I didn't get much of it on film.  Turns out I bumped the switch for time-lapse
photography with a gloved hand and didn't realize what had happened
until later - a big disappointment since I was planning to put the project on the
Web.  Oh well :(
 
We had the usual compliment of spectators, and the bees behaved very well.
And I think every truck in the city fleet drove by at least once to see what was 
going on.
 
Far more remarkable to me than the beekeeping aspects of this project was the
level of cooperation we got from the city (a city that by ordinance, forbids beekeeping, by the way).   I never expected to get the cherry picker.  
I expected that since we didn't work for the city they would be too 
worried about liability to allow us up in the bucket.  
Not only did they let us go up, but they let us use their special
chainsaw to trim the branch while we were up there.  I guess the alternative was for one of them to do it.  The biggest lesson for me from this project was that
sometimes you get what you ask for even if you think you don't stand any  
chance to get it.  Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise.  
Michael