Dear people,
 
Start of the swarm season soon here in Sydney. And I am a beginner beekeeper.
 
I got my first swarm on Sunday evening. Got a call from another beginner
(12 months, same as me) whose bees had swarmed but he didn't want them (he
has two hives, I have one). It was huge (large watermelon size) - and
hanging in a little bush with the bottom touching the ground. Quite hard to
knock them into a garbage bag. But they seemed almost too big for my 8
frame box.
 
The colony seemed so big that I rushed around on Monday morning and
borrowed an empty super and 8 frames to put on top, so they wouldn't be so
crowded.
 
I looked in this morning (Thurs) for the first time (no smoker, just a
little sugar water spray and they were all very peaceful). Hardly 20 bees
in the top super, so I put it on the lid and pulled out the bottom frames.
Lots of comb being (what's the word?) built up, but the flat foundation
that I had put in was quite warped, you know, buckling between the wires.
Two of the frames were stuck together. The wax must have melted with the
heat of the bees, I think. I've never heard of this happening before. So
when I pulled up one of the frames it pulled a huge slab of foundation from
the other, and they had built an irregular chunk joining the two. (Yes they
were properly spaced before.)
 
Only a bit of nectar and a little pollen at the bottom of some of the half
drawn out cells (that's the word), so I left the broken frames in front of
the hive in case they wanted to retrieve the nectar.
 
I left the top super off (well, I now had only about 10 or 11 usable
frames), but before I left for work they seemed to be hanging around the
door a bit more. Hope they're not too crowded.
 
No sign of the queen, but I'll look in again in a few days to see if there
are any eggs.
 
Bruce