Hello Folks, I've been following this list for some time but till recently did not have bees of my own. Strangely, the bees found me, not vise-versa. I live in a rural area 70km North East of Melbourne. A friend recently bought a house in the district and found 5 eight-frame hives that the previous owner had neglected and allowed to die out. He offered me the hives, which I took home, knocked the loose dirt and dead bees out and stacked under a verandah until I had more time. The frames were in poor condition, some having been attacked by wax moth etc. After a few days I noticed bees were exploring the hives - I thought just to dig out wax or remaining honey. But they kept this up for 12 days or so. Then, late one afternoon I saw a black cloud 20 metres across near the verandah. I got closer as the cloud condensed into a stream of vibrating black molasses which flowed up hill into one of the hives. I was absolutely amazed! Not having any protective clothing, I contacted a nearby beekeeper who came up the next weekend to see what had happened. It seems the bees had chosen the dirtiest hive with the roughest frames and had started to build combs between two frames which had no foundation. We transferred the colony into a clean hive with the best frames from the other boxes. Three weeks later he came back to check that the queen was laying - we found brood in neat patterns on two of the combs. I've been moving the hive .5 - 1 metre a day to get it away from the house and can vouch that the weight is increasing as stores are brought in. It looks like the bees are working clover and other ground flowers. Our district has cleared grazing land with large areas of tall eucalypt forrests which haven't bloomed so far. Next weekend we're attending a beekeeper's field day, where I hope to obtain some of the necessary equipment, as well as information and advice. Regards... David [log in to unmask] Kinglake, near Melbourne, Australia