**make sure to click the links in this blog if you enjoy bees**

Don't take this personal but

my husband is so much cooler and more exciting than yours..

neener, neener, neener!

You may of read that Jacob found a bee tree...

Well, this is how it was handled- (we are ex-beekeepers, ya know)

This is Rick, my husband... he is looking up the tree sizing up the situation. He has dropped trees bigger than this before and handled bees... Pretty amazing, huh?

Yes, believe what you see. This is Rick, in a bee veil and gloves for protection, standing on a Jeep, dropping a tree with his chainsaw.

Dangerous? Yes!

Daring?  Yes!

Crazy? Yes!

Exciting? Yes!

Productive? Yes!

Homeschooler's dream moment? Yes!

After he cut the tree down he put a "lid" on it. We left the bees alone for the next 24 hours so they could relax. The bees actually handled it much better than I thought they would. Bees are not mean like yellow jackets or hornets are.

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When we came back the next day we brought a board with a hole cut in it. We replaced the "lid" with this board and then placed a hive box on top of it. Then Rick put two nails in the tree and ratchet strapped the hive box to the tree. Now the box is securely in place. In about 2 weeks we will come back and (hopefully) the bees will have begun building part of their colony in that box. Then I can take the box off, stick a queen in it (or let them make thier own) and take my new hive home! Presto!

Then I can put another hive on top of the tree and let them produce me another hive which I will take home in about two weeks... and so on.

At the end of the season I will cap the tree and let them winter over. I have a never ending hive producer!

Do you have a bee tree? There are other ways to do this. We could of cut the tree open with the chainsaw and scooped to bees out into a box. Pluses? We would of got honey THEN and a big hive. Drawbacks? We would of distrubed them and killed part of the brood (babies) and only had one established hive. It would of been messier and more nerve racking with all those bees all over the place. There is also the chance they would get frustrated, swarm and leave.