Kirk figured that the bees in this nuc box needed a week or so to settle in, and when he took the tape off the opening, the bees started getting oriented and showing all the signs of planning to hang around.
When I checked them this afternoon, though, the nuc box was completely empty. The only bees left were a few dead ones that had gotten stuck on the duct tape.
The hive boxes below, however, had a good number of bees coming and going. I took a look inside, and sure enough—the swarm had decided that the vacant boxes (which have some drawn comb on the frames) seemed like a better spot, and in they went. Bees clearly don't do anything halfway. Here's one of them, hanging out on her new front porch:
Kirk, meanwhile, was down in the South Bay taking bees out of a fence (Backwards Beekeeper Steve can tell you how much bees love a fence).
Here's Kirk's story, and photos of the queen cells he spotted on the comb:
