Kirk gives them a bit of smoke...
...et voila!
A commenter pointed out the beauty of the freestyle comb. Here's a closer look:
We tied brood comb into ten frames and put them in the Earlimart box (Amy and I name each of our boxes after bands we like. Yes, we're nerds).
Then Kirk and I spent some time scooping bees and dropping them on top of the frames.
But each time we did, most of the bees would scuttle across the top of the box and climb down the side.
We wanted to get the queen inside the box, and we knew that the best way to do that was to find where all the bees were.
Then Kirk had the bright idea of lifting up the grate in the bottom of the BBQ. Sure enough—clinging to the underside was a huge cluster of bees that must have weighed 5 pounds.
"I think we found the queen," said Kirk.
We put the Guided By Voices box on top of Earlimart and dumped that massive clump of bees into it, then taped the whole thing up with a screen on top so that the bees could breathe on the trip home.
Here are the bees in their new lair. Let's hope they stick around.
To learn more about cut-outs, by the way, check out this video.
Here's Kirk's wrap-up:
