Got a post from our bee club about a swarm that moved into a ladies soffit(sp?). So I went up Wed night after work and tried to get them out. This is only my second cutout and my first was in a barn wall that the owner didn't care if I damaged. The message said they were easy to get to just occupying a space behind the facia board. HA! never believe what people tell you right :). Well it was that hard but the 1800's era house construction is a little different. They had actually reoccupied a deadout and so there was probably enough comb in there to fill a single deep. The facia board was only four inches wide and the soffit cavity was probably 10 inches deep.
Because I was working at the top of an extension ladder I tied the vac to the rung so I could give my arms a rest. I ran out of light to work by and told her I would swing by Thurs after work to clean up the stragglers(a few hundred I guessed) I got home at 8:20PM and installed them in an 8 frame deep from a deadout hive of mine. I went back last night and the cavity was FULL of bees. I got nearly as much in the vac as I did the night before. I can't see how I could have missed that many but hey. They did say that they saw another swarm about 100 yards away hanging in a tree so it's possible that the new swarm reoccupied the cavity. I debated about installing the second batch in there own hive to wait and see if they had a queen or not, but in the end decided to put them together. Got four or five stings out of the whole process.
I did a much better job of not killing the bees in the vac this year :) The hive looks to have 4-6 pounds of bees in it now. and are very gentle bees that look to be mostly Carni type. Puts me at 13 hives now.
it's not a hobby it's a real "alternative" lifestyle :D