Well, I wasn't around for the beginning of the story
I kept bees for a short time when I was a kid, but my dad didn't like it and had the hive removed. So, lately I had been thinking I wanted to start keeping bees again. A friend of mine (Gypsi on these forums) heard about it and told me about this hive.
They were living in a hollow tree in a residential neighborhood south of Arlington (where I live). The homeowner wanted them gone so he got it touch with a couple of guys calling themselves beekeepers and asked them to get rid of the bees. They came out and tried to get into the hive and couldn't figure out how to do it without getting stung, so they told him they were Africanized bees and sprayed the whole hive down with soapy water. Of course that didn't get rid of them, but it did destroy most of their brood and stores and they would have died in the winter.
Anyway, somehow or other he got in touch with Gypsi, who closed up the hive and set up a trap-out. After a couple of weeks they all moved into the bait hive, and in a stroke of good luck the queen moved as well. About that time Gypsi told me about the hive and offered to let me keep this one and try to nurse them through winter. That was in mid-September. I got all my equipment bought and set up, we moved the nuc in, and a week later I transferred them into the hive you see in the pictures. She also brought me a couple of brood frames with nurse bees from one of her own hives to get them started.
As it turns out, that queen is healthy and strong and she's been doing an amazing job of getting the population up. Now if they can just store enough honey for winter, they'll do great
The funny thing about all that is -- those two wanna-be beekeepers said they were AHB? These bees are extremely gentle. I don't wear gloves to work them, and I've only been stung once, because I accidentally hit the hive tripping over a hive cover I had set on the ground. I can't help wondering where those guys got the idea they were cut out to handle bees lol...
