As some of you may know, I have an extremely small tree just across my property line that all my swarms usually land on. I'm always grateful that my swarm tree is so convenient, but today I had a swarm that got even more convenient. We have this weird old shelving unit at the top of the steps up to my bee yard, which I have some wood on which I have drilled for native bee nests. There is a slice of wood sitting on the top of the shelf that is too thin to drill (it would only be thick enough for one or two nest chambers), and due to laziness, I just left it there. Well today, I had a swarm land on this slice of wood. It was the easiest swarm catch ever, I just picked up the wood, shook and brushed the bees into a hive, took it back and let the stragglers land, then brushed them in, done. I didn't need a second set of hands or a suit, and the whole thing start to finish, including getting the equipment set up, took only a half hour.
