New year starts

Yesterday it rose to ever 60 degrees so I decided to let the bee's do an evacuation flight (poop).       I moved them from the basement to the back patio and opened the entrance.  Out they came. (Watch video) Problem is they all flew back to the shed.  When I went back there the window was full of bee's as was the landing board.  What to do?  I had made a bee vac so it was time to put it to the test.  I vacuumed up the bees from the shed window and landing board, then the ones I could catch on the outside of the hive, then closed up the hive and moved it back to the shed and opened it back up.  I then dumped out the bees from the vac onto the landing board so they could reenter the hive.  That wasn't so bad as I thought.  I lost a few bees in the process, but it seems they are stronger than I thought.  Cold spell coming this week so today I moved them back to the basement for the duration of the winter, if we get one. The lessons we learn!!!!

Later,