<p align="center"><em>A Guest by Chicken Wrangler Sara</em></p>
Beekeeper Brian recently purchased four queen bees in hopes of starting four new hives. The queen bees were shipped by mail.

He tracked their exact arrival at the post office – late on a Saturday night. Since there is no Sunday delivery, we went to the post office to pick them up. After a thorough search of the facility, Beekeeper Brian was finally able to locate the buzzing box and bring it home.

He set up four nucs (starter hives) with the new queens. 

For some reason, one queen was not happy with her new palace and left, taking a group of workers with her.

This was a little frustrating. The queen could have gone anywhere with her workers.

A couple of days later, Rachel was standing in the kitchen window. “Dad, I found your missing bees.”

 <a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bee-hive-in-tree.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2937" alt="Bee hive in tree" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bee-hive-in-tree.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="225" /></a>

They had swarmed in the tree in our back yard. 

The problem now was to get them back into their hive. Neighbors came to watch this process. 

Brian and Matt, our son, got out a ladder.  It was not quite tall enough.

 <a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ladder.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2938" alt="ladder" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/ladder.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="225" /></a>

Using a different method to capture the rogue hive, Beekeeper Brian set up a swarm trap. We waited.

Nothing happened. The swarm in the tree didn't change.

Yesterday Rachel went out to check eggs and came around through the front door. “Dad I think your bees are moving into the nuc on the patio.” 

We all went out the back to see. Sure enough, a group of bees was on the front of the nuc.

There’s still a swarm in the tree so Beekeeper Brian isn’t sure if this is a different swarm or if the swarm is moving slowly. Beekeeper Brian told the bees to do whatever they wanted.

This morning the swarm in the tree appeared to be smaller, which made me wonder, is Beekeeper Brian a bee whisperer in disguise?