This was taken at the home apiary in Alvin, Crabapple tree in full bloom in my front yard= happy bees!

here are the bees in cage and their brood  put into a frame and ready to go into the beehive that night.This job was in Pearland.

This is an example of a difficult removal - 300 dollars due to height and length of time required on this job. The bees are doing fine, saw the queen when I hived them.

This is the Alvin apiary behind my house.This row of bees are all new colonies from removals done over this winter, yes I did removals all through the cold season, only working on warm days over 55.  The lymbar bees are right in the middle of this row. Some of this winters removals are already working at Gundermann farms, the next bee  move is to Nawara farm in Rosenburg. These colonies look out on a creek that runs every weekday with water pumped from a sandpit nearby. It flows into Mustang Bayou just across the street from my place. I have planted lots of wildflowers, alfalfa and vetch along the creek (well o.k. you could call it a ditch, I like creek). I have a small garden going too and I notice that the bees check these new  plants as they grow, I think they encourage them in their visits. A crabapple tree is just begining to bloom in my front yard, they love to visit its blossoms.

The best sign the next day is bees working to rearrange their new house, first thing is to get out the rubber bands I use to keep the honeycomb in place. They work the wax quickly on warm days. I have no veil or gloves and none of these bees even bump into me in threats or any aggressive behaviors. I am able to slowly pull this out of the hive and they dont mind a bit.

Here they are in the Alvin apiary in my back area, happy and healthy in a nice unpainted hive. I never paint my equipment or treat it with chemicals to make the wood last. These things would find their way into the honey and most important affect the health of the bees. I label each newly hived bunch as to the location of removal and other important notes. They got a happy face because they were so nice.

This shot is a little blurry, sorry about that, but it shows the size of the colony, they filled a deep hive body almost 3/4 full with comb. I put them on 9 frames, there are about 4-5 lbs of bees.This job was done last Sunday 2-21, a nice sunny day, and warm too. 

This garage wall was a fairly easy job, they usaully run between 150- 200 dollars depending on how long they take. I saw their queen, solid yellow golden color, big and beautiful. They had brood going and drones also. Also had drones in the colony, a good sign of their health in my opinion. This is right after I removed the siding, I used a little smoke, but after a while did not need it, they were very nice to me, and even let the human residents of the home watch from a safe distance. These folks genuinely loved their bees. I plan to keep them at my Alvin place as they seem to be superior survivor stock.  

Gus made a greenhouse for seedlings and has a lot of tomatoes, peppers, and other plants started for the spring season.In the back row tangerine trees were started from seeds . He will also be getting more bees from my bee removal jobs. Lots of the Japhet creek apiary hives are getting moved out to the country. I will be extracting their honey as I move them. We need more because I am delivering the last 4 cases of the '09 harvest from Gus's farm to Ruggles Green restuarant this afternoon.This photo was taken about a week ago.