Whoops, magically made a top bar out of my langstroth

And now for my next trick: I went to check my first Langstroth hive ever that started out as a swarm capture.... only to find that I had magically turned a Langstroth Hive into a Top Bar Hive. Whoops. Here is the sweet little swarm that I caught from the back of the store "Trucks R Us".

Trucks R Us Swarm Before

Trucks R Us Swarm After

Here is my sweet little swarm magically turned into a top bar hive, only without the removable frames.

Oi, I had to do an extraction on my own darned hive. Turns out, I put frames in the lower brood box, but didn't think to put frames in the upper brood box where I decided to hang my black inner feeder. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either!

Problem solved. I had some wired frames hanging around and my good friend Becky Tomato helped me rubber band the comb to the frames. It's hard to see in the picture, but there are 3 wires running across the frames.The trick to attaching comb to frames is that there is an up and a down to comb. The comb is tipped slightly upwards so that honey doesn't run out of the hexagons.

Meanwhile, my high school chum was cheering us on and her lovely husband was providing shade with a large piece of corrugated metal. It's top notch checking bees with other people!

Preschoolers Draw Bees

The best part of bringing a demonstration hive to my kid's preschool is hands down the adorable thank you cards. Pictures of bees drawn by 4 and 5 year olds: