I removed a small colony from a water meter box this morning, June 8th, 2017. 8:30 AM start time and it was warm enough to work up s great sweat! 

The contact sent a note to my wife saying she had a “large nest ” of bees in her water meter box. Large is always a relative term. Upon arrival I realized that this was a small water meter box, so, unless packed from end to end this would be a small colony. I did learn that the home owner is very allergic,  so, any number of bees would “bee” too many. I do appreciate her patience and concern to allow me to attempt the removal. 


A 10 frame box for relerence,  you can see a handful of empty frames with rubber bands wrapped around them. I use them to keep the cut out comb upright until the bees reattach them to the frames. 

Not a lot of activity and they seemed to be pretty mellow. Regardless, I suited up just in case! 
They had built 4 decent sized sections of comb with capped brood, pollen and a dab of capped honey. There was also a palm sized segment of new comb being drawn. FYI- palm size means that of a regular palm, not my XXL hand.  Based on the homeowners last inspection they had been working at least 3+ weeks. 

I will let them settle in overnight and move them in the morning. Hopefully I can get enough growth out of them before fall! 

TTFN

Bishop