What a Crazy Swarm Season

Things have been a bit crazy since my last post.  We have been getting quite a few swarm calls that have taken Dawn and I all over the area from Casey to Altamont to Effingham to Newton to Neoga.  One day we had four calls and captured three swarms (the other moved on before we got there).  I'm not sure how many swarms we have captured but the farm looks like the making of a science fiction movie...Invasion of the Hive Boxes!  At last count we have 3 hives in the north beeyard (however, two somehow lost queens, so something has to be done there), 10 hives in the primary beeyard, and 11 hives around the house area.  Like I say, it's been crazy.  Yesterday's bee call was from Kenneth Wolf near Neoga.  They have had multiple swarms from the hives in their apiary and have run out of empty hives, so they have called me twice to collect swarms.  The swarm was way up in an apple tree, and Keneth's older brother, Herman, a 91 year old WWII vet lifted me up in the bucket of a backhoe!  That's a first for me!!!