So with frost on the ground and barely light, with lots of layers of clothes the mission to remove the bees began.
It was cold enough that some of the outer layers of the swarm were either dead or completely immobilized by the cold.
The first plan was 1 to slide a piece of cardboard under them and then 2 dislodge the entire swarm onto it and then 3 place that into a sealable cardboard box.
Step 1 worked, Step 2 half worked.
As can be seen from the photo taken above in the half light, the cardboard slid in nicely and a portion of the swarm was dislodged. The dead or immobilized bees can be seen scattered ahead of the swarm. The rest of the swarm was still warm enough to manifest their disgust at being tampered with and a couple flew around angrily.
It was only then that it became clear that there was still a large portion of the swarm extending up into the portion of the wheel hub that houses the shock absorber mountings.
This was where the queen would be housed and it was clear that they were not planning on coming out without a fight.
The best I could do was offer them an alternative to move into when it got warmer and perhaps coax them into it later in the day by running the engine and perhaps the heat would drive them to move into the box.
Well that didn't happen Even after running the engine for an hour during lunch time they made no indication of moving, just a couple buzzed around angrily.
I then went driving around to see if that would "encourage" them to vacate their lodgings. By the evening they were still there...
I had quite a few errands to run the next morning, so made sure to do them while it was still early and cold and made sure to park well away from other cars or people.
By afternoon after driving on some very bumpy roads they finally got the message and removed themselves sometime while the car was parked.
