New Hive--San Francisco

I caught my first swarm the other day, Thursday, 4/3. I'm on the beekeeping association's swarm list, but I hadn't known. Going into Esmé's violin lesson and I got a call from Corte Madera that there was a swarm in the neighbor's yard. They confirmed w/ the neighbor that it was okay to go in the yard and I went down after the class. Swarm had been described as about as big as a football, and I would say it was a little bigger. The woman who called me--Cynthia, I have her contact info--told me that another swarm had landed in the same yard a couple years ago. It was on a branch about 10' up in a tree. I borrowed Cynthia's ladder, put the swarm box on the ladder platform, gave the branch a shake and they dropped on down. I got off the ladder, slid the lid on top and put the box on the ground, opened the entrance and a little slit on the top of the box--an old nuc box with a frame of comb w/ some honey in there (I think my bees died of "first year beekeepers disease and too much rain. Hope I'm right and not giving the new ones some disease). A couple minutes later, bees were lining up at the entrances, fanning with their butts in the air. Textbook. I felt great. I ended up giving a couple more shakes, and made some useless attempts at trying to scoop up the last little handful. I was going to leave the box and come back the next day, but by the end it felt like I had most of them, and it was too far to go and I had too much work on my professional plate anyway. Got them home. That night me and Esmé and Rachel went into the garage and just listened to them humm like a motor. The next afternoon--about 22 hours after I had caught them--I put them in their new hive, and gave them 1:1 syrup. I'll feed them for about 2 weeks or until it feels like solid new brood.