Gravity always wins!

I knew that the landscape timber my hives were sitting on was starting to sag. I was going to put a cinder block under the timber to support it. I waited too long. I heard a crack and a thump. I looked out the window and both hives were on their backs on the ground. Syrup buckets spilled. Bees flying around everywhere.

I don't own a bee suit, just a veil. I decided to improvise. I got out a light colored pair of cotton pants, socks, sneakers, an old white hockey jersey and a pair of leather work gloves. I tied the jersey tight around my waist and wrapped vet-wrap around the ends of my sleeves and pant legs. I put on my veil and set up new bases for the hives.

Fortunately it has been a week since I checked my hives so they were stuck together with propolis. I pried off the bottom boards and each of the medium boxes one at a time to reassemble them on the new bases. The frames seemed to be glued into the boxes by propolis so I'm hoping not too many bees were crushed. I'll check for the queens in a day or so since I still need to add HopGuard. The top box of the strong hive was full of honey so I pulled out 2 frames and put them aside for the weaker hive. I put a jar of syrup back on the weaker hive. I need to assemble a shim to put a jar on the other hive.

Overall it could have been worse. It could have been cold and/or raining. The frames could have fallen out. I could have had lots of bee stings. The hives are nice and stable now. Enough for today.