Hi, I'm not a beekeeper, but I am housesitting for about a year and a half while my friend is out of the country. He is a beekeeper. I have no idea what kind of frames he uses. I only know that he set up a hive in the backyard last year, using Italian bees, and they didn't make it through the winter. He has some supers (is that right?) stacked along the fence, I don't know if there are any frames in them or not, and some frames that need to be cleaned and/or fixed also stacked on top of the supers. They are just piled up and a little lopsided, waiting to be used. Well, a huge swarm of bees decided to move in to one of the piles. What an intimidating sight! It's great to have such a big colony (?) in there, but there may not be any frames inside. There wasn't even a proper cover on it. It was supposed to rain today so I carefully put some boards on top to prevent water from getting in. I hope the bees decide to stay. Tomorrow I'll try to take some pictures and email them to my friend. It is a good thing that wild bees chose their home. We learned a lot about ideal conditions for them. Why the other bees didn't make it, and what attracted these bees to that hive.

Sorry for such a long post, but I figured I would introduce myself and give you all a rundown of my situation. Any information and advice would be greatly appreciated.