Getting the bees into the hives

My Dad took pictures as I unpackaged the bees. The sky was ominous and I would have preferred warmer weather for the little ladies, but you do what you have to. The packages arrived, so we install the bees.

I'm just using a European bee jacket instead of a full suit here. Considering that de-packaging bees is probably the most disruptive, violent thing I'll be doing with them, and I didn't have a smoker yet, but I didn't get stung -- I'd say it's going to be easily sufficient for my needs. Oh were the girls pissed when I removed their queen and then had the audacity to shake them out of their cage to boot. Such an angry hum, I can't tell you.



The second picture shows me holding up a top bar with the queen cage hanging from it (I used a thumb tack to secure it). At that point I had removed the cork from the cage and installed the mini marshmallow as the time-release fuse for the queen. Should take the bees a day or two to eat up that marshmallow and let her free into the hive. By that time her scent is fully ensconced in that hive and they won't bolt on you.

For more of a blow-by-blow of de-packaging bees, here is a video I found that gets pretty specific. Of course they're using commercial hives, but you do get some more detail regardless.

Tonight I also made some bee-fondant to feed the hives tomorrow. It's cooling now. It's basically a sugar syrup that's been brought up to "soft ball" temperatures, then whipped as its cooling to add a bit of air to it. For bees you add some apple cider vinegar as well, to adjust the PH a bit and possibly provide a tiny bit of nutrient. The weather is just too cold right now for them to be flying much, so even though there are blooms everywhere for them to forage, they'll starve if I don't feed them a bit til it warms up. Fondant seemed the cleanest way to do it. I'm going to put chunks into cheesecloth and hang it from string from a top bar for them to feast on.

Enjoy learning new husbandry skills,

Bp