After many classes, seminars, trade shows, reading, reviewing, rehearsing, and reservations, we wrangled our new bees today. We finally picked up our 2 new Carniolan packages of bees today.
Bumblin’ Bee did the lazy installation process.
A Hive Named Bob
- Removed frames 1-4
- Sprayed package with sugar water, banged bottom of package on top of hive, sprayed them again
- Removed empty feeder can and queen cage. No attendants or candy
- Removed cork from queen cage and filled with 2 old, dried up marshmallows.
- Rubber banded queen cage to frame 6
- Dumbed hand full of bees on top of queen
- Set remaining package full of bees into empty area vacated by frames 1-4
- Added a top feeder with 1:1 sugar water, inner cover, lid, and rock
I had previously added an entrance reducer. The entire process took about 6 minutes. The bees were calmer than I was! You can watch a video of the process here.
Frau Imkerin did hers a little differently. She followed the same process as above, except she did not insert the package. She banged and dumped her package into the hive.
After putting everything back together, she set the package with the leftover bees in the front of the hive. They spent the next few hours walking and flying out and finding their way into the hive.
We are now officially bee host. Hopefully they will all like their new homes we have provided and someday we will be beekeepers?