First Buzz

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Here are the 2 hives in my basement ready to go. The "D" frames are drone foundation. The rest are small cell. All are full sheets.

Hive #1 has a plastic division feeder in the left slot. #2 has a home made wooden feeder. (Thanks, Andy)



Now a road trip to Reeseville, Wi to pick up the bees at Lapps Bee supply. I didn't plan on taking pictures along the way, but hey. How often do you see this?

In a tiny town whose name I can't remember, the weinermobile was rolling out of a parking lot. There's a car repair shop there that works on rebuilding them. This one is done and headed for Mexico. Ok, back to bees.




Here are the girls in 3 pound packages. They are inside an insulated semi trailer with heating / air conditioning units on both ends. Nice and warm in there.

Just above the date stamp are my 2 packages. We used that red bow saw to cut them apart from other packages. There are wooden strips that join groups of 5.

Back in town the bees are fed syrup squirted onto the screen. I held some white paper against the screen to catch drips. Against that background I could see hundreds of little tongues darting out to lick the paper.

Puff the quality control cat payed close attention to the operations.

The package is open. I'm on the right, with the queen cage in my right hand. I expected a wooden cage with a wire to hang it on the frame tops. Nope. It's plastic and no wires.
In a moment that was completely innocent of common sense, I jammed it between a couple of frames. It was cool out and I wanted to get the hive buttoned up. No excuse, I know.

Several frames have been removed. You can see them by my left foot. I'm starting to dump the bees in. The package cover is sticking out on the left there. It's still attached by one nail and keeps swinging around to block the hole. After I'd struggled a while, I pulled it off.
See all the bees on my leg? My whole self looks like that. Bees are boiling out everywhere. But I'm not scared....yet.

Still shaking, thumping, and dumping. The hole is right in the middle so I tip one end up, shake, then the other end up. Works great at first but the returns diminish quickly. I think next time I'll just pull off a screen and to heck with the deposit.




Study this one boys and girls. See the layers of clothing, all open? How nice and warm! The girls are getting cozy in there. When I move they get squeezed and signal their displeasure quite clearly. By the expression I was probably being stung on the back of the neck under the collar. Or on my belly under the belt, or the left wrist under the cuff, or....

Looks like about half the bees are inside here. They are clustered together to keep warm. The queen has fallen, of course, and is somewhere under the frames. I sure hope they cluster around her and keep her warm.

The frames were all sprayed with syrup, so wherever the bees go they will find a meal. No problem after they find the feeder.

Done dumping now. Most of the ladies are in their new home. The cage will lay in front of the hive with the opening near the entrance. Most of the stragglers will find their way over to their sisters.

The bottom of the hive is screened, and there is a sliding tray underneath. It's a pretty tight fit so there shouldn't be much air infiltration to chill them.

Starting to slide the rest of the frames in. I'm going slow and gentle so they can get out of the way. They do get the idea and oblige.








Most of the frames are in now. With less room on the side, they spread around and over the frames. Some have already drowned in the feeder, but that was to be expected. I put a wooden float in there, but it stayed down. Oh well. Now I know.



Ready for the covers, at last. Whew.

At first I tried brushing them down between the frames. Then I remembered there there's a bit of space under the inner cover. I closed it up and crossed my fingers.

Off to the other hive with lessons learned. There's video of that one and I'll post when I find someplace to park the files.

Many thanks to Gayle for all the help, and letting me use his garden. Thanks also to Angie who ran the camera. She got some pretty tight shots for someone afraid of bees!