Honey Bees

Package of bees

Putting the queen cage between frames. The queen comes in the package of bees in a small wooden screened cage. The cage has a fondant cork that the worker bees eat, in order to release the queen. We will check in one week to see if they have accepted and released the queen.

Bumping the package to get the bees to drop before shaking. Prior to smartly bumping the package on the ground, we sprayed the bees with sugar syrup to keep them calm.

Shaking the bees. We literally shook the package over the queen to get the bees out. You don't have to worry about them flying off because they want to be around the queen.
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Bees around the queen
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Putting the additional frames in

Laying a pollen patty on top. This helps when installing the package as it can be stressful on the bees. By feeding them pollen and sugar syrup right there, they won't have to spend as much time finding food and more time drawing comb for the queen to lay eggs.

Inspecting the install. Note the white disc still in the package. After removing it, we realized it was comb made from the sugar syrup in the package. We think there was another queen in the package (not in a queen cage) and she had already laid some eggs. We might have 2 queens in our hive, but they will duke it out and there will only be one queen in the end.

Success!!