Installing the bees

[MikeWaters]

Yesterday my dad and I finished the fence around our air conditioner and beehive. My dad brought up the bee package with a Weaver SMR queen. 3 pounds of bees.

The installation was pretty uneventful. The bees were pretty calm, but I have to say, even wearing protective equipment (veil and gloves) it was a little unnerving to be in a cloud of bees.

I was bragging to my dad, that I might be the first beekeeper to never be stung. This after we had put the bees into the hive. Later, when we were putting the lock mechanism on the gate, I felt a sharp sting on my left knee. Pain quickly grew to the point you want to rip your pants off and remove the offending creature. It hurts like hell. I grabbed at the area where the bee was, under my jeans, and ran inside to remove my pants. The bad part about grabbing at the bee is that I undoubted squished it, and caused 100% of the venom to be injected into me.

It didn't hurt for too long, and luckily I don't appear to be allergic. But today my left knee is obviously warmer than my right knee.

It will be about a week before I open the hive and take a look. The bottle in front of the hive is sugar water. Helps them get a head start. I took a look today, and only about a third of the sugar water remains. The bees are very active today.
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This is the box of bees sitting on our piano. 3 pounds. The can top is actually an inverted can of syrup. I had to pry this can out. It was covered wth bees. The queen is suspended in a very small cage. The workers feed the queen through the scree in on this cage. THere is an opening to the cage that is plugged with "candy." The workers eat through this candy and release the queen in a couple of days. The purpose is that this period of time allows the workers to accept this queen and not kill her. That's why you can kill the queen in a hive, introduce a new queen in a cage, and then they eat her out.




This is the package of bees outside. My dad to the left.



This is the brood box sitting on a hive bottom, which is on top of cinder blocks. To the left is our air conditioner. Inside the brood box are frames with wax foundation. The wax had impression that are in the pattern of honeycomb. This gives the bees a template to start and greatly speeds the process of building comb (necessary to make baby bees and honey).



Dumping bees out of the package and onto the frames. The queen's cage has already been suspended between two frames.



Finished hive. Later I will add a second story called a "super". THe bees will store honey in it.


Another shot of the hive.