Installing packages of bees, x 2.

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, we installed two packages of bees into the hives.  To begin, we drove to Stillwater, MN.  This is the bee distribution point for my supplier.  He is very busy when the bees come.  They apparently come from CA to him, by the hundreds of packages.  You are given a time slot to arrive, based on last name.  It's all quite efficient.  Drive in, tell him your name, get the bees, and drive out.  The bees rode back to the apiary-to-be in the back of my parents's vehicle.  As they warmed up in the vehicle (they were being stored outside in about mid-40-degree weather), they became more active and noisy.

The two packages of bees.  The top of their feeder can is visible.  The bees are clustered on the right side of the packages, surrounding the queen that is in her own, smaller cage.

The two packages of bees are in the heated garage.

Since it was so cold, I had brought the empty hives into the heated garage the day before.  With the hives then warmed in the garage, I put the bees (still in their packages) into the hives.  This meant that I needed to remove the center 4 frames.  We walked the hives out to the site with the bees inside them.  I placed the hives on their stands.  Then, starting with Hive A, we installed the bees.

In our bee suits.  The beekeeper garb is warm enough that we are in shorts and t-shirts underneath, though the weather is in the mid-40's, temperature-wise.

For the installation of the packages into the hives, we had about 1/2-dozen hecklers (on-lookers and well-wishers, they called themselves).  The Carniolan queen package went into Hive A, and the Italian queen package, Hive B.  To my relatively untrained eye, they were very similar.  The Carniolan queen was darker in color, especially in the abdomen.

The installations went well overall, as far as I can tell.  As noted above, the temperature was in the mid-40's.  It was a mostly cloudy day.  Not too windy, especially where the hives are located (they have windbreaking trees to the North and the West).

Some of my on-lookers had suffered through hive installation videos on YouTube, per my request.  So, I had some help there.  Also, I had written up a "cheat sheet" beforehand that I gave to another.  I could request a prompt on the next step, as neeeded.

Hive A was first.  It was going to receive the Carniolan queen.  I won't bore you with the step-by-step.  There are videos linked to below.  We used the marshmallow method for the queen release.  The rest of the installation you can view via YouTube as Part 1 and Part 2.  The only thing that I did clearly wrong was failing to remove the queen and her cage from the larger cage before shaking the bees into Hive B.  Despite the vigorous jostling, she seemed to be fine.  The rest of the installation was the same with each hive and largely textbook.