Productive queens, good-looking hives, and a couple of (nice) surprises.

Third inspection of Hive A and Hive B, Wednesday, 5/29/13:

This was day 25 for the hives, with the packages having been installed Saturday the 4th.  I was able to do a full inspection today, as the weather was in the mid-70's.  There were thunderstorm warnings for the day and some heavy rain in the early afternoon.  I was a bit worried that we'd not be able to do the inspection, but it cleared nicely and was even slightly sunny (but rarely).

In addition to the usual goals for the inspections, I also was planning to begin using a screened bottom board.  This would allow for counting a parasitic mite that impacts bees and also allow for population control of those mites.  I might discuss this more in other posts.

The day prior to inspection, the 28th, Konrad and I were walking the field and saw "our" honeybees working the Dandelions.  There is a previous post about that, with a couple of pictures.

This evening's inspection has, as the previous ones have, a video on YouTube.  It is split into two parts (part 1 and part 2).  There is still some wind noise as I didn't start using my digital recorder and microphone yet.  But, it is much better than the videos that go along with the second inspection.

I might not be able to get to the hives for 10 or more days, so I decided that I would add the second box to each hive today.  We prepared our trusty and rusty wheelbarrow.

Smoker in foreground, two white feeder pails w/ new syrup, and the wheelbarrow filled with various supplies and the two hive bodies that will be added to each hive.

Close-up of the tools and of the hive bodies that will be added.

The beekeepers at the apiary.

I'm putting on my gloves.

Getting ready to light the smoker and dismantle Hive A.

Before I close this post, I'll let you know of the two surprises...

First, in Hive B, we saw the queen.  We have some good video of her.  She has a much longer and slightly more rotund abdomen compared to when we last saw her during the installation of the packages.  She is full of eggs and laying hundreds to perhaps thousands per day.  She was moving along slowly and surely.  She was inspecting cells and possibly even laying.  I should have checked near her for eggs, but I just wanted to get her and her frame back into the hive so that she would keep on doing what she was doing--laying many eggs.

Second, also in Hive B, we saw and videotaped a new bee emerging from her cell.  From my angle, I could see her antennae and mandibles and head poking out of the cell off which she had mostly chewed away the cap that had sealed her in when she was a large larva and ready to pupate.  The video doesn't show this as well, but you still can clearly see her head moving around in the chewed-open cell as she tries to emerge.  It was funny to see other bees just walk over the top of her, seemingly oblivious to her struggle.

Almost forgot a "bonus" surprise.  There was a tree frog hiding under the log weight on top of Hive B.

Advice of "Re-queen every two years" doesn't seem right...

At the University of Minnesota Short Course for Beekeeping in Northern Climate, I learned two general concepts that seemed to be at-odds.

The first was that a healthy hive is one that has a young queen.  This is so important that we are to re-queen each hive every other year.  To do this, we buy a new queen from CA or elsewhere for each hive every other year and install it.  The old queen is either already dead by this time or becomes obsolete.

The second is the general idea that our repeated interference in evolution and normal life cycle of the bee has yielded problems with which we are now dealing.  Examples include mobile pollination, monocrop fields, medications, mites, other bee pathogens, and hive construction.

These two ideas present--to me--the following problem.  If I am always re-queening my hives, I am not allowing the hives (with their queens) to grow, shrink, thrive, suffer, and otherwise go through the vagaries of life.  How will evolutionary pressures ever develop bee strains that can best manage the stresses of my specific area of MN?  If a new queen comes from CA ever two years and is plopped into my hive, there is no hope of any selection pressure having any effect, no matter how small the scale, in my apiary.  More simply, I won't be able to have any local "survivor stock."

As I try to learn more about this topic, I have decided that I will allow the bees in the meantime to develop as naturally as they can given the constraints of the hive.  Specifically, I will allow the hives to keep their queen as long as they see fit.  I plan that natural selection, supercedure, queen mating, swarming, and the like will happen without my interference.

One problem I see now is that I only have two hives.  Might there be too little genetic variation for the newly created queens and the drones with which they will mate?  As I consider this, though, I realize that I have neighbors with hives, and there are likely to be feral colonies within 2 - 5 miles.  So, I think that genetic variability will be sufficient.  In fact, with the feral colonies surviving completely withough human "help," they might be a very good source of genetic material.

Mead tasting update.

The mead (unflavored batch) was a bust.  To be charitable, it was not tasty.

The cinnamon mead was better, but I still wouldn't buy a bottle of the stuff.  Heck, it was basically free and hard for me to choke down.

I have a bottle of store-bought mead that I'll open soon, so that I have something with which to compare my mead.

Bees on flowers.

First, an update regarding the inspection.  It was too cold this weekend to do an inspection.  I've delayed it until tomorrow, hoping that the weather will be warmer, if not sunnier.

As Konrad and I were walking the field this afternoon, we started to see bees on flowers.  So far, it is only the Dandelions that are blooming in the field.  Once we saw the bees on the Dandelions, it was hard to miss them.  I assume that they are "our" bees.

The pictures below are just from my iPhone 4S.  It was pretty neat to see, for the first time, our bees on flowers doing their business.

Worker bee on a Dandelion.  Click to enlarge.

A different worker bee on a different Dandelion.

My only worry is that I haven't yet added a second hive body.  If they are cramped for space, they might be more likely to abscond or swarm.  Either way, I would hate to be the main factor in limiting their colony growth.  So, unless the weather is absolutely terrible tomorrow, I'm going to get out there and do an inspection.  I'll replace the feeder pails and also add a hive body to each as needed.

Bottling the mead.

This evening (Saturday, May 25, 2013), I bottled my three batches of mead.  You, the reader, might recall that the 1st batch was "standard" mead with no flavors added.  Batch 2 had cinnamon added.  Batch 3 had cardamom added.

I went to a local brewing supply store.  It was a great visit.  I was able to keep my purchases to a relatively low dollar amount.  I needed bottles, and enough to hold a bit over 300 ounces of mead.  I decided to get 16 ounce bottles that have an integrated cap.

16-ounce bottle for the mead.

They were already clean, but needed a sanitizing step.

Relatively cheap and no-rinse.

Lastly, I bought some labels.  The picture of them (on the finished product) is at the end of the post.  After I used the "1 Step," I began siphoning.  Each batch filled 6 bottles with a bit left over.

Siphoning mead into the bottles.

Another view.

In the end, after applying a simple label, I had 18 bottles of mead (regular, cinnamon, and cardamom).

Finished product.

I tasted the mead from the 19th bottle.  It contained the last ounces from each batch.  It was not very good, unfortunately.  I'll have to see what the other bottles taste like.  Perhaps the one I drank had a lot of sediment in it, so it tasted less than good.  We'll see...

At least, there have been no fatalities yet.

Follow-up to second inspection, link to YouTube video.

Second inspection of Hive A and Hive B, Saturday, 5/18/13:
Unfortunately, the video of the second inspection of each hive has a great deal of wind noise.  It's pretty distracting, and in some spots you can't hear what I am saying at all.  Because I wanted to get the video uploaded, I'm going to leave the wind noise for now.

I'm wondering whether I need to consider some sort of wireless microphone.  When I made the mistake of wondering this out loud and within earshot of the powers-that-be, my idea was quickly and thoroughly shot down.  My videographer and "decider" is also--unfortunately--quite a Luddite.  She is irritated that she has to use anything more modern than an abacus to help me with my beekeeping.

So, I will trudge onward, without a wireless microphone...

Anyway, please feel free to visit Video 7 (It had to be broken up into Part 1 and Part 2, as it was > 15 minutes in length).  I will do my best to make the third inspection have less camera movement and less wind noise.  I expect to be without a videographer, so will likely have to use a tripod.

I also want to bring our old Canon camera out with me.  Perhaps I'll have it in a pocket of my beesuit or on a lanyard.  If I see something really interesting during the inspection, and I can't show it to the main camera well enough or safely, I can take some pictures of it with the older Canon and insert the photo(s) into the video.

I expect the third inspection to occur this coming weekend.  It will be around day 21, so I might be able to see workers emerging from their cells.  These will be the first daughters (and sons, in the case of the drones) of the hive's queen, so it will be interesting to see whether there is any variation in how the bees look.

The ~21-day inspection is planned for the Memorial Day weekend.

Bees not taking sugar syrup.

During inspection #1 and inspection #2 (at, roughly, one week and two week timepoints), neither Hive A nor Hive B had taken much 1:1 sugar syrup.  At most, only about 1/4 gallon of the bucket was gone.  For comparison, I know of other beekeepers who are seeing a full gallon be used in a matter of days.  The good news is that the bees in each hive still seem to be drawing out comb and storing nectar.  There were even several dozen cells of capped honey that I could see during inspection #2.

A podcast that I have been enjoying lately described this issue well...  It seems as if the bees have a dance for "There are flowers 1/2 mile southeast of us."  However, they lack a dance for "There is a huge bucket of pure sugar water right above our heads."  (This makes sense, evolutionarily speaking.)  So, apparently, any bee that finds the feeder pail of syrup is unable to tell the other bees.  They have to find it on their own.

I'll continue to bring out syrup each week or so.  Each time I check the hive, I half expect the pail to be empty.  As soon as I bring out a new pail that is only 1/2-full, to save on sugar costs, that will be the week that they all find the pail and drain it in a day or two.

Lip balm with beeswax.

Over the weekend of 5/18/13, we made a batch of citrus-coconut lip balm, and used up the small amount of beeswax that we had.  The beeswax came from Hive B's errant piece of wax that we found and some small bits of burr comb that we found in the two hives during inspection #2.

The recipe for the lip balm was pretty simple and included the following components.  I forget the exact amounts (if interested, post a comment, and I'll dig up the recipe):

• Beeswax
• Coconut oil
• Sunflower oil
• Drops of pure orange peel extract (or lime or lemon or etc.)
• Drops of vitamin E

After these were melted together in a double boiler, they then cooled in an old lip balm container that we cleaned out and sterilized.  I'm not a big user of lip balm, so I can't comment on how it turned out.  It seemed to moisten the lips fine.  It didn't have a lot of flavor or scent, so I might consider increasing the amount of orange peel extract and/or coconut oil in the future.

First box about 60% full on each hive.

Second inspection of Hive A and Hive B, Saturday, 5/18/13:
This was day 14 for the hives, with the packages having been installed Saturday the 4th.  I was able to get my videographer out into the apiary with me, but it required a shocking amount of cajoling and pleading.  I have yet to edit and upload the video to YouTube.  In brief, I think that the hives are doing well and that the inspection went well.

It was much warmer for this inspection than the first (77 degrees versus 55 degrees for the first inspection).  I decided that I would be able to do a full inspection with no worries that I'd keep the hive open too long and chill brood.

I now seemed to have the hang of the smoker.  You might recall that I'm using wood shavings (bedding for small animals) found at Pet Expo.  There are no scents or chemicals added.  It is just simple cypress shavings, I believe.  I fill the smoker to the brim with this and seem to get at least 30 minutes of good smoke output.  It lasts the duration of the inspections, at least.

We smoked the entrance to Hive A.  I removed the log that weighs down the outer cover, and then removed that outer cover.  The pails were still quite full.  I hadn't yet put the labelled ones on the hives, and I lost track of which feeder pail was on which hive.  But, neither seemed to have taken any significant amount of 1:1 sugar syrup from the pail.  Each had at least 0.8 - 0.9 gallons left (out of a starting 1 gallon).  I put the pail to the side.  Again, with it having been one week, I wanted to replace the syrup with fresh.

I opened the inner cover.  It was not yet stuck down with propolis, but perhaps it was a bit harder to get up than it was a week ago.  We put a puff or two of smoke under the inner cover.  With the inner cover removed, the hive seemed pretty busy.  I don't recall how many frames had bees, but I did call out this information on the video so that I could record it on my inspection checklists.

Basically, the outer ~2 frames on each side were mostly untouched by the bees.  I had brought a second hive body for each hive, but ended up not needing them.  With luck and good weather and active bees, I will need them next week.

I proceeded to inspect each side of each frame.  Again, more details can be seen and heard on the video.  At some point, I may make my hive inspection checklists available on here if/when I can figure out how to upload PDF files.  Each hive seemed to have several sides of frames full of brood.  I think that I was able to tell the difference between capped honey (of which there was only a little) and brood.  The brood pattern of each hive was solid.  Any uncapped cells in the midst of the brood pattern had what appeared to be new larvae in them.  So, perhaps the bee that started out in that cell didn't make it and the queen came back along and placed new eggs in the gaps?

I still did not see eggs.  I assume that they were there somewhere.  In the places that I saw young larvae, I looked for eggs toward the outer edge of the frames.  But, I think that I am still worried about time and keeping my inspections brief.  So, I may have given up on finding eggs too soon.  In any event, the queens are seeming to be laying strong.

They hadn't eaten a lot more of the pollen patties.  I have been seeing the bees bringing in pollen over the week before, so I decided to toss the pollen patties off the hive and into the grass.  They are clearly getting pollen from other sources.  They had pollen stored on many of the frames.  I decided against adding new pollen patties.

Incidentally, when I was doing the inspections, I saw bees crawling across the frames with bright yellow pollen in their pollen baskets.  The pollen patties are a dull brown, so those bees must have been getting pollen elsewhere.  Likely dandelions as they are blooming all over lately.

I didn't see the queen of either hive.  But, I think my ability to do so will increase with time.

In the end, I closed up the hives and the bees were happy again.  Although, I would note that they seemed to be fine with the inspection, not overly upset.  No stings.  I'll end this post for now, and will update the blog when I have the next video uploaded to YouTube.

Miscellany.

I have uploaded a short video to YouTube.  It is Video 6, and it was taken after the hive inspection of this past weekend.  That post (including link to Video 5) is here.

In Video 6, I discuss what to do with the errant piece of comb that I found.

Two other things:

I decided to label the feeder pails so that I can better track what hive is eating how much syrup.

Picture from 5/14/13 of pollen coming in.  Bee entering hive has yellow pollen in its pollen basket on its hind leg.

Pollen coming in.

A few days ago (5/14/13) after work, I watched the hives for a bit and finally saw pollen coming in on the bees's back legs.  A post with an action shot of a bee entering the hive with a full pollen basket is in this post.

A helpful beekeeping blog that I came across.

I've been reading a lot of posts today from this blog.  Over 1,000 posts, full of a great deal of information for the beginner and more advanced beekeepers.  Good stuff!

Spring ephemeral flowers.

Many flowers on the deciduous forest floor blooming these past 1 - 2 weeks.  This picture, I believe, is Rue Anemone.

No pollen sources yet?

Last night, at 2030, the bees were still pretty active.  It got to 73 degrees in our area.  I watched the hives for about 5 minutes, and I didn't see any pollen coming in.  It's certainly possible that I missed it, or that it was not colorful enough for me to easily see it on the back legs of the incoming bees.

Yet, when I got up this AM, I see one of the weather apps on my iPhone has a "severe" warning for tree pollen counts, for allergy sufferers.  It's going to be 90+ degrees today, so after I get home this evening, I'll check the bees's pollen baskets on their hind legs.

For now, the pollen patties will keep going on the hives as long as the bees are using them.

Evidence that both queens are alive and well!

First inspection of Hive A and Hive B, Sunday, 5/12/13:
This was day 7 for the hives, with the packages having been installed Saturday the 4th.  If you've read some previous posts, you might know that I was a bit worried about what we'd find (or fail to find) under the covers of the hives.  I mixed up new syrup, bagged a new pollen patty, got the smoker full of fuel, and headed out to the hive.  My videographer was in tow, grumbling only slightly and--thankfully--with minimal profanity.

It was 55 degrees and a bit windy.  But, the hives have windbreaks to their north and west.  So, by the hives, it was still and pleasant.  It was a cloudless day, and we started the hive inspections at about 1500.

The smoker was going nicely.  I filled it to the brim with animal bedding from Pet Expo.  It put out ample smoke for a good 1/2 hour at least.  One of my onlookers brought out extra bedding, but we ended up not needing it.

The video of the hive inspections can be found on YouTube by following this link.

We puffed smoke into the entrance, and the bees at the entrance retreated into the hive almost immediately.  Some flew off.  Opening the top, I could see that the queen cage that I left up top was empty of any bees.  I took it and threw it to my onlookers and well-wishers.  I was surprised at how full the feeder pail was yet on the hive.  I wondered whether they took any syrup at all.  When I opened and emptied the feeder pails back at the house, it looked as if each hive had taken only 1/4 gallon or less.  After getting the pails back home, I realized that I should have marked the pails so that I knew which hive had which pail.  This would let me know which hive ate more or less.

In any event, I took off the old pail.  I opened the inner cover.  It was not "glued" down at all on either hive.  The pollen patty was clearly smaller and even eaten into two pieces.  Where the patty had stretched across the gap between frames 5 and 6, it was eaten completely through.  I removed them and inspected them.  They looked good still, so I decided to use them again after I did the inspection (rather than put on the new ones that I had brought out).

Under the inner cover, I could see many bees.  Perhaps 2 - 3 frames were pretty full of bees.  This was somewhat of a relief; they hadn't absconded, at least.  I started looking at frames.  I didn't see eggs or any other signs of the queen in Hive A...  Until I actually saw the queen!  There was no mistaking her; she was much darker than the other bees with her abdomen visibly longer and extending well past her wings.

Once I saw her, I put the hive back together.  There was some comb that they were building out past the edge of one of the frames, but I didn't want to push my luck by bothering with it during this trip.  I closed Hive A with the pollen patty replaced, new syrup, and the queen healthy-appearing.  I was much happier about the state of things for that hive.

Hive B's inspection was similar.  The queen cage was empty; I passed it off to a spectator.  Bucket was still pretty full, but I intended on replacing the syrup either way.  I didn't want it to ferment.  Pollen patty chewed up quite a bit.  I began inspecting the frames.  On the second frame I removed (if memory serves me), I saw young larvae.  They were white, glistening, and wet-appearing.  It was a small "C"-shaped maggot, basically, that was curled up at the bottom of the hexagonal cell.  That was good enough for me.  I closed it up and ended the inspections.

This was my first "real" inspection of the hives, removing frames, replacing feed, etc.  It seemed to have gone very well, and I was pretty excited about things afterward.

Now, I will probably give them another week.  When I saw how little syrup they used, I decided to fill each bucket only half full next time (1/2 gallon per 1 gallon pail).  I've also labelled the pails.  I'll have to refresh my mind with the egg/larva/pupa timetable, but I think that I might be able to find capped brood next weekend.

Along with new syrup in the half-filled feeder pails, I'll likely have to bring out new pollen patties.  I plan on cutting one pollen patty in half and putting 1/2 on each hive.  They had only eaten about 1/4 - 1/3 of the full patty in one week, so a 1/2 patty should last them a week.  Also, as flowers appear, they can start to get their own pollen from natural sources.

Hive inspection checklist.

I recently found this blog.  The link should bring you to a hive inspection checklist and a nice article describing the use of the checklist.  I'm going to start using it, beginning with putting in as much detail as I can remember from my 5/12/13 brief inspection.

The video and a long post about the 5/12/13 inspection is forthcoming.  Ideally, I'd like to post it tonight (5/12/13), but may have to put it off for a few days...

Between day 1 and day 8.

As I write this on May 7, 2013, it is day 3 for the hives.  Over the past two days, it seems that Hive B has been more active.  I'm still quite a novice, so I'm not going to make much of this difference.  There are just more bees going in and out of Hive B compared to Hive A.  None of the bees has any pollen on their legs that I can see.  However, there aren't really any flowers out of significance.  The forests around here have some spring ephemerals blooming, but there isn't a great number of them.

Now, for this paragraph, it is May 11, and I plan to inspect the hives tomorrow.  I have given the smoker a test run with cypress animal bedding, and this worked very well.  It burned a bit fast, still, so I will likely bring extra out to the apiary with me (along with a lighter).

The past several days have brought cold temperatures.  In the evenings, it has been in the low 40's to even an upper-30 degree night.  The days have not been very warm.  It was also very windy today, 5/11/2013.  The hives have not been very active.  I'm a bit worried about this, but not overly so.  When I sat to watch the hives, I'd see a few bees every minute.  Some returning, some leaving, some just poking their heads out of the entrance.  It was difficult to resist the urge to take a peek under the lid, to just see the activity (or lack thereof) inside the hives.

The activity difference between the two hives that I note on day 3 didn't really last past day 3 - 4.

My hope is that it has just been too cold/rainy/windy for the bees to do much foraging outside the hives.  Also, there are almost no flowers out yet.  Tomorrow will tell whether the hives are just normally inactive or whether there is a deeper problem...  Such as the queen(s) being gone, dead, or unproductive.

I have two new pails of sugar syrup mixed up.  I'll take them out of the refrigerator tomorrow so that they are warmed for the bees by the time of the afternoon inspection.  The pails that are currently on the hives (one each) might not be empty.  But, sugar is relatively cheap and I'd like to make sure that I'm not feeding the bees fermented sugar syrup.  I can only assume that drunk bees are more hostile and sting-happy than sober ones...

Mead update.

Since the last racking of the mead, the balloons have remained flaccid.  It seems that the fermenting is done.  I will probably bottle them soon, then.  I found a local brew and wine shop that I want to visit.  Their hours are a bit limited, so I have to try to work it into my schedule.  I expect that my family, friends, and I will be tasting the meads this summer.  Hopefully, there will be limited fatalities.

Returning to the hives on day 1.

I returned to the hives on May 5, 2013, Sunday afternoon.  It was warmer (mid-50's) and the hives were more active.  They appeared to be very similar to each other in activity.  I decided to take this as a good sign.  I figured:  If I did something wrong with one hive, it would appear to be different than the other hive.  I also thought it was pretty unlikely that I did something wrong with both hives...

Hive A, one day after installation of the package of bees and their Carniolan queen.

Hive B, one day after installation of the package of bees and their Italian queen.

Many bees were crawling in and out of the smallest hole in the entrance reducer.  Each hive had bees flying around in the front area.  Orientation flights, perhaps?  It was hard to tell whether any bees were flying out at a distance.  The hives are about 200 feet west of a pond.  That will likely be their main water source.  They can crawl down the cattails to access the water without falling in.

Here is a link to video 3 on YouTube.  There is no narration.  It is just a couple of minutes of video of each hive's entrance and the busy bees around that.

The goal for this trip was, of course, more video and pictures.  But, I also was to check the syrup feeders.  Ideally, they would be full yet, but with evidence of bees clustered underneath them, ingesting the syrup.  If they were empty, that would mean they leaked and were bathing the bees in copious amounds of 1:1 sugar syrup--not good.

This trip would require the smoker.  I should have better heeded the advice I read umpteen times, "Do a 'dry run' with your smoker."  My smoker came with free samples of some compressed wood bits.  Being used to a home pine incense log that I have, I expected these smoker pellets to burn very slowly (like over an hour or so).  I was wrong...  I ran out of smoke after the first hive.

Video 4 is on YouTube and shows the inspection of each hive.  I confirm that each hive has a nearly full pail of sugar syrup (so, it didn't leak).  Also, bees were clustered underneath the pail lid, taking sugar syrup.  These are each good signs.  I did not check the first hive's pollen patty, but the second one's patty was fresh and being eaten.  Lastly, each queen cage was free of marshmallow and it seemed that the queen had left.  There were a lot of workers in the queen cages yet (they could likely still smell her pheromones).  So, I left the queen cage in the hive, hoping that there would be fewer bees in it during the next inspection.  I'm not sure that this was the right thing to do.  Next time, I might leave it at the front entrance instead of above the inner cover by the feed pail as I did.

Speaking of the next inspection, I am to inspect the hives about 5 - 7 days after installation to see whether the queen seems to be laying eggs.  My goal is to ensure that the smoker works better next time (or that the person working the smoker is better-skilled next time!).

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.

It's a girl!

Thousands of them, actually. The bee packages are in the back of the vehicle, and we are driving from the bee dealership back to home.

This is just a brief, mobile post. Hopefully, more information will follow in a later entry.

Bees arrive 5/4/2013.

The bees are coming to MN from CA, and they are expected to arrive today (Friday, May 3rd, 2013).  I could get them later today, but will probably wait until Saturday's scheduled pick-up time.

I have a video on YouTube that is, basically, an introduction to my hive and its components.  Clicking here should bring you to that video.

Something that I don't make clear in the video...  The depth of the "boxes" of the hive can be deep, medium, or shallow.  Many beekeepers use deeps for the brood-nest area.  In MN, to survive the winter, the bees ought to have three deep brood-nest boxes to themselves.  Above these, many beekeepers will use shallow boxes as the supers, the boxes that go above the bees's brood-nest from which the beekeeper can collect honey not needed by the hive.

I've decided to use medium boxes for everything.  The bees will need five of the mediums to about equal three deeps.  My supers will also be medium boxes.

I decided to do this so that all of my frames will be interchangeable (and the boxes, too).  If a hive needs extra honey for the winter, for example, I could take frames from the super and exchange them with frames from the brood-nest.

I hope to video tape the installation of the two packages of bees and to post it shortly after 5/4/2013.