Installing the bees

Yesterday morning we got up and out to the Millers Homestead to pick up our 2 packages of bees.  Everything was set up and waiting when we got back. The morning was cold and we could tell that these poor girls weren't happy about it. Not much activity was coming from them, just huddling and shivering for warmth. I've never seen the Millers driveway so packed full of cars! Tons of people came to get bees, and many more hadn't arrived yet, as evident by how many were still on the back of the flatbed truck.

Once home we suited up, got our sugar water, ( did have to run back in to get the marshmallow because I forgot that part) and we set to installing our girls.

Jacob took the first set, the Italians we only realized later the pun in that (because he is Italian). His hive we took snapshots of.

Before we suited up we needed a picture of the box of girls!

Here Jacob is removing the queen cage, we get her situated before we let all the other girls out. She comes in her own special chamber. (you can see this in the video further down)

Once the queen cage is out of the box we had to remove the cork stopper that keeps her in there and replace it with a marshmallow. This cage allows the bees to get used to her being the new queen and they slowly eat the marshmallow away and free her. On Monday when we open up the hive again we'll remove the empty cage. Also we added a second hive box (body) and left the bee box inside it so any stragglers can work there way out.

And finally we come to my turn, Jacob took a video of it. Sorry it is kinda bouncy because he is helping me at times. But you get the gist of what went on.  I installed the Carniolans, this hive was much more active and had many flyers after I got done.

Here's the video for the live action.