Last weekend we installed ten packages of bees into our ten new hives. We fed each installed hive one gallon baggie of sugar syrup. We left the bees and will return this weekend to see how they have fared.
Here's what we did to install the packages. At each hive we put an empty super on over the hive box. The function of this super is to contain the bees as they are shaken into the hive. The empty super also serves as a surround to allow interior feeding of the bees both with a baggie feeder and with the jar of syrup that came with them.
Then we pried off the wooden cover over the syrup, worked the syrup feeder out of its place, removed the queen cage. We took the cork out of the candy end of the queen cage and wedged the cage, screened wire down, between two frames near the center of the hive. We also tacked it just to be sure.
Next we shook in the bees and either added the baggie feeder before or after adding the bees.
We'll check on them on Saturday this week and see if the queens have been released.
I was working hard through this process and didn't take as many pictures as I often do....but FWIW, here they are:
Here's what we did to install the packages. At each hive we put an empty super on over the hive box. The function of this super is to contain the bees as they are shaken into the hive. The empty super also serves as a surround to allow interior feeding of the bees both with a baggie feeder and with the jar of syrup that came with them.
Then we pried off the wooden cover over the syrup, worked the syrup feeder out of its place, removed the queen cage. We took the cork out of the candy end of the queen cage and wedged the cage, screened wire down, between two frames near the center of the hive. We also tacked it just to be sure.
Next we shook in the bees and either added the baggie feeder before or after adding the bees.
We'll check on them on Saturday this week and see if the queens have been released.
I was working hard through this process and didn't take as many pictures as I often do....but FWIW, here they are:
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