There is a inspection post that I will refer to for inspection data. This post serves to capture the fun parts of installation.
Before picking up the bees I took time to mix up sugar and water. 1 part sugar, 1 part water ish. I’ll document elsewhere, but 8 cups of sugar into a gallon jug and then some hot water from the faucet. Close and shake. Repeat until full.
Katie helped me pick up 2 packages of bees at around 11AM. They buzzed a bit when we first left but settled down fairly quickly on the ride home. From there they took up residence in the basement until closer to end of day.
I probably over sprayed the bees with sugar water during the day. I didn’t drown any at least. About 2 hours before install I sprayed with 1:1 and Oxalic Acid to pre-treat for varroa.
The first package went in really easy. I forgot to remove the frame hook from the side of the deep box but didn’t get too far before Rhonda mentioned it from afar and I was able to correct my mistake.
The second package were a lot grumpier about me being there. I worked quickly – perhaps too quickly. When I had the hive reassembled there was a pear size cluster of bees in the package. I propped it up against the hive. Seemed to be headed toward resolving itself quickly.
BUT, after getting out of my jacket, hood, and gloves I realized I hadn’t removed the cork on the candy end of the queen cage. I am glad I remembered but the bees were NOT happy to see me in there. Really neat to see them clustering around the queen though.
All in all, very successful installation. I was nervous and made some mistakes. I squished one bee while grabbing the queen cage. I squished another with the upper box. Both of those caused the rest of the bees to be a bit jumpy.