Well, the girls arrived at 7:30am and buzzed in the garage until the sun went down. 8 packages of bees, 20 lbs. or 20,000 bees. I had everything built and painted so it was really just a matter of getting them all into their new homes. I prepared four hives this year, so if all goes well everyone we know will be sick of honey (and sick of hearing about my bees - if they're not already).I had to think about how to separate the boxes. Unlike when you order 3 lbs of bees, when you order five lbs the boxes are nailed together with four strips of wood so you can carry two packages of bees at a time. One is queenless, the other has that precious single bee that can make or break you. My dilemma was, how to get them apart so I could hive them and NOT disturb the bees too much as nails are creaking out of boxes and wood is cracking. I tried a few things, but what ended up working really well was my large pruning shears (you know the ones for small branches). I just softly broke the smaller sticks of wood that were holding the packages together and voila, my parcel of four became eight packages.
For all four hives, I installed the package w/ the queen first, got her in the box and then followed suit with the rest of the workers. I received my bees from H&R in Georgia this year and there were only a few that didn't make it. I was very happy with the passive, gentle nature of the bees.
After about 45 minutes, the hives were closed and the girls were in their new home. I only had one hive top feeder, though - this is my fear. I ordered three more right away and they still have not arrived. The hives were very active for the first four days, buzzing away -even without the hive top feeder (not having them is really going to slow down honeycomb production) - then the last two days have been rainy, so there has been no hive activity to speak of.
Monday I will check to see how the queen is doing.
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