April 8th - Bee Installation Day!

We had a wonderful time installing the bees with the help of our dear mentor and fellow beekeeper Ron and our friends Linda (who brought the fun bee hive shaped cake) and Joan (who cheered us on with apple pies). So much sweetness!

The bees arrived at the extension office on Saturday afternoon, thanks to the beekeepers club who picked them up for club members at the supply warehouse several counties away. There were two wooden screened boxes, each with about 13,000 bees and one Italian queen in her own little cage. This apparently allows the newly introduced workers to get used to the queen before they all have to work together in a new hive.


They were fairly quiet, until we released them into their hives. Maybe it was because this weekend we had a cold spell and they were busy just trying to stay warm. They each had a can of sugar syrup in their wooden cage and they hung around it in a big cluster.


As we prepared to install, we sprayed them gently with sugar syrup to coat their wings and make them calmer before prying off the top of the boxes. Ron bravely shook them out of the box and down into their hives and we crossed our fingers in hopes that they would like their new home.

The bees swirled around us while they were getting settled and the sound of all those little wings was simply amazing to hear. We felt fairly safe being among them, as they are at their most docile when trying to find their way into their new home. They seemed to really like our hats for some reason, as you can see in the photo.


The bees began busily inspecting the frames of beeswax and the hive entrance or "runway" as I like to call it. The mass of bees slowly moved down into the hives and eventually we were able to put on the second super and the inner and outer covers. We stablized the covers with a log since the supers were so light and tipped up when we put the sugar syrup jars at the entrance.

The bees are very young for the most part and Diana noted that they truly looked like babies....fuzzy and soft and curious about the world. Who would ever have thought an insect would be cute?! They sat on our arms and shirts carefully cleaning their wings and seemingly unaware of our amazement and awe. Their innocence at this stage is appealing....though we have been forwarned that they become more intense as they age and the hive has honey and brood to protect.

That's the scoop for now. We can't stop looking out and checking on them! They seem to be up and about by 9-9:30am and back in for the night by about 8:00pm. We'll have to see if this changes as the sunlight increases. I think I'll go have another piece of the beehive cake that Linda brought us!