Finally after two years we have honey bees! I picked them up after work and eagerly waited for Ben to get home. When I put them in my car, they were sooo quiet. I thought I may have gotten a couple boxes of dead bees. When I asked why they were so quiet, the beekeeper said it was just too cold for them to be very active. My drive home was about an hour and 15 minutes and I had the heat on in my car. By the time I got home, my car must have been warm enough for the bees because they were buzzing quite a bit. Thankfully I only saw one that escaped.
We set them up outside on top of some cinder blocks.
We set up some entrance feeders with sugar water. Hopefully they won't need them for too long.
For us, the hardest part of the whole process was getting the smoker smoking. It took us a while. Probably should have practiced that ahead of time.
When we opened the package, only one or two bees flew out. It was quite impressive how calm the bees were. They did not want to leave the frames. The boxes were also very warm. It was like a space heater was in there.
I smoked the bees so they would move down to the bottom of the box, so I could pick up the frames more easily.
The bees had build their comb so the frames were stuck together. I didn't feel comfortable breaking them, so I picked them up together.
All the frames are in the hive body! 4 frames of the nuc, and 6 new ones.
All done!
The hives are under deciduous trees and south facing. They are snuggled up against our flower field.
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