Mark,
I'm not sure I understand your situation, so forgive me if I'm misunderstanding.

If you are saying that you have packages in your possession to install, and you have been keeping them on the shelf for five days while you paint your equipment, IMHO you need to rethink things.

GET THOSE BEES INSTALLED!  Install them in unpainted equipment if need be (you can take your time and paint some other equipment to swap them into if you feel the need).  A package of bees is in limbo...the bees cannot begin to progress until they are in a hive, making comb, storing food, and raising brood...they can do none of this in a package.  Until new brood emerges, the population of the package can do nothing be decrease....and it will take 3 weeks from when the queen starts laying before there are any new bees in the hive...and the longer this takes, the older all the bees will be (less well suited to raising the necessary brood), and they will die of old age earlier in the cycle (ie, there will be less young bees in the hive when the old bees die).

deknow

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