We just carried out our first installation of bees... I didn't get stung
and besides a couple stumbling blocks everything went well.. so far..
The only problems I ran into are as follows...
 
1.  I had seen video tapes and read books about taking the cover off of
the bees shipping box then removing the queen cage, putting her in the
hive then removing the syrup feeder and shaking the bees in.  This got
me off on the wrong foot when I opened the cover and found out that you
had to get the syrup can out to get to the queen!
 
2.  I removed five frames for the queen and bees, then tried to
put the frames back (except for one) I couldn't get more than two of the
frames back in.  I finally closed the lid, opened it back up a few
minutes later and got them in.
 
3.  In a few books it tells you to check the hive the next day to see if
the queen is out, another book tells you to wait at least three days,
and now the "hiving instructions" tell me to wait a week to check.  IS
there any "best" time to do this...
 
4.  How fast will they go through the pollen substitute patties (how
often do I need to replace them?
 
What an experience! ! !  The first hive took about 20 minutes to
install, the second took about 10 minutes.
 
(It did howeer take me about 15 minutes to get out of the duct taped,
gloved, and veiled equipment I was wearing!)
 
Roger & Wendy Carlson
--
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