> When I demonstrate installing packages there is always 
> someone who objects to the bees being shaken out of the package. 

Then suggest "kinder, gentler" approaches they'll actually enjoy, as it may take a few months for a novice to get "comfortable" with how bees react to various levels of disturbance:

(This illustrates how beekeeping classes need to lose the whole "bootcamp" atmosphere.  Novice beekeepers as a demographic have gotten far, far younger, far less white, far less male.  They aren't going to tolerate being told that they MUST do something that they are not comfortable with, and there bees are their PETS, so they want to feel that they are treating them with compassion.  Those teaching beekeeping need to adapt to this, or find themselves heckled and laughed at by students who found a "better approach" on YouTube or Facebook.)


There are multiple ways to make the hesitant novice happy here, with zero impact on mission success:

a) Open package, remove queen cage, drill hole in candy with sheetrock screw to speed chew-out (or insert mini-marshmallow in cages lacking candy)

b) Attach queen cage to a fame (I taught urban beekeepers in NYC to use the thin plastic expired Metrocards to suspend the cage between 2 frames, using a thumbtack to attach a wooden 3-hole cage, or a cable tie to attach a plastic "California" cage, as the Metrocard will warn the bees to watch out for those express busses.)

c) Remove 4-5 frames...

d) ...and simply set the package in the hive.  The bees will move out of the package to the queen, and occupy the frames, so the package can be removed a day later, and the frames re-inserted.


Or, for wooden packages, cut around the bottom and sides of one of the side-screens with a box-cutter, making a screen door, still attached along the top edge.  One firm shake or thump over the hive, and all but a few are now in the hive.  Quickly slide the removed frames back in, before the bees climb up and cover the frame rest area. THEN insert the queen cage.  Set the package with the few "stragglers" near the entrance for later retrieval.

For the special case of the Bee Bus (cue "Magic Bus" by the Who), take a hive tool or flat blade screwdriver, and pry open the two latches that hold one side closed (keeping the door closed with duct tape if they like).  Then, open thaty door over the hive and give the Bee Bus a single firm shake or thump, and all but a few bees are in the hive.  Quickly slide the removed frames back in, before the bees climb up and cover the frame rest area. THEN insert the queen cage.  Set the package with the few "stragglers" near the entrance for later retrieval.

> got a call this weekend from a Person who could not get their cages apart,  I explained it (bumping the boxes apart with your hands) 

This must be the Bee Bus - with a hammer and a scrap of 1x2 placed against the protrusion that connects one package to another, one can gently tap the packages apart.

I like using two rubber mallets - tap the packages in opposite directions at their mated edges to get them to slide apart.  (Some examination of the "slide" that mates a package to its neighbor will give one the idea. It is just a friction fit - there is no latch).

Another demographic point is that few of the new beekeepers are used to "giving a bump" to anything.  Many beekeepers have to buy tools to simply assemble their woodenware, and others duck the tools, and buy pre-assembled, even pre-painted.  Beekeeping may be the modern novice's first encounter with nature, with physical work, with animals of any kind, with the tangible reality of stings, splinters from wood, and so on.  They have limited exposure to physical objects, and live far too much in their heads, in front of screens where everything has been Disneyfied into a sanitized version of reality where nothing ever goes wrong.  Eventually, these people will handle their bees with style and panache, but don't expect that initially.  Nothing makes me happier than seeing a novice student who has become a seasoned colleague who enjoys their bees as much as I do.


Nb: I have not bought packages myself in years, and DeVolvo and I were not needed this year or last to help drive to PA to pick up packages, as I am proud to say that the bulk of the need among our little private club  of "O.G. Beekeepers" (who were outlaws by merely keeping bees prior to the withdrawal of a silly Giuliani-invoked NYC regulation) is satisfied by the fall splits nearly everyone makes, saving the beekeeper money, and making a little for those who sell their nucs.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html