Hive Demo and Hive Install

So I had a big post going the day of the install, pictures and everything, and I wiped it out. Then I got so busy that I didn't even get a chance to repost. Sigh. It's a good thing that I'm pretty much talking to myself in here.

So in a nutshell, a week ago the bees came. First there was the demo done by Everett, our main teacher from bee class.

It was held at Bristol Community College in Fall River. It was a big deal, part of the start of a new certification on organic agriculture. The "Bristol Bee" even attended.



Everett explained to us what we were going to do, and then he hived one of three hives he had set up on campus. His students hived the other two. The screen tents served as protection for the more timid onlookers, but also will stand for a week or two as a visual cue so the bees can find their way back to their new home.


Through a process of opening the box, whacking, pouring and installing the queen, he guided us through what we had to do.





Here's the queen in her cage. She's the one with the green dot. She comes in a cage because she wasn't in the hive with the bees in the package, so they don't know her. If you just dumped her in, they might kill her. The white stuff on the left is candy, and it takes a few days for the bees to eat their way through it. By that time the bees recognize her as their own queen and they are one big happy family.




Then it was time to put them in on our own. EEK!! This was our setup:


And these are our packages (well, two of them. The third I picked up for a friend)



And the object is to get them from box to hive.


The "WE" in this case is a childhood friend of my husband's and myself. We did pretty well, got them in and now they're off and running.

Let me post this before I lose it again...