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| Hive body and package |
A 'bee package' is a small box of plywood and screening that contains 3 pounds, approx. 3000, bees and an even smaller box containing the queen. The queen box has a candy plug in one end. The idea being that she and the worker bees will take 2 or 3 days to eat through the candy and release the queen. During that time they'll all get to know each other better, or at least well enough that the worker bees don't kill the queen.
Prior to the package arrival we'd spent a few nights and a day or two building and painting the hive, which consists of two hive bodies', a honey super (these are the boxes that contain 'frames' with 'foundation'), a screened base board, a slated spacer above that, a inner and outer cover. That was fun, a lot like I'd imagine shop class would have been in high school.
Once you have the hive box finished, painted and filled with foundation frames, it's ready for the package. First you place the queen-in-a-box in the hive body, and then dump the rest of the package in with her. The bees were buzzing. Literally, the sound was a loud, awesome buzz and while I was apprehensive about opening the package, S.D. just popped the top, turned the box over, dumped, and then banged them out of the box. Most went into the hive but that still left a hundred or so buzzing around, crawling and pooping on S.D. Bee poop is one thing you never really think about, but they do poop, a lot, especially after being on a box for a day or two. They even pooped on the camera while I was filming the event. And they pooped all over S.D. But, angry and disoriented as they were, they didn't sting him. After a little while, they all actually went into the hive just as he told them to. Then S.D. closed it up and that was that.
The package is installed. Now we wait to see if they like their queen, and their new home.
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