This is what a new beekeeper picking up two packages of bees looks like, those two crates are the packages, 3 lbs or workers, a queen and some sugar in a box. What a party.
Here are the one and a half hives I've built, the one in the background is a four foot top bar hive, in the foreground a top bar nuc. It saved me from having to build a whole second top bar hive in the short period I had before the bees arrived. I've got to get the second done soon, or make another nuc for a split.
Two starter bars to get them building comb straight, hopefully.
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Spray bottle with very light honey syrup, and my first package. What an exciting thing, installing the bees.
Pulling out the staples for the lid and queen cage. This is so the can of syrup can be removed, then the queen cage. Then it's time to...
Shake and dump 3 pounds of bees into their new home and hang the queen from one of the bars.
After reading Michael Bush's The Practical Beekeeper I'd pretty much decided I didn't want to feed them sugar syrup of any kind, dry sugar if I had to. This is organic honey I've been collecting from residue inside buckets that get thrown away. The girls loved it. They are doing well, the queens are out and laying, and all the workers are busy building and collecting. Next post will have some shots of the bees and comb.
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