First Package

The first package of bees arrived via USPS from R Weaver today.  3 pounds of Buckfast bees, very few dead on the package bottom.  Not bad for having started in Texas the other day.  I picked them up from the post office around 9am and had everybody cozy in the hive by around 10:30am. 

The bees

 Oscar ready to be loaded

Package open and feeder can removed

Her majesty in her cage with the candy cork removed

Fast forward to a filled hive with the stragglers still hanging out in the package

Bees figuring out where the entrance is

Bottom to top Oscar consists of the following hive parts:

• Cyprus hive stand
• Screened bottom board
• Empty hive body
• Hive body with frames containing starter strips but no bottom bars
• Metal queen excluder (painted red) to act as an includer for the first couple of weeks
• Shim constructed to act as an entrance.  I am using a standard entrance reducer on the smallest opening so the bees won't have to work so hard at guarding against robbing while they settle in
• Brushy Mountain Top feeder with 1:1 syrup and homemade Honey B Healthy
• Inner cover
• Garden top cover

In addition to the 1:1 and HBH in the feeder there is a pollen patty on the frames.

This went amazingly well.  The bees were very cooperative.  I left them to moving in and went into the office for a couple of hours.  When I got back, all the stragglers had left the package box and the bees had decided that the entrance in the reducer was acceptable.  There a thunderstorm rolling in and there are less than 50 bees still flying around.  50 out of approximately 10,000 is not bad.

The next package shipped on Monday so they will be here tomorrow or Thursday.  Top bar hive is ready to go as soon as I get the bars waxed.