New Beekeepers up and running

[BeeCultivador]

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone on this site - your comments and discussions have been helpful in getting us up and running.

We just received our package bees (6) this week and got them installed. Everything went according to plan - except that we didn't use enough water on the first package and we had quite a few "flyers" zooming around for a short time. They settled down rather quickly though.

I am amazed at how gentle the bees that we purchased are. When we went in to examine the queen cages today there were quite a few bees that came out, landed and checked us out, and then went back to their own business. All the queens were released from their cages and each of the hives looked like it was thriving.

We decided to use the black plastic frames with built-in foundation. All six hives seem to have taken to them very well. We used Honey Bee Healthy mixed with sugar syrup and sprayed all of the frames before we put them in. The bees really seem to like that particular mixture.

The bees seem to be concentrating all of their wax building in the far corner of the hive body (away from the entrance). They are not (apparently) working on just one frame but instead look to be spread out across the top portion of about six frames - is this normal?

I have also noticed that there are now a lot of birds in the area where we put our apiary. I assume that they are eating some of our bees - but not enough to hurt anything. In general - do birds feed on bees in any significant number?

Our next inspection will be in a little over a week when we are planning on looking for capped brood and queen-rightness. Wish us good luck with this late start!

[chiefman]

Good luck BeeCultivador

Im just getting my first few hive going and this forum has been an invaluable source, with lost of expert help.

Thanks to all of you.

[Michael Bush]

>Everything went according to plan - except that we didn't use enough water on the first package and we had quite a few "flyers" zooming around for a short time. They settled down rather quickly though.

Lots of people don't spray them at all and they always settle down pretty quickly.

>I am amazed at how gentle the bees that we purchased are. When we went in to examine the queen cages today there were quite a few bees that came out, landed and checked us out, and then went back to their own business.

This is normal.

>We decided to use the black plastic frames with built-in foundation. All six hives seem to have taken to them very well.

I have had good luck with plastic. Some people haven't.

>We used Honey Bee Healthy mixed with sugar syrup and sprayed all of the frames before we put them in. The bees really seem to like that particular mixture.

The do seem to love it.

>The bees seem to be concentrating all of their wax building in the far corner of the hive body (away from the entrance). They are not (apparently) working on just one frame but instead look to be spread out across the top portion of about six frames - is this normal?

They normally make a cluster that is roughly round, away from the drafts and depending on how many bees there are it could be spread over more or less frames. If you could see what they drew you would see that it is a ball shape that spans several frames.

>I have also noticed that there are now a lot of birds in the area where we put our apiary. I assume that they are eating some of our bees - but not enough to hurt anything.

I've never had a problem with it.

>In general - do birds feed on bees in any significant number?

Not that I've seen. I have heard that some kinds of birds eat them, but I have not observed that. My chickens eat one once in a while but usually look like they kind of wish they hadn't.

>Our next inspection will be in a little over a week when we are planning on looking for capped brood and queen-rightness. Wish us good luck with this late start!

It's a bit late to expect much of a honey crop, but they should be able to build up enough for the winter.

[hoosierhiver]

maybe youv'e noticed more birds because youv'e been out in the yard more often.