Joined
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10 Posts
So me and the wife took the plunge... and we're both very excited! We set up six hives in two different locations. 4 are on a friends little farm.. they have goats and chickens and an area for organic vegetables. The other two hives we put on an empty lot we own about 2 1/2 miles away in a more residential area. The hives are presently one large brood box, a medium super and a queen excluder. We installed our queen packages on Friday and it went well. The first one was just figuring out how the box opened and stuff... Figured it out easily and the other five hives went quickly. I put a pollen patty in each hive... each about 3x6 inch patty. Also set up a sugar water entrance feeder and an entrance reducer. The box they came in still had bees in them so I laid them down at the entrance to let them go on their own.
We went back on Saturday just to look and see. The entrance feeder bottles (1 pint mason jars) were empty. Thirsty/hungry buggers. So we refilled them. One hive had about 30 dead bees on the ground in front of the hive. All else looked normal from the outside. Sunday afternoon went by again... sugar feeders were 1/2 to 2/3rds full so they've slowed down some.
Monday afternoon we'll go back and open up the hives to confirm the queens have been released. <crossing fingers>
We went back on Saturday just to look and see. The entrance feeder bottles (1 pint mason jars) were empty. Thirsty/hungry buggers. So we refilled them. One hive had about 30 dead bees on the ground in front of the hive. All else looked normal from the outside. Sunday afternoon went by again... sugar feeders were 1/2 to 2/3rds full so they've slowed down some.
Monday afternoon we'll go back and open up the hives to confirm the queens have been released. <crossing fingers>