• Tag Archives bee package

  • Gotta Hive Those Bees

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                               Waxing Flower Moon

    Kate’s off for Denver, excited as a small girl at Christmas.  Seeing her grandkids makes this lady levitate.  Even her dinged up right hip seems a bit better this morning, partly from anticipation and partly from the steroid injection she had on jen-kate-ruth-gabe300Tuesday.   (Pic:  Leadville, Co Halloween 2009)

    It will be a busy time for me while she’s away.  I have two tours later this morning.  Then it’s over to Mother Garden to pick up a few things I need for this year’s garden:  bush bean seeds, leek transplants, coriander, dill, cosmos, marigolds.

    Back at home I’ll have to have a long nap to make up for getting up this morning at 5:45.  After that I have to buy more sugar and a spray bottle for the new bees, put foundations on the frames for their hive box and level up a spot for their hive.  Later, after 4:30 pm, I’ll drive out to Stillwater and pick them up, bring them home and hive them.

    Hiving a new package involves spreading the 2 pound package of worker bees over the floor of the hive box, then gently releasing the queen, replacing the four frames withdrawn, carefully (to avoid killing the queen which is bad) and putting a bit of pollen patty and a feeder on top.  That’s where the sugar comes in.  The spray bottle is for the trip home and the time lapse between then and when I get them in the hive.  It helps them stay nourished and calm.

    On Saturday I have to figure out why Rigel and Vega dug a large plastic pipe out of the ground, what, if any, function it serves, repair it, cover it over, this time with a board or something that will resist further digging and hope they don’t go all round the yard  digging up irrigation pipes.  I think they dig when they hear the sound of the water running through the pipes.  Oh, boy! Oh, boy!  Something’s there.  Something’s there.  Gotta get it.  Right now.

    With that work done I have to get back to amending the soil in the raised beds and planting seed.  If I have time, I’ll get in some weeding, too.


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  • We Have 6,000 New Residents In Multi-Hive Housing

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring               New Moon (Flower)

    The bees have come.  Mark Nordeen drove over today with our first packet of bees.  This is a picture of a bee package off the web.  The circle at the top contains a can of nutrient syrup for the bees while in transit.  The can comes out and the bees pour out of the opening into the hive, which has four middle frames removed.

    Mark and I donned our bee suits (mine is borrowed from him), me for the first time.  He pulled the can out.  It had seepage on the bottom from three very tiny pricks in the bottom.

    He then turned the box over the opening in the hive and shook the bees out of the box through the circle which held the can.  The bees poured out, most landing on the floor, then climbing up the frame of already built combs.  A few bees remained so he shook the box, spilling the rest out into the hive.

    The queen comes in a smaller wooden box with a screen over one side.  Mark uses the direct release method, meaning he opened the small wooden box on the bottom of the hive and let the queen walk out.  Queen acceptance is the first critical move in the hive.  That seems to have happened.

    We replaced the four frames and then put a patty of pollen replacement on top of the frames.  Pollen substitute comes as a soft material that looks much the inside of a fig newton bar.  Over the frames themselves and the pollen patty substitute went the hive cover, a particle board piece as big as the top of the hive with an ovoid slot in the middle.  Over this slot goes a plastic pail with sugar water.   The pail’s lid has a small screen, smaller than a quarter in the center.  The bees come up to this screen to feed until the plant world provides enough pollen for them to make their own food.

    I was a little nervous before Mark came, excited, too.  The most unexpected part of the process for me was the sound.  The hum of the bees as they took up residence gave off a sense of vitality and unity.

    Much more to learn, a years long course I believe.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Great Work permaculture 📎and tagged