![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Katy-Perry-California-Gurls-Song-500x500.jpg\" "\\"Katy-Perry-California-Gurls-Song-500x500\\"")
<\/a>Drove out to Stillwater and picked up my California girls. \u00a0About 16,000 of them. \u00a0Sprayed’em down with sugar water when I got home. \u00a0Unloaded a 5 gallon pail of prosweet, a food supplement for this early period when nectar is in short supply, and two gallon pails with holes in the top for feeding (turned upside down).<\/p>\nLater today, around 5 pm, I took the packages, the two gallon pails filled with syrup, a pollen patty and went out into the orchard. \u00a0There I took the hive’s copper tops off, then the hive box cover and removed three frames from the center of the hive box.<\/p>\n
Rain, a light rain fell. \u00a0And Rigel came in through a gate I had forgotten to close and ate the first pollen patty. \u00a0In spite of not being a bee. \u00a0Sigh.<\/p>\n
So, back down to the refrigerator for another pollen patty.<\/p>\n
Back up to the orchard and out to the packages. \u00a0I pried the syrup containing can out of the package, sprayed the bees again with plenty of sugar water, removed the queen cage and put it in my pocket, then rapped the container sharply on the remaining frames and 7,000 to 8,000 bees fell onto the floor of the hive box.<\/p>\n
I spread them around with a bee brush, then took the queen out of my pocket. \u00a0First, check that she’s alive. \u00a0Yep. \u00a0OK. \u00a0Pull back the small screen on her cage while placing the cage in the hive box. \u00a0Tap it and make sure she falls into the bees.<\/p>\n
Replace the three frames, gently. \u00a0Not killing the queen is an important part of this whole process.<\/p>\n
Put a pollen patty on top of the frames, away from the hole in the hive cover since that’s where the syrup will come into the hive box and put the hive cover back on the box. \u00a0At that point invert the white plastic pail over the oblong opening in the hive cover, place a medium sized box over the pale and the copper top over that.<\/p>\n
That’s it for the first day.<\/p>\n
There were a couple of moments. \u00a0A bee crawled up into my glove. \u00a0I removed it. \u00a0All the time saying, if I’m calm, the bees are calm. \u00a0This is sort of true though even now, four years in, I still get an adrenalin pump when the bees hit the mesh on my bee veil.<\/p>\n
I didn’t get all the bees out of the packages, most, but not all. \u00a0It was those stragglers that took off after me. \u00a0They were not a problem. \u00a0But, they could have been.<\/p>\n
The hives look great in the orchard; they give it a productive, yet homey feel.<\/p>\n
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Spring \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Bee Hiving Moon \u201cSometimes, you have to step outside of the person you\u2019ve been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want … Continue reading Bee Diary 2012: Hiving the Packages.<\/span>