Rain, rain go away, come back another day!

Will it ever stop raining ! In between tropical storms i opened up this years package boxes to see where we are at. Disappointing but understandable to say the list. No point in building comb for new bee's if you cant fly to get pollen ! I was expecting 10 frames of fully drawn comb but instead saw only 6 and a half frames. In the last three weeks i think they have only had 1-2 days per week of actual flying time as its been so wet, They are drinking up the sugar water and had to put a new batch on. I sure will be glad when the rain stops or slows at least and the girls can all get flying !

I finally got some new feeders from Brushy Mountain

I'm using this on the two packages from last year. Bit more robbing but less bee's drowning There are some little lugs on the sides that i don't like as they let bee's into the hive so i am in the process of removing them or filling them in. I can see me moving over to these for everything in the not to distant future. I have closed up the entrances to cut the robbing down but i think I'm going to make some custom entrances reducers to fit these exactly.

First Inspection

Its been 5 Days since i installed the bee's the weather has been none stop rain. so during a break in the clouds and when the temp had risen to 65 i wanted to get teh queen cages out and to see if any egg's had been laid. Both packages are doing well drawing out and repairing the comb i had already in there and a great rate of knots, they had gone through all the sugar water so time to put some more on.

Pakcage arrives today

Well i got out of work early today and we headed to Paris Texas to pick up two of the packages i have ordered. I got a few suppliers whilst i was there. It was funny meeting someone from the next town over that had decided to get bee's and was getting advise from the shop keeper.

On the way home things got a little eventfully. First of the bees are normally shipped in Wooden boxes with screening on both sides. Ours came in cardboard with screen on both sides. We loaded them up and off home we set, about 1/3rd of the way home we noticed a few bees nothing to worry about, at about 1/2 way i say latrell pull over, she said "it's ok dear few bees wont matter", i was like no dear you don't understand you really need to pull over, about 20-30 had escaped most where sat on the box. Seems a small staple had come loose and the bees where making there way out. I had decided to buy a spare vale so latrell said hey put them in that . When we got home there must have been a few hundred bees in that vale. Latrell was giggling all the way home saying this is exactly how i envisaged getting the bees . Car full of bee's and us racing home to put them in the hive !

After setting up i put the bee's with the hole in the box into the first have and put the other bee's into the other hive. Tomorrow ill post a short video.

We did get another shock in that the cage the queen comes in was not what i was expecting so i had to ad lib and work out what was going on in terms of how that worked. In three days time ill open the hive back up to see how there doing and that they have released the queen from her cage. The cage as a sugar candy cork that they eat in oder to release her. that should take a day for them to do.

Tonight as we watched them it was awesome to see the bee's basically fanning the entrance . This behavior is normally a very good sign that they have accepted the hive as there new home

Bee's Arrive Part 1

2 Packages of bee's arrive tomorrow. Will post pics and a video of me installing them Tomorrow