2nd Top Bar Hive Bee Installation

We are getting pretty comfortable installing packages of bees into our Top Bar Hives.  It only takes about 10 minutes to leisurely install the bees.  Here are some photos from yesterday's installation. 

Weather conditions:  About 60 degrees F.  Light misty drizzles.  Time: 4pm.

 Here's the Laird opening the top of the package.  First you pry open the stapled down piece of wood.

The next step involves sliding the sugar syrup feeder tin out of the top of package.  Notice the black strap stapled into wood to the right of the feeder tin- this is the strap holding up the Queen cage.

If you look closely you will see the Queen (marked with a yellow dot on her back).  She is noticeably larger than the worker bees.  She is raised and then added to a separate colony of bees.  She is enclosed in a cage with a sugar plug that the bees have to eat through.  The amount of time that it takes to eat through the sugar plug, allows for the colony of bees to get accustomed to this particular Queen's pheromones.  If she were introduced without time for the bees to get to know her, they would likely attack and kill her.

 Once Queen cage and feeder tin are removed, cover the hole of the package with a towel to keep bees inside.  Then you bang the whole package on the ground to get the bunch of bees grouped together on the bottom of package.  Then you just tip and pour bees into Top Bar Hive.

Welcome to your new home Bees!  This is what 3lbs of bees looks like- which is approximately 10,000 honeybees & 1 Queen.

The other end of the queen cage has a tiny cork in it.  Our bees had been traveling up from GA since Monday evening, so they had 4-5 days to get accustomed to each other.  We just removed the cork and released our Queen into the hive.  

That's our process of installing a 3# package of honey bees & queen into a Top Bar Hive.  The important thing is to have all the tools you need before starting the process.  We bring our protective veil & gloves, hive tool, a towel, pliers, a mason jar feeder full of sugar syrup.  We included a few bars of brood comb from our previous hive- to give the bees a little head start on their work and the queen a place to start laying eggs.  This hive was installed about 2 1/2 weeks behind our first hive.  

We look forward to watching each hive progress and possibly seeing the differences between NY & GA raised bees.  First hive currently has 10 bars of brood comb built up, in a space that fits about 28-30 bars (not sure).  Already 1/3 full!