April 2008

My bees were installed on a dry, warm day - just as recommended. It was a good job we had just witnessed a demonstration by EMBK on how to install bees - "tapping" about 10,000 bees (however well behaved) into a hive seemed a bit daunting, but actually turned out to be a bit ordinary.

I set out my single hive box containing 9 frames and a division box feeder (full of 2:1 syrup), extracted the queen in her box and installed her on the middle frame - just as advised. Then came the tapping. How hard should I tap the box? Can bees get concussion? Will they get a bit cross and get agitated? I mean I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot with them.

Anyway, I told the bees - I don't know about the USA, but in the UK you're supposed to talk to bees to tell them the news - i.e. the news that I was about to tap them firmly into the bottom of their box and then tip them into their new home! I thought this was a pretty news-worthy event, at least from their perspective.

All the preparation done I gave them a firm belt and sure enough they all fell to the bottom of the package box, in a bit of a heap. There was no fuss or bother when I tipped them into the hive box, they simply found the queen and went about their business. Dead easy this beekeeping - so I went and had a beer!


What a work ethic! Within a couple of days the girls had started to store pollen and within the first couple of weeks they had managed to build out comb on 6 or 7 frames and "queenie" had laid brood in 4 to 5 frames. A significant amount had been capped off, so new bees were definitely on the way. In 10 days I fed them about 7 litres of syrup - WOW!