You’ve got bees. Now what?
“We received your package today, please come get it. Today.”
You’ve been thinking of getting bees for a while. Unlike me, you’ve done some research and took an intro to beekeeping class. Also unlike me: you buy all your equipment prior to getting bees.
The day comes and you’re ready. You’ve chosen a site for the hive safe from wind, large animals, and small children on bikes. You learn how to put on your beekeeping outfit thanks to YouTube University, and can confidently entrust yourself to zip every zipper. (also unlike me) You read all the instructions on your new equipment, have messed around with it a bit, and expect that the rest will become clear in the moment. Now the time has arrived, and your sanity is momentarily in question. You’re playing with flying insects for goodness sakes!
Step 1: Order a package in the fall or winter
In the high plains/Rocky Mountains, usually packages are ordered in fall or winter and picked up in the spring. If you miss this cut off you can ask beekeeping groups on the social interwebs if anyone has extras. (In warmer climates this could be different but I don’t live there.) Either way you’re most likely going to have to pick up your package at the post office or at a local beekeeping supply store on the day of delivery.
Once you’ve got 10,000 or so bees in your car you notice every bump on a normally smooth road. The oddly calm package of bees (which nobody offered to help bring to your car btw) seems to enjoy the drive to their new home. Probably because you’ve emanated extra hard how calm you are. Or they’re fully of sugar water. Or shocked by the journey. Details. The bees look healthy and there are a few dead bees at the bottom of the box. This is normal as it is stressful to be trapped with thousands of your closest friends in a moving container for days, after all. Nothing to worry about. The hive will bounce back in no time. And don’t worry, they have a food source inside the box.
Bees prefer to move in either early morning or late evening, to ensure you’re in a similarly drowsy state. Make a night of it. Have your own intoxicant at the ready (they can smell fear! And incompetency! Be responsible!) Something you can do ahead of time is to make the simple 1:1 sugar solution they’ll initially feed off of.
Once you’ve bee suited up you’re ready to transfer the bees to their new home.
Step 2: All hail the queen!
Your first move is to prepare the queen. She has her own cork-covered carriage inside of the shipping container. Remove the outer cork to reveal the second cap, which is made out of sugar. If there isn’t a cap, then you can insert a tiny marshmallow. Yes this means that you’ll have to buy a bag of baby marshmallows and use just one (or two if you buy more than one package of bees at at time). What you do with the other 5,000,000 in the bag is entirely up to you. You hang her vessel between the two frames in the center of the hive.
You pierce the top of the sugar coating to make it easier for the worker bees to retrieve the queen. Be careful not to inadvertently stab her while doing so! Her loss could leave your colony without a queen. If that happens you might be able purchase a queen in the spring and summer from a local bee supplier. If the queen is dead on arrival, contact your supplier ASAP to let them know.
Step 3: Smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em
Once your (live) queen is set up, you can lightly distract the colony with a few puffs of smoke, or use a 1:1 sugar water spray, directly into the shipping container. Knock the box to get the bundle to de-ball in the center. Spill them into the hive and gently shake, then allow any lingerers to make their way over in their own time by leaving the container near the hive. Make sure there’s dinner (and dessert) on the table by leaving the feeder full of the sugary solution you made earlier.
Step 4: Ignore them
Give them a week alone to acclimate before you peek inside the hive. I know how hard it is to resist cracking open the lid but you really, really need to. Once they settle in they’ll start building comb and in a few weeks the queen will start laying in the new comb. Check the hive every 10-15 days after that.
