Bee install in less than great weather

[thomashton]

Hey guys. Just ran home at lunch and hived two packages. I got them on Saturday and the weather was terrible. Even worse yesterday--windy snow and everything. Today the best I could get was about 45 degrees F and gusty winds of about 10mph. I am going out of town for the next two days and the next good day doesn't look like it will occur until Friday. So I did it today.

This is my 3rd year of hiving bees and dispite the not perfect weather, went surprisingly easy. I didn't wear gloves and most bees just went straight in. Other years I have had bees flying like crazy, but I think because of the weather today, they didn't even want to mess with it and just went into their new home.

Maybe in the future I will look for more of these "less-than-perfect" days to hive them in. It was really, very easy, and fast.

[TimLa]

Yesterday I had about 38 and it started snowing 30 minutes later and dropped to 30.  At 9:00 AM today I saw the occasional bee leave the hive, circle it a few times and fly off.

This afternoon (3:00 PM), it's about 42 and bees are coming and going at a fair rate.  At 5:00, I'l open the hive to remove the queen cage and check them out.  They're starting in on the boardman feeder, and a few are going to the inverted bottle on their roof.  I think we're somewhere between 'they ain't dead yet...' and 'success'.  A week should show at least a trend, I think.

-T