Honeybees are raised

in farms primarily in the southern United States or the West Coastal area. Bees are delivered in screened in boxes, usually by general US Postal mail. This of course can include air mail too! When reordering just queens, they usually are air mailed to the Eastern Coast. The empty shipping box show here usually contains  2 to 5 pounds of worker bees which are all female, a handful of drones which are male, and a small box called a queen's cage with one young mated queen. Also in the shipping cage is a perforated tin can filled with sugar water. This package usually can sustain the bees for about 10 days if necessary. When calling to order bees, make sure you give them about 60 days to prepare for your shipping. I suggest you have your queens marked and clipped prior to shipping. This is something you can do later when you are comfortable handling a queen in your fingers. Just be ready for the bees when they come. I would suggest you look for your mail person very early - they like to deliver 25,000 live stinging bees ASAP.

A look at the Queen Cage.

Inside the screened in shipping cage are two things. One is a sugar water filled perforated tin can and the other is the Queen's Cage. Most shippers include several worker bees inside the small queen cage for several reasons.  The queen in fed her entire life by worker bees. Let's face it, she lays nearly 2000 eggs each day of her life and also inspects each cell before depositing an egg into the cell. She's much to busy to feed herself. The queens and the bees in the main shipping cage are not from a single colony.  Rather workers are raised in huge houses or field boxes and literally shoveled into the shipping boxes and weighed by the pound. 

Then the mated queen which is sometimes marked and clipped is placed in a Queen Cage - with or without a few workers and sealed in the shipping box with the feeder can.  By time the confused bees arrive at their new home, they accept the queen as theirs by being drawn to her by her pheromone scent.

I have received queens both with and without workers in the cage with the queen. I make it a point to ask the farm whether they ship the queen with workers inside of the Queen Cage or is the queen alone in the cage and the workers need to feed her directly through the screen. I choose to have workers packaged inside of the queen cage, because there is less chance of her being tossed around the tiny box and she can safely bounce off workers if the box is jarred heavily. This also allows the queen to receive food from either the small court or the cluster.

Installing the Bees

Every standard honeybee box contains 10 wooden frames complete with wax sheeting called Foundation. These 10 frames fit tightly into the deep bee boxes which are called supers. To start a new colony, just remove 4 frames from the super, remove the lid and feeding can from the shipping box and dump the bees into the super. 

Next remove the small cork plug found on the queen cage and have a small wire attached to the non drilled end. Place the rest of the frames carefully back into the super and slide the vertical queen cage between two frames toward the center of the super. I like to put a staple over the wire hanger to make sure it will stay in place. Place the inner cover and lid on the hive and place a feeder bottle at the hive entrance so that the bees can immediately go to work producing wax and filling in foundation to make space for the queen to lay eggs. Check back in a few days to make sure the queen has be successfully removed from the queen cage. This is done by the worker bees eating through the candy plugs in the queen cage. If the Queen is still in the Queen Cage, carefully poke a small hole through the candy, return the cage as you had it and check in another 2 days. The honeybees build up the foundation into tapered wax cells which are filled with, egg cells, nectar, pollen or propolis which is resin collected to seal the box against the weather. These frames are engineering marvels, designed to direct the bees into creating livable space with maximum capacity and the ability for easy removal with least interruption to the colony. By placing the frames tight against each other, the bees will build out the wax while leaving a 3/8 inch walking space between the frames. This space is known as the bee way or bee passage. Often the workers will chew passages through the frames toward the bottom as additional means of maneuvering.

Many bees will remain in the shipping box. Just place the box on the ground, near the super and the stragglers will move into their new home by nightfall.  The only thing left to do is set up a feeder bottle containing sugar water so that the honeybees have a food source and this stimulates cell building. By the following day, the bees will make short orientation flights to familiarize themselves with their new home

The most commonly misunderstood fact is the source of the wax. Wax actually comes from the worker honeybees body. The rear area of the abdomen ( the striped area ) contains plates which produce the wax. It literally falls off of the bees and is collected, chewed and formed into cells.

Having an alternative plan

in case of bad weather it may be necessary house your bees in your home or warm area for several days or longer. Usually, the post office will deliver the bees as soon as they arrive, so expect to have possession within hours of them reaching your town. You have to expect that a small percentage of bees will be dead. Others will be crushed by the weight of the other bees as they are tossed around in shipping. So seeing as many as a few hundred dead or dying is normal. Remember that workers only live 5 weeks, so some bees in the shipping box are down right old even though your bees were ordered well in advance. It is important to have workers of all ages in a colony at start up since each age group has different instinctual duties. A few hundred dead bees is ok.

If you can not install the bees because of unexpected foul or cold weather, then you need to place them somewhere warm and dark and also keep them fed. I have a closet with wire shelves that I line with newspaper and I place the shipping cage on it. I keep a spray bottle of sugar water handy and spray both sides of the box lightly twice a day.

Make sure that you do not make too thick of a sugar water spray, this can cause the bees pores to clog faster than they can lick off the water and they will suffocate. After spraying them, you will notice they get very quiet as the feed and lick the water from themselves and each other. A good time to re-spray is when the get loud again. When destroying bees, soapy water is sprayed on them, much like sugar water is sprayed on them for feeding. So be cautious when spraying sugar water on them, you could kill your bees.

Keeping the bees inside a few days will not harm them. But remember that each day hundreds more dead or dying bees will fall to the bottom of the cage. And dead bees start to smell and bring sickness to the living after a while. I can not recommend leaving them inside more than 5 days. After that amount of time, make some plans to get them into their new home before you loose the whole shipment.

Upon arrival, the bees should be in a swarm mode, clinging to the top of the box and hanging down in a conical fashion. The bees on the bottom of the cage are usually dead or dying. Per pound, about 100 bees dead is satisfactory. If you see thousands dead or dying, then something happened in shipping that could have shocked the bees.

Examples of shocking

is excessive heat or cold or carbon monoxide poisoning from the mail truck. Direct sun exposure or mishandling or being smothered by other mail packages. Many different scenarios could cause the bees to be damage. If you have a claim, it is with the postal service, not the shipping farm. The bees are certified healthy for shipping and should arrive within a few days healthy. If you have excessively dead or sickly bees, file a damage claim with the post office and notify the farm of the situation. Note: A huge part of the bees cost is shipping charges.

2001 Update - Actual Detailed Installation.

Quick Note about 2001 Season. Follow my Digital Logbook this season as I build a Bee Yard from Scratch. I'll be Rearing Queens with extreme close-up photography. Also some insemination attempts. Expect incredible things this year. Look for photos of eggs, larva and pupa development this season.

2001 Spring will be an amazing time for my website. Armed will my Olympus Digital Camera and my Dell Laptop, I'll be ready for 100 FIELD WORK. Including streaming Realplayer format instructional videos on all these topics. I suggest you check back often and always read my On-Line Logbook.
 

April 18, 2001

MAJOR UPDATE: The Bees arrived today, 2 days early!!!

First, I was called by a post office 45 miles away saying that the bees had arrived. I asked if they would be in Lakehurst tomorrow, he said yes. An hour later, I got a call saying that the Bees were in Lakehurst. I can see Lakehurst Post Office from my house :)

I picked them up and noticed right away that the FEEDER CAN had been dislodged from it's support. After looking closer, it was the small cross beam ( which supports the feeder can ) had slipped from its notch and the feeder can fell free. Shown in this photo are my two hive boxes and the 2 packages of bees in their shipping cages.

I am always leery of bare handling packaged bees, especially ones moved around as THESE bees had been over the last few hours. So I broke out the smoker and hit them heavy, then I pried the outer shipping container lid. I tried to replace the support beam and reset the can, but The bees were  determined to bubble out of the opening - just like they will do EVERY TIME.

I'll contact Spell Bee about this - I'll use my power ( lol ) as Beemaster.com to get them to GLUE their supports NEXT time. I don't need a feeder can rolling around and bulldozing over my poor and expensive worker bees.

Just a thought. Lets say 8000 bees per pound TIMES 6 pounds EQUALS 48 THOUSAND BEES: now we take the $92 it cost for the bees MINUS $14.00 for queens EQUALS $78 DIVIDED BY 48,000 equals 1.6 CENTS per BEE. Not bad I guess, especially since they will double in size in about a month.

So tomorrow is the BIG DAY. You will see the photos and read they many updates around my site - including the Installation section, wallpaper gallery, logbook and Newsletter.
 

April 19, 2001

The Big Day, not the gang bang event I had hoped for, but such is beekeeping in the Early Spring in New Jersey. First, I worked midnight and the outside temperature we recorded at 6am was a ridiculous 31 degrees, with a high of 60 expected. I was beat, as you might have read above, I am working a great deal of Overtime as we burn what fuel my power plant has in storage. I was beat and had little choice but to call Fred and cancel his assistance for the day.

I got home and went right to bed. I got up at 2pm and the sun was out and it indeed was 60 degrees out. I moved everything out into the sunniest and most wind-free area of my yard. It's at THIS point that I feel like I let Fred Down. Now I'm well rested, but Fred is at home 40 miles away.

I will admit, Spell Bee's Italian Bee made the trip well and after being stored over night on my back porch at these cold temps. All I did for protection was place 2 cardboard boxes around the shipping cages and upon opening them at 2pm, they were fine and still clustered tight.

I like to recommend to all of you installing package bees for the first time to try this method of installing the packages. I've read and even participated in shaking the bees from the shipping cage THROUGH opening where the feeder can is placed. The idea is to remove the feeder can and queen cage and then to shake the 3 pounds of bees through this 4 inch round hole.

I changed my mind though and I now recommend you do it somewhat different. Instead of shaking the bees through the top 4 inch hole, I recommend using a pair of pliers to pull thin strips of wood that holds the screen on one side of the cage and carefully fold the screen up and out of the way over the top of the cage.

Now, it's a simple matter of one good purposeful shake and ALL the bees are in the hive. In the older method, you get about 60% of the bees out with the first shake and before you know it, you are shaking the cage like an Etch-a-sketch to get EVERY BEE out of the shipping cage. This later method allows the bees an easy transition without shaking them half to death.

I try my best to give you simple means by which to interact with the bees. Do they remember you being a nice guy or a maniac??? When you come back again to see if the queens were released, will they see you and remember you banging and thrashing them around??? I don't know, but "I REMEMBER" and these bees are here because I choose them to be, and I want them to be productive and happy in their new homes. Anything that I do to the bees should be done purposeful: see my  Tai Chi of Beekeeping section if you wish to get a bit closer to nature with your hives.

So I pulled the feeders out the hive boxes. As you read above, on can was free from it's perch and had bee rolling around on the bottom the the shipping cage, but it did little harm. I was able to pull both cans through the holes and then I carefully pulled the queen cages out.

Forgive me for speaking in plurals, but there was really NO DIFFERENCE between either installation, so bear with me :)

They queens looked fine, although NEITHER was marked or clipped as I had paid for. But I was pleased to see several workers packed in the small queen cage with the young queens. I placed the queen cages in the shade while I readied the hives for them.

I removed 4 frames from the center of the super to make room for pouring the bees into the box and stapling the queen cage to the frames. I then removed the thin slats of wood that held the screen tight to the shipping cage and with purpose, I shook the workers into the large opening through the removed frames.

I then pulled the small cork out of the queen cage on the side where the sugar cube blocks her exit. Spell Bee uses a long strap that easily adjusts for placing the queen cage between the frames. Note that the screened section of the queen cage runs parallel with the frames and the candy side is down.

I then slowly replaced the remaining frames back into the colony and evenly spaced them out. I put the package shipping cage on the ground in front of the hive and in no time the remaining bees made their way into their new home. I repeated this process with the other colony too and I placed the hives on their new milk crates, facing the morning sun.

Finally I placed the prepared sugar-water mixture in quart Mason Jars and screwed them tightly onto the caps, then placed the jars into position at the entrance of the hive.

Without getting too detailed beyond what I have written above, that is the basic installation of packaged bees into a new colony. I'll detail some minor, yet important thoughts over the next few days.

By 5pm the bees were already taking orientation flights and some where already foraging. It all goes back to the age of the bees and their instinctual duties. Please see the Study of the Hive section for more info on AGE RELATED activities in the colony.

Rule of thumb is to leave the bees alone a few days, but I have an audience to please and my modest intrusion to their homes will not set them back one bit. By tomorrow, we will be in the hive and we'll find out what 24 hours of hive building can do.

April 20, 2001

It was bitter cold again last night. The temps again around 30f, but the bees were in their home and I was glad that yesterday was cooperative. I looked early in the am ( as I pulled into the yard from work ) to see bees walking around the entrances and even climbing on the hive front, enjoying the morning sun. 

First think I recognized, Colony One ( your colony if you are actively following along and interacting with me on this New Beginnings Project ) is taking in the sugar water at nearly TWICE the rate of Colony Two: my personal colony. I found this interesting because both hives are identical, 3 pounds of bees, one super with 10 new frames and foundation - note: no drawn comb anywhere prior to installing the bees.

So why the difference of sugar-water consumption? Well, lets assume a few things:

• C1 may have more OLDER Workers, who require FUEL for their foraging.
• also, wax production is higher, because the bees have cells drawn for storage.

April 21, 2001

Quick observations. The weather is quite warm today. The bees are moderately flying, even though just a block away there are trees exploding in pollen. But I tell myself, no need for pollen if there is NO PLACE to store it. Same goes with a queen laying eggs ( if they were released yet - which they are not ). 

The hives MUST secrete and draw comb out from the foundation. By tomorrow I will bet that I find comb being drawn on several frames surrounding the queen.

April 23, 2001

I needed to take some photos and I figured the queens were released by now, so I opened up each hive. 

C1 - Colony One ( Internet Raised Colony )

• Had ample comb building, stored pollen in a greenish tint and orange colored. 
• A sizable amount of sugar-water had been stored on cells that were drawn out at 1/3 rd of it's future length.
• The queen had been released and I spotted her marching around the frame, quite happy and well accepted. 
• No signs of eggs yet ( of course ) the cells are far too shallow and besides, the queen probably emerged from her cage yesterday or probably today.

C2 - Colony Two ( my personal hive )

• Similar results as C1.
• The queen was released and she was doing fine.
• Cells were being drawn, nearly as well as C1.
• Pollen, sugar water and comb all over the center frames.

Just getting home after a 9 day stretch of midnight's, plus 4 overtimes in ten days. The plant is closed, forever and that's after a 87 year continuous service to the Navy. I'm safe for work ( so far ) but working for the Federal Government is not a secure place to be these days.

Fred is coming for sure tomorrow!!! I have 14 wallpaper images that give you a real look at how simple installation can be. I will be giving Fred and you the grand tour of the hives and you will see him enjoying Beekeeping for the first time :)

Later today I will be taking some queen photos. I have a new theory on using my zoom and lens aperture I want to test and the Queen is the perfect subject. I want to move out further ( to improve clarity ) but make up for it using super hi-res capture. I still need to get the macro lens I want, but check out these close-ups and let me know if they look good okay.

Well... Through the magic of the Internet, It's now 10 hours later and I did get to play today with C1. Someone wrote me a few days ago from a middle school in Iowa, she was a 12 year old, 7th grader who basically asked: How fast can a new colony ( such as C1 & C2 ) of bees adapt to hive realignment or augmentation? She was doing a REPORT ON SWARMS and how they respond to several major changes in just a matter of days. Pretty cool project I think!

I also received an email from Dave in Mississippi who asked if it would hurt to collect pollen during the first days of a colony, considering that the pollen is usually meant for feeding larva - and that is many days away because the QUEEN is still in her Queen Cage, there is little comb drawn and still a week away from the first eggs. Very Interesting question too!

I decided to Start a NEW section today called Experiments. These will be short term projects, as well as seasonal studies that have specific purpose. This first Experiment will be a combination of the two emails listed above.

Experiment One

Mission name: Forcing a pollen trap.

• Insert a Pollen Trap on Day 7 of C1. 
• Observe bees finding new entrance - nearly 9 inches higher than minutes before.
• Observe bees adapting to pollen trap entrance. Walking over wire grating.
• Collecting pollen for 24 hours - see how much pollen and what colors are collected.
• Restrict entrance at bottom of C1.

April 27, 2001

What a GREAT DAY!!! Fred was at my house at 8am and we sat around catching up with each other. It was cool, so we decided to go canoeing on Lake Horicon before getting in to C1 and C2. The lake trip was fun, we hit every corner and went under the Rt. 70 bridge that comes into Lakehurst from the West.

Afterwards, we had a few burgers and fries courtesy of my Mom who was there to do the cooking and watch us play with the colonies. Fred and I took turns shooting smoke into the hives and he seemed skeptical of handling the bees barehanded - but Fred quickly became a beekeeper this day as he followed the queen in C1 as she searched for spots to lay eggs. And EGG LAYING She is too!!! I found hundreds of eggs, although poor Fred just couldn't find them. I know they were only a day old :)

C1 was building up comb impressively. With ample pollen, sugarwater and nectar stores. The queen was laying well and the colony was very easy too handle. I have to say, both C1 and C2 are very mellow bees still. I've had hives though that did a Jeckel and Hyde thing in only two months. As the hive has greater value to the ever growing colony, it becomes more defensive and it has the power behind it to handle most any attack. Although most bees today are a pleasure to work with with proper use of the smoker.

C2 is NOT doing as well. I need to go back in soon and see if I can find the queen, Fred and I did not and the difference in comb building compared to C1 was very prevalent.

After playing with the bees, Fred and I went bowling and finally gas powered Go-Carts on a real fast and hilly figure eight. It was a great day and I'll have to get all these photos up-loaded. I have dozens and dozens to share and I'm too busy to get them on-line for you.

April 28, 2001

Here we go already. C2 is QUEENLESS. After yesterdays lack of finding her with Fred, I decided to look and no doubt that She is missing. I looked around and of course couldn't find her lifeless body, but I doubt She flew off, more likely She was killed by the workers. Probably from me opening up the colony a little too quickly - Rule One: leave the bees alone for several days when introducing packaged bees and/or new queen.

I rushed it for this project and I think that I am very likely the cause of her death. Just goes to show you that the bees make the schedule, you don't. Work around their instinctual actions, not against them. I now have to make a queen or queens VERY FAST.

C2 is less than 50% developed as C1 - which I think is doing phenomenal. I looked in C1 to see what frame I could rob and sadly the only frame I see eggs on will be the one to transfer, unless I decide to graft, or both.

I will be thinking about this over night. I want to get down and dirty, but I also need to space myself out some. I don't want to generate a mile long log page like this one, but I don't want to break it up into submerges. I think though, that you are enjoying this adventure. Your many, many letters say so and already we are Queenless in 50% of our hives. 

Here though were the signs I noted in this log on this page: C1 took in 2X more sugar water than C2. C2 had less drawn cells, and less flight activity. Also, when looking from the top over the 10 frames, I noted that C1 had bees on 5 full frames, while C2 only had 3 frames with bees working. 

Lots of signs, simple to spot if you are watching your bees closely. The first two weeks is very important. C1 will have nearly half the box drawn out by day 14. Amazing difference - the sugar water consumed by C1 was 4 quarts ( nearly a quart a day ) C2 less than HALF of that amount. Again, simple signs.

April 29, 2001

I went into C1 and took a good frame of eggs and placed it into C2. The eggs were very small and probably 1 day old. The queen was spotted on another frame in C1 and She is one prolific creature. More tomorrow.

April 30, 2001

I entered C2 to see if the bees had began building queen cells and WOW yes they had. Two early queen cells were being drawn, one on each side of the same frame. Toward the center of each side as Superceedure is almost always placed. If you enter your hive and see queen cells at the BOTTOM of your frames, that is a clear sign of Swarming. But as expected, the cells were toward the center of the frame and as the queen grows, so will these frames.

The most interesting QUICK Observation from closely watching C1, was to see the queen laid eggs in cells that were barely 1/4 of an inch drawn OR barely 1/4 of it's final depth. Think about it, the workers have 5 days for the eggs to hatch and the larva are very small for a few days, so there is NO HURRY to draw the comb fully out BEFORE laying eggs in to them. This is a great way for the queen to lay maximum amount of eggs in the shortest amount of time. This simple task of building the wax comb around the ever developing egg and larva, makes for fast hive population increase.

Just to let you know: I expect the queens to emerge on May 15 and the first capped pupa on the 8th and first emerging workers on the 19th. These dates are based on my believing the eggs I transferred are only 1 to 2 days old. Most likely only hours old! That's my belief :)

To Continue This Adventure, follow along with my  Free Beemaster's Beekeeping Newsletter and my ever-growing Beemaster's Digital Logbook and check back at my  Beekeeping Course Home Page.