When you buy bees they come in a 3 pound box with some food and a queen.
Here I am squirting a little bit of sugar water on them to calm them down and keep them occupied while I remove the lid.
Here is our empty top bar hive awaiting its new occupants.
Carefully taking out the feeder/lid and placing a piece of cardboard over the hole.
While most the bees are still in the box they came I prepare to take out the queen. The queen comes in a little box with a cork at the bottom. Wherever she goes so does the hive. I first inspect the queen and make sure she is healthy. Then I replace the cork with a small marshmallow that the other bees will eat through to let her out. This way I can put her in our hive without fear of her flying off and losing the whole hive.
Dumping out 3 pounds of bees.
Here I am placing the bars back into the hive.
So far so good. We got these bees in April and I am happy to say they are thriving. Just this week I stopped feeding them and they seem to be bringing in lost of pollen from around the neighborhood. I am so happy to have bees again. Hopefully they will stay around for quite some time.
Wish us luck.