Installation

Installing the bees was very exciting. I had watched several instructional videos showing how to install a package so I knew the steps involved. However, the videos did not prepare me for the feeling of dumping thousands of bees from one box into another. It was almost like pouring liquid bees into the hive.

I have decided to try Droogie 1 with foundationless frames, also a recommendation from Michael Bush. For these frames, I've glued Popsicle sticks into the top groove. I also put in one frame of foundation in the middle of the hive body to act as a guide and hopefully prevent them from drawing the comb crosswise. Droogie 2 has normal wired wax foundation. It will be fun to see how they do.

I'm feeding both hives with recycled pasta sauce jars and a 1:1 sugar/water solution. I've punched holes in the top of the jar and have placed them over inner covers so the bees have easy access. The jar is within an empty hive body and topped off with my migratory covers.

The Droogies

Today I received two 3lb packages of Russian Bees from Noble Apiaries, which is located in Dixon, CA. The UPS man seemed a little shocked that he was actually delivering live bees to my doorstep. The package was physically vibrating with all 20,000 bees in the package buzzing in unison.

After letting Ellie and Emerson listen to their music, I brought them into the kitchen and tried calming them down by spraying the cages with water, which was recommended by Noble Apiaries.


They seemed to enjoy the shower and relaxed. I then loaded them up in the trunk with my gear and brought them down the peninsula to their new homes. Since these bees are Russians, I've decided to name the hives Droogie 1 and Droogie 2, which is a Nasdat word for "friends."

Supplies!

After deciding that I would like to have a couple hives, the next step was to figure out what equipment I would need. I spent many hours pouring over the bee blogs and forums to see what others recommended. After much consideration, I decided to take Michael Bush's advice to go with all medium hive bodies. I ordered almost everything from Mann Lake and saved a bundle on shipping by driving up to their CA location to pick it up. Here is what I bought: