Thursday, April 29, 2010

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.

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