# Second Package Hived!



## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

Friday, May 3rd, I picked up our second package from Barry Conrad of Conrad Hive and Honey. Barry is a member of the Scioto Valley Beekeepers Association and he makes runs down to Georgia to bring back packages with Italian queens to sell to his fellow beekeepers. He gets them from Rossman Apiaries. I brought them home and put them in our basement to give them a bit more time with their queen in the cage and to wait for my wife to get home from out of town.

Today (Sunday) we decided to go ahead with the hiving of the package. We’re a bit spooked about things what with finding a bunch of dead bees on the floor of Hive 1 and by the fact that we cannot find the queen nor could we find any eggs or larvae. The bees are acting normally, though, so I think that they’ll be OK. Just to be on the safe side Rhonda didn’t want to do a direct release of the queen this time. We opted to hang her cage from the top on the front wall of the hive, and will free her on Tuesday if she’s not been freed already. (It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow, possible thunderstorms.) We prepared the hive with comb and a feeder, and then we went through the hiving process. This time I did the hiving, with Rhonda taking pictures.

These bees were a bit more active than the first package. They were eager to get out of the package, and quite a few managed it when we pulled the syrup and queen cage. Rhonda opted to not wear gloves so she could operate my iPhone to take the pictures. I opted not to wear gloves because I’ve not worn them since the first package was hived. So far I’d not felt the need to do so, and decided to risk getting stung in exchange for a bit more sensitivity. Rhonda was stung in the hand. She wanted to know why she got stung and I didn’t! Luck, I suppose.

So we hung the queen where we’d decided to put her and I bumped the bees down and poured them into the hive. Immediately a lot were up in the air as I shook out as many as I could. Some immediately went to the queen cage. I placed the package on the ground below the entrance and gently put the bars back in place, nudging bees out of the way as I did so. We then closed up the hive and went inside.

A couple of hours later I went out and took a look. Just as with the first hive, there were a bunch of bees on the hive around the entrance and a number flying around. A look in the observation window revealed that the bees were clustered from the bars and on the side, centered on the queen cage. Looks like another good start. Tuesday we’ll free the queen if she isn’t already out.

Cheers,
Tom


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## TheGeneralsBees (Feb 17, 2013)

Congratulations! Sounds like everything went well (aside from Rhonda's bee sting - totally unfair). My wife filmed this spring's install - the jump in the camera marks the point where a bee landed on her hand.


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## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

Thanks! Yes, Rhonda thought it was completely unfair. She said that from now on she will use my DSLR instead of an iPhone so she can wear her gloves.

I watched your video-very cool! 

I may need to get a video camera for myself. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## TheGeneralsBees (Feb 17, 2013)

I am glad you liked the video. The shot from the end of the hive is actually filmed with an iPad. The close up of me dumping the bees was done with my phone which is visible sitting on the fence from the front camera angle. I am far too cheap to buy an actual camera.


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## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

We do have a pair of iPhones, but I find them difficult to use at times. I'd prefer an actual camera, one that could go onto a tripod when needed. Perhaps I could justify it by saying we need it for the grandkids... 

Rhonda was out to check on things in the hives today. When I got home she recommended that I have my gear on if I open Hive 2 as they were a bit testy when she was out there. When I went out they weren't testy per se, but they were a bit more energetic about coming out of the top of the hive when I lifted up a bar. But as I approached the hive I noticed a couple of wasps hanging around, and when I lifted up the cover I saw a wasp on the underside of each end in the initial stages of building their own nests. I used my hive tool to scrape the nests off and told Rhonda we need to check under the cover daily to make sure they don't come back (they probably will) and to do so with our gear on and with a fly swatter so we can kill them given the opportunity. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## Colleen O. (Jun 5, 2012)

Bummer about the wasps. I've read that bees can be testy if they are being bothered by a predator. I don't know the particulars offhand but I have seen wasp traps mentioned on the site a few times. Someone talked about a trap made out of a Pop bottle with some bait mixture in it that had banana peel and cider vinegar in it if I remember correctly. You might try a search.


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## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

Thanks, Colleen!

I followed your advice, and found LOTS of references to wasp traps! I guess I'll be giving that a try.

Cheers!
Tom


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## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

May 16, 2013

We decided to go into the hive today to check for cross comb and things in general after 11 days. A few observations were made: First, the package itself was larger than our first one. Second, the bees in the package appeared to be larger than the bees in the first package. Third, this colony has made much larger combs than the first package.

We have been checking on the hive from time to time, of course. One issue we’re having with this hive has been with wasps inside the lid. The first time we found them there were two with the beginnings of nests being built. Since then we’ve not had the beginning of nests, but we’ve still had one or two in there whenever we’ve opened the hive. There were two today. Rhonda, since she was wearing gloves, grabbed and killed both of them.

We do see some capped brood, somewhat randomly scattered. We saw the same thing with our other hive (or my wife did—I didn’t have the opportunity to get into the hive when she did.) Another week and I imagine it will look like the other one.

Photos:



Large comb…



Big clump of festooning bees hanging from this one…



And we did see the queen in this one. The fact she’s marked helped! 



Oh, and after we’d closed up the hive and had been away for a bit, I returned to cut off the extra length of the cargo strap we use to make sure the hive can’t be blown over. While I was loosing the strap a lone bee decided she didn’t want me messing with it, landed on my hand, and delivered my first sting. I watched her pull it clear of herself, scraped it off, and proceeded. Interestingly, I had a feeling I was going to be stung this time just by the sound of her “buzz” as she came in.


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## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

*Update on Hive 2 May 23 2013 Re: Second Package Hived!*

May 23, 2013 Day 18

This package, which started out with a lot more bees than Hive 1, continues to be much larger than Hive 1. At some point we’ll see some population drop off, I’m sure. I’ve seen some minor bearding around the entrance on a couple of warm evenings recently, so I opened another entrance for them the other day. Rhonda doesn’t think this colony likes her; she said she went out without her gear to lower the lid the other day (she’d left it open after checking on the bees and killing a wasp) and was chased away by a couple of persistent bees who followed her to the house. Later she said they came after her while she was mowing a little ways away from the hive, so when I went out to weed-whack around and under the hives I put on my jacket and veil. They ignored me.  But as I've told her, some of the bees in the package may have come from a slightly more defensive hive than the rest. In reality in a few weeks we'll have a colony that's entirely from this queen and we'll learn then what her colony's temperament will be like.

One other thing about this colony, though, is that they tend to use a lot more propolis than Hive 1. 

So we decided to check in on the today. Still a lot of bees in there:



We find that the queen has been filling in the gaps we saw the last time we took stock of things:



We saw quite a bit of capped drone cells. Rhonda was concerned, but there were no queen cells and I reassured her that a colony building natural comb 15-20% of brood will be drones. 



This hive’s comb is much larger than Hive 1’s comb, going wall to wall and bar to floor—without being connected to the walls, I may add. This comb is filled with lots of capped brood, with a large layer of pollen, and capped by capped honey. Beautiful!



Check out the multicolored pollen!



And Queen Lizzy (also named by our granddaughter, whose first name is Isabella) can be found on this comb:



So that’s it for now. Both hives seem to be right on track. Hive 1 needs to strengthen up a bit. Hive 2 remains strong, and it appears that it will continue to be a strong colony. We’re looking forward seeing how they do!


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## TheGeneralsBees (Feb 17, 2013)

*Re: Update on Hive 2 May 23 2013 Re: Second Package Hived!*

It looks like your hives are doing great. Thanks for the pics.


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## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

*Re: Update on Hive 2 May 23 2013 Re: Second Package Hived!*

June 8 2013 Inspection

I didn’t have the opportunity to write up the inspection of June 1st. During that time we decided to insert a couple of bars between already-drawn combs. The population of the hive is growing as brood is emerging. I did get a series of photos of an emerging bee, which was cool, and we saw the queen.

On the 8th we took a quick look through the hive. I did take photos of both sides of each bar of comb for later viewing and we did see the queen again. Today, I took a look through the window and noticed a queen cup being built on the side of a comb next to the window. With that in mind, I took a look at the photos we’d taken last Saturday. In a closer look, I noticed at least one other queen cup being worked. The question now is… just in case cells, supercedure cells, or swarm cells? I don’t think the last as they do have plenty of room. We’ll just have to wait and see.

The photos:

Comb with queen cell at lower left:



Flip side of comb with queen cell. It has some capped brood waiting to emerge, lots of empty cells from which brood has emerged, and other cells being used for larvae again.



And another comb with almost solid wall of capped comb with some vacated cells. 



This seems to be a fairly strong colony, their comb goes wall to wall and bar to floor, the queen is doing well, and though my wife is leery of them, they seem to be a fairly calm colony… for now, at least. The learning and the adventure continues…

Cheers,
Tom


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## honeybeebee (Jan 27, 2013)

*Re: Update on Hive 2 May 23 2013 Re: Second Package Hived!*

A picture is worth a bunch words....thanks...you gave us both.. nice blog..


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## TheGeneralsBees (Feb 17, 2013)

*Re: Update on Hive 2 May 23 2013 Re: Second Package Hived!*

Cells built along the side and bottom are most likely swarm cells. Supercedure cells are generally built in the upper central portion.


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## Tango Yankee (Mar 15, 2013)

*Re: Update on Hive 2 May 23 2013 Re: Second Package Hived!*



TheGeneralsBees said:


> Cells built along the side and bottom are most likely swarm cells. Supercedure cells are generally built in the upper central portion.


You know, I've read that and in my other hive I did have one built in the upper central portion of a comb but they also built a whole bunch on the sides and bottoms of other combs. In that case the queen was still there when they started the supercedure cell (based on Bee Math, anyway.)

I don't think I'll be able to get another hive built soon enough if this one swarms, but if it does I'm not going to worry about it. 

Regards,
Tom


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## Colleen O. (Jun 5, 2012)

I think mine swarmed last week. I put out a trap but had to be away from home so I missed it if they did. I saw a swarm cell through the window last Tuesday and when I got back and could look in the window there looked to be fewer bees. I inspected the hive on Saturday and saw 7 or 8 nice looking swarm cells on the bottom and sides of the comb. One had a really papery tip and looked about ready to hatch. I didn't see the old queen and based on the youngest larvae I could see she probably left Wednesday. I made up a nuc in the far end of my hive with three of the cells including that advanced one and I see through the window that they are already tearing down the newer cell so she must have hatched out. I checked my other nuc while I was at it and that one had evidence of two hatched queen cells. Mating fields here this week!


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