How to install a Bee Package

hello I'm John Fletcher with tried V supply in Trinity North Carolina we're going to introduce a package fees to a high up today and show the pros and cons on what to do and what not to do and how to do it alright the first thing we're going to do is prepare the hive to receive the new package of bees the first thing we'll do is remove the lid that's a telescopic top and then we'll remove the inner cover who wants to do that we have few frames we want to take out in order to deal with the extra bees coming into the package all at one time I usually take about three frames out and just set them aside we'll get to them later and that'll leave you a large enough gap in here for your bees to fit in plus put Queen in get everything ready to roll alright now that we have our hive ready to receive the package we'll need to get the package ready to go into the house first thing we want to do is remove the piece of luan that's on over top the can and the Queen area by removing this you don't release your bees by removing this all you're doing is allowing yourself to get into where everything's at don't throw this way just yet just set it upside down over off to the side our next step is to remove the cam catch it with your hive tool and pull it up and once we get it up here so far we're going to bump the bees down in order to get bees down away from the can and away from the Queen the Queen's attached to the end of this piece of strap right here so we're going to bump them down that drops the bees down remove put piece of wood back over you have your feed cam that you no longer need our next step is to remove the the Queen we have to get her out of the out of here and so we can work with her and get her set into the hive so we'll cut our strap just a little bit around the staple so that when freer now when you pick this piece of wood up and basically want to try to fly out so it doesn't hurt them them down a little bit more again pull the Queen out now we have the Queen and as most package manufacturers do they put this strap just the opposite of what you need in order to install your bees the free strap should be at the candy in not the other end so you'll have to pull the loose you have to restate put back in the right place so that you can hang your your queen and so she can be released once we have our Queen out we have a candy in which is the white substance and then you have the other end whatever you do do not pull the cork out of the end that does not have candy that is a mistake some YouTube videos have you remove that cork put a piece of marshmallow in there that's a mistake as well what you want to do is remove this cork out at this end of the Benten cage what happens is when you pull that cork out the bees inside of the hive will eat their way into the Queen and release the Queen that'll take them anywhere from three to four days to do that alright now that we have a Benton cage that contains the Queen we ready to go into the hive we need to remove the stopper on the candy in the easiest way to is take your small knife or to pry it out now this is ready to release the Queen and toss the cork if you want keep it if you want anytime you have a queen out and some bees are in the area you're gonna attract a lot of bees in the try to feed Queen you're getting to where there three B's so we can remove this off of the hive then we're going to staple the the cage to the top of a frame and that'll hold it in place alright there's another way of introducing your queen it's a little bit simpler he's here to deal with it does require the use of a shim well I'll show you here in a minute but we will need to remove about 3 frames out of the hive off to the side put the shim anywhere from three-quarter inch trim to two-inch shim will work take your queen inverter upside down so that that screen is between several frames two frames so that the bees can come up from the underneath feed the Queen and also work on eating away the candy in order to release her all right now we're ready to put the bees into the hive and that's the simple part first thing you're gonna do is before you remove this lid is you're gonna just take a little bit sugar spray dilute sugar solution spray your bees with a little bit this will help you when you bump them down and you're gonna bump them down a couple of times remove the lid spray inside and then you can just invert your pot in the Box directly right over top let it sit there if you have an empty hive body you can put over top of this that'll work or if you just want to leave it here for a couple hours and let the bees work the way in they'll work the way down back up to where the clean zap few hours later you come and just shake the rest of these that in here back into the hive and close it up for the night there's another method that you can use where you're shaking the bees into the hive which quotin works a lot quicker if you have several colonies to do it works a lot faster it does irritate the bees a little bit more to shake them around after all they've been traveling for several hundred miles to get to where you're at and the more you shake them more you irritate them you're going to go ahead and check them in I'd suggest you spray them a little bit more with a little bit of sugar syrup and all that does it helps keep them all stuck together keeps them from flying around so much too the easy way to do this let's go ahead and just shake them a little bit get them rolling around you notice they they don't want to come out very easy right away so you can bump and then you sent this at front entrance of the hop and let these bees that are in here work the way into the hive once you do that you ready just close it up which frames in blows up your hive do not go into it until four days are up after four days are up you're gonna go back in and remove the Queen cage itself one last step before we're finished and that is to put an interest reducer into the front of the hive the introducer has two different openings one is for a large opening and the other is for a small opening anytime you have a package introduction you want to use the small opening then you just slide it in front of the hive that reduces the opening that the bees have to guard since they're in a weakened state this will help keep robber bees from taking over this high before it has a chance to become established that's all there is to it you

Channel: John Pledger

Views: 181,190

Rating: 4.8732038 out of 5

Keywords: bees, bee package, nuc, How-to (Conference Subject), hive, queen bee, install, beekeeping, entrance reducer, robber bees

Id: 70ODILM3qcM

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 26 2012