The main purpose of today's trip to the bee yard was to check on the two colonies we installed last weekend and to install a package of carniolan bees Charlie picked up on Friday from Schaffer's Natural Honey Farms.
Hannah did a thorough check of her hive and as Charlie got ready to open our hive she shoved him out of the way with a brutal hip check, almost sending him sprawling to the ground, and popped open our hive. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but just a bit, don't get in that girl's way when she is in the bee zone.
This is the Italian nuc colony we installed last week, we found the queen and lots of eggs and larva. Before closing up we added ~1/2 gallon of sugar syrup to their feeder and placed half a pollen patty on top of the frames.
We were rushing to beat the rain so we did a version of the "gentle" install. (Hannah once again pushed her dad out of the way. "I got this, Dad.") After verifying the queen was in good shape Hannah pried out the cork and replaced it with a marshmallow and laid the queen cage on top of the frames.
She graciously allowed Charlie to place the package of bees in the hive. We quickly closed up the hive, placing half a pollen patty on top of the inner cover. The rain had started in earnest so we hustled back to the house before getting too wet.
Thanks Mom
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