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A New Colony


This spring, we picked up a new colony in a Package, a wood and wire screen box with bees inside. In the Package was a smaller wood and wire screen box with a young queen inside, a can of sugar syrup for the bees to eat while inside the box, and three pounds of bees. A pound is about 3000 bees, so the Package contained upwards of  9000 bees. We drove to Barre, Massachusetts to pick up the Package early in the morning so we could get them back home, transferred into a hive, and settled well before mid day. 


"The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it." 

Jacques Yves Cousteau
Here is the Package. The bees gather around the Queen in the middle of the box.
We take the Package to the prepared hive. Kevin gently taps the box and the bees fall away revealing the can of sugar syrup (in the middle of the box) and the Queen (located in a smaller box to the right of the can). Originally, the Queen is from one hive, and the other bees are from another hive. Since they are strangers the bees may not take to the Queen right away and may kill her. That's why she is kept separate from the other bees.
Kevin pries open the top to remove the Queen and the can of sugar.
Here is the Queen. If you look closely you will see a white section in the box under Kevin's thumb. That's sugar. The end of the box has a small plug, but Kevin pulls the plug out. Now the sugar is exposed on both sides. The bees will eat through the sugar and free the Queen.
Kevin places the small box with the Queen still in it between the frames in the lower section of the hive. Remember, the bees will eventually eat through the sugar and free her. It will take a couple of days and allow the bees and the Queen more time to get to know one another. By the time they free her they will be like old friends. Kevin pours all of the other bees right on top of the hive. They will make themselves at home in no time.
Kevin adds another section to the hive. The bees can climb into the upper section.
For now, the upper section is only half full of frames. Kevin also places two jars of sugar, including the one that was in the Package, in the other half of box for the bees to eat.
Kevin then places the top on the hive. The bees can come and go through a door on the bottom of the hive.
One of the new girls.