Bee Day! The Start of Season #12

Today we went to Hackensack Minnesota to pick up 4 packages of bees.   It is a considerable drive to the bee place there, a little over 2 hours.  Fortunately the weather was good, the rain held off, and we had a good day to start our 12th year of beekeeping.  Before we got to Hackensack, we stopped at a store along the way to pick up a couple donuts to eat.   There was a guy there giving away large size Tootsie Rolls from the Knights of Columbus.  We struck up a conversation with him, telling him that we were going to get 4 boxes of bees.  He looked at our car, and said "You're going to put BEES in your car?  Are you really going to drive with a bunch of bees in there?"  He was amazed that we would do that.  We explained to him that the bees come in screened boxes and behave very well, but he just couldn't visualize this!  Here is what we mean:

The four boxes of package bees fit nicely in the back seat of my little car. 

A close-up of one of the boxes of bees.  We bought 3 pound packages of Italian breed bees.  They are good honey makers and a docile breed.

As we were driving through Akeley Minnesota, we stopped so I could have my picture taken with Paul Bunyan!  Paul Bunyan is the legendary lumberjack up in the northwoods country.   This little town has a very large cement replica of Paul Bunyan at the edge of town, and lots of folks stop to take pictures with him.

Paul Bunyan is a big fellow! 

When we got home, we got the bees situated in their new home.  Still, the rain held up long enough to get the Italian girls settled in.

Harold sprays the bees down with a sugar syrup to calm the bees.

Harold removes the can of feed and the queen box.  Hey, Harold - zip up your bee suit and put that hood on!  He didn't, and got stung!

Harold removes the queen in her little box before preparing to shake the rest of the bees into the hive.

After shaking the bees into the box, Harold drops in the queen.

After the bees are shaken in, a vented top cover is put on.

Harold shakes more bees into another hive.

After the bees are in the hive, Harold puts the queen inside.  You can just barely see the queen in the little box in Harold's left hand.

 

After we got the bees settled in, we propped up the boxes in front of the hives because some of the bees never want to leave the original cage when shaken.  After the queen is placed into the hive, the bees eventually learn that she is in there and they go into the correct hive.

Some of the bees are stubborn and just won't leave the original container.   But eventually they all figure out where to go.

Here are bees left in the original container crawling into the correct hive, since their queen is now in there!

The last hive is done!

All the bees are into their correct hives, and the covers are put on, and everyone is happy!  The powerful electric fencer is turned on to deter the bears!  In about 10 days we will inspect the hives.

This evening if the weather holds, we will install more bees that we bought from a fellow beekeeper.  We bought two double deep hives that we will split, and two extra queens, so that we will have 4 more hives.  This season we will have 8 hives.   We used to have a lot more hives but they were not ours - we were managing them for another beekeeper.  We could gather and sell the honey, but the hives were not all ours.   These hives all went to California.  But we no longer do that.   In recent years we have purchased and managed our own hives and we keep them in our own yard.   This winter our bees did not survive in spite of our best efforts, so we had to buy all new bees. 

And so, season number 12 begins!  Right now these bees have plenty of food until things start to bloom around here.  The bottom hive boxes are full of honey packed frames for the bees, as well as most of the top box frames.   Around here now, the willows are putting on pollen, so the bees will have plenty to gather for their brood.   Within a week or so, the dandelions will be blooming and the bees love that!    By the way - I only got stung once taking these pictures!  It was my camera finger, of course!