Bees, bees, and more bees

Great news.  The package that I ordered finally came in.  Originally, it was scheduled to be delivered on April 13.  Because of the unusually cool and wet spring, the supplier's source of bees (in Georgia, USA) was unable to put packages together until now.

I picked up the package yesterday, and with some help from Anna of the Carroll County Beekeepers Association, it was installed in my hive.  I hadn't planned on two colonies at this point, so I installed the package on the other side of the divider board from the swarm that I installed earlier.  Thankfully, Anna noticed that there was too large of a gap between the follower board and the hive body and was able to doctor it until the gap was closed (good use of popsicle sticks).

We also checked on the swarm to see how it was doing.  I received the swarm with four Langstroth frames laid lengthwise in the hive.  They haven't been building comb, and I was afraid that I had killed the queen on accident, but Anna found the queen and was able to see eggs and larvae in the comb.  Anna suggested that I just cut the frames to fit into the hive, so I will probably do that tomorrow night.  Hopefully at that point, they will get the hint and start building out comb on the top bars.

The bees on the package side may be building comb already, but I wouldn't be able to tell.  They are all in one big cluster around the queen cage.  I'm going to go into that side of the hive in a couple days to let the queen out, so I'll be able to tell then if they are building comb.  They better be, or the colony will be in trouble.  Here are a couple pictures of the cluster around the queen.