I brought the frames home, prepped my feeder with sugar syrup, rounded up some smoker fuel, and got my tools. My son who has always protested that he hates bees decided to help me document installing the bees in my hive.
My biggest issue with the installation was trying to light my smoker. I wasn't expecting to get bees today, so I didn't collect my smoker fuel ahead of time. My neighbor has pine trees adjacent to our property that provide plenty of pine needles for fuel. Unfortunately, post-tropical cyclone Andrea went through here last night and the needles were pretty damp. I had to throw a little paper into the smoker to get the fire going well enough to start the pine needles and keep them smoking. I grabbed a lot of extra needles so that they can dry out before I need them again.
I removed seven or eight top bars towards the front of the hive and stood up the Langstroth frames lengthwise inside the hive. With the frames leaning against each other, I tried to leave some beespace between the frames. I tried to put the frames in there gently, but I'm sure I smashed a few. I didn't see the queen, so I'm hoping she was just hiding for now.
After all the bees were in, I set up the feeder inside the hive, added the follower board and replaced the rest of the top bars. I let the bees settle for a little while and then I took a picture through the observation window.
One frame is leaning against the window. The other frames are leaning against the other side of the hive. You can see a lot of the bees in the corner. The nurse bees are still on the broodcomb. You may also notice the cleats on the bottom of the top bars. Hopefully, the bees take the hint and build their comb from the cleats.
My son has the rest of the pictures on his phone. Hopefully, I'll get those up this weekend.
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