The bees have arrived

I was going to make a joke about being like Crimea since the russians arrived, but couldn't make the joke come out right.  In any case,  my packages came in on Saturday.  It was a wonderful day around 70F.  The bees went in rather  uneventfully and I got the hives put back together.

Things changed a little later when my brother and I went to his house to install his packages.  (He has two Warre hives.)  The wind picked up to about 20 mph.  I stood next to the hives as he dumped them in to try to block the wind.   Of course the wind was from a cold front that was moving through.

Yesterday the temperature was in the forties and today it was in the thirties. Since I knew it was going to be cold,  I put fondant in plastic bags and hung them between the bars of comb in the Kenyan top-bar hive next to the queen cage.  It worked out well because when I went into the hives today to pull the cork from the queen cages the KTBH was really warm.

I'm a little concerned about the Warre hive because the comb that I had wired up fell along with the queen cage.  I pulled the cork out and set the cage next to the cluster,  so she may be okay. 

The bees are coming!

This week I was informed that the bees I had ordered were coming a week early.  That happens to be next weekend.  I was expecting March 29.  The problem is that it has been and still is pretty cool up here in Maryland.  Not so in Georgia where my bees are being packaged for their trip here.

I still have to finish preparing my hives for the packages when they arrive.  I finally got around to cleaning out my Kenyan top-bar hive this weekend.  It's either been too cold or I've been too busy to deal with it.  This is what I saw when I opened it:

All the bees were huddled around each other trying to stay warm.  Unfortunately, they couldn't reach the food that I gave them and didn't have enough energy to keep themselves moving and died.

The cluster was mainly on some old Langstroth frames that I had cut down and the comb was getting pretty dark so I just through it out.  I also took out a bar with brood comb on it (the darker color) and gave it to my brother so that he could put it in his Warre hives when his packages come--the same time as mine.

I consolidated the bars with comb, left around four empty bars at the end before the follower board, and then closed it up.  The four empty bars are so I can put a jar feeder inside the hive with the bees.  I could leave the hive the way it is, but I wanted to replace the bottom screen.  Looks like I may not have time.

My Warre hive still needs its screened bottom and the cloth to go over the top set of bars.  Then I need to notch the ends of the top bars so that I can remove them easily (since I will use a nail at each end to keep the bars from sliding side-to-side).  With snow tomorrow and freezing rain on Wednesday, it looks like Thursday and Friday will be my only chances to get it done.

I'm glad I'm getting my bees earlier than last year, but I wasn't prepared for this early.  I guess I've learned my lesson.