Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Remove the queen cage and check the queen to make sure she is alive.
Using a nail, puncture the candy in the queen cage so that the queen can be released
more easily by the workers.
Half the ten frames should be removed, leaving five in the hive. Place the queen
cage with the candy end up between two frames. The cage screen should be
exposed to the bees.
Replace the frames that were removed so that there is a total of ten frames.
Place the package in front of the hive's entrance so that the few remaining bees can
crawl into the hive.
Finally, provide the bees with sugar syrup in the frame feeder.
Or
Put an empty hive body on top of the new hive.
Place the syrup can that came with the package inside the hive body, resting on the
top bars of the frames.
In about a week, inspect the colony for eggs and larvae and, while doing this, refill
the frame feeder.
Remove the empty queen cage, ensuring that the queen has got out.
Look for eggs in the cells.
If the queen fails, introduce a new queen immediately. If you have no queen
available, you can unite the package with another colony or package (see Chapter
8), or you can give the bees a frame of young larvae and let them raise another
queen (see Chapter 11).
Ensure that the hive is tilted slightly forward so that rainwater cannot enter it and
accumulate. To do this, place a small piece of wood under the stand's back feet or
under the hive's rear if you are not using a stand.
