It's been a long time since we shared a post on our blog about our beekeeping hobby. The Covid-19 epidemic kept us on the down low last year, but we're back in the swing of beekeeping with three new colonies. We have our new colonies on a close relative's property near Coldspring, Texas which is just a one-hour drive from our home near downtown Houston. The property has 6 acres located in the Sam Houston National Forest making a nice home for our bees.
On May 7, we picked up our three packages of bees from BeeWeaver in Navasota, Texas (where we always get our bees and beekeeping supplies) and drove them to their new home. Here's how we installed our new colonies! (Click on images to enlarge).
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We chose to use these hive stands made of sturdy plastic.
They support a lot of weight and are easy to assemble. |
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Our three hives are numbered 02, 04, and 06.
The entrance to the hive boxes are on the opposite sides of the house numbers. |
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This was our first time installing packaged bees of three pounds each.
We usually order nucs, but they do cost a little more than packaged bees. |
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We've hung our queen cages near the center of the hive, with the exit at the top.
This will keep any dead attendant bees from blocking the whole so the queen won't have trouble escaping. |
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We gave each colony one gallon of sugar water in plastic containers.
The sugar water is added through the screw off lid, then turned upside down and placed in a tray.
It works sort of like a chicken feeder. |
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After spraying the bees generously with sugar water,
we shook them out of their packages and into their hives.
Some bees were slow to come out of the packages, so we
placed them in front of the entrance to let them find their way on their own. |
On May 9, we went back to check in on the queens to see if they'd made it out of their cages, but they hadn't. But, the workers were busy building out comb.
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| Two days after installation, we returned to find all of the bees had made it inside their hives. |
On May 14, we made another trip to check on the queens. Each had made it out of their cages and each had already started to lay their eggs.
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| This is a frame from hive 06. They've done a great job drawing out comb and collecting pollen. |
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| Hive 06 drawing more comb. |
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| Hive 06 bees. |
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| Hive 04 drawn comb with pollen and eggs. |
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| Hive 04, the queen is out of her cage. |
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| Hive 04 with eggs. |
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| Hive 04 had a couple of queen cups, which we removed. |
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| Each hive had no sugar water left as you can see from this empty bottom tray that holds the gallon in place. |
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| Hive 02 bees, notice the yellow pollen collecting on the frame. |
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| Hive 02 drawn comb. |
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| Hive 02 eggs. |
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| Hive 02 bees. |
We're excited to see our bees doing well and continued to be fascinated at how fast they work!
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