Queen Bees
I bought three packages of bees to replace hives that died over the winter. When you get a package, the queen comes in a little mesh covered box with sugar plugging one end and then a cork. After you dump the bees into the hive you have to take the cork out and hope that the bees eat the sugar plug and release the queen bee. It is done this way so the bees get used to their new queen and won’t kill her.
I installed the three packages last Friday afternoon. Now it has been three days so I have to check to see if the queens have been released. One hive had released their queen and one had not. The other looked like they had gnawed mostly through the sugar, but the queen bee was still inside the cage. I released the trapped queens and put the lids back on the boxes.
I am being careful about this because last year I was not feeling well, and I did not release the bees properly. By the time I got around to checking the queens were dead in two boxes. This is a waste of $150 per box, plus the gas to get up to Kingston, NY and back. This year I am feeling much better and I think that I did a good job.
There is no guarantee that the queens will flourish in the hives.
The queens should start laying eggs almost immediately. The eggs will hatch in 21 days. I should see the new bees at the entrances to the hives on May 18th. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I will open the hives and look for “brood” which is immature bees. If I don’t see any then I will have to hurry up and find a queen. A hive without a queen is often cranky and will sting anyone who comes near it. If one of the three hives is behaving different than the others, I will open it as soon as I get a good day to see what is going on.
Beekeeping is much more technical than you would think. That’s why so many programmers seem to keep bees if they can.