Package Installation 101: The Hivening

For many, hiving a package is their first real solo experience working with bees.

And it’s scary.

Don’t worry.

You can admit it.

You’re in a safe place here.

I mean, I was terrified the first time I installed a package! I was wearing thick canvas gloves, a full bee suit, and still I almost dropped the package as soon as the first bee landed on my arm. The entire time, I was holding the thing at arms length (so quite far away) and thinking to myself, “Are you fucking mental, Tim? The hell have you gotten yourself in to? SHIT, SHIT, SHIT! BEES!”

At least I didn’t pee myself, right?

Myself, my apprentice Emily, and 6 pounds of bees!

ANYWAYS… the real important thing to remember is that installing a package is an experience like no other. Bees in a package have been cooped up in there for at least a couple of days, even up to a week, with no chance to fly, a queen that they’ve never met before, and nothing to eat or drink but a can of high fructose corn syrup.

They’re essentially an artificial swarm and react as such. The bees are ready for you to introduce them to their new home. They’re desperate for the chance to start their work; building comb, raising brood, gathering food, and storing it all away to prepare for the long cold winter to come. You’re their hero, (wo)man!

Before you start throwin’ around the bees, you should make sure that your hive is set up properly:

1 - Bottom board
1 - Entrance reducer
1 - Hive body with all 10 frames
1 - Inner cover
1 - Top/bucket/quad feeder
1 - Outer cover

You'll also need enough 1:1 sugar syrup to fill the feeder, a pollen patty or other protein supplement, your trusty hive tool, a veil/jacket (better safe than sorry), a bee brush, a flat-top thumbtack, and a flat card of some sort. A used metrocard works perfectly.

Hives set up, and everything else ready to go.

Once you’ve gotten everything set up and ready to go, here is a step by step guide to what you’re going do. Don’t panic if the directions you’ve found elsewhere vary from mine. There is a huge amount of variability when it comes hiving packages. They all work fine. This is just my personal favourite way.

1.) Spray the mesh sides of the package with sugar syrup. This both calms the bees and distracts them by giving them something to eat. They're hungry.

A spray bottle with 1:1 sugar syrup mixed with Honey-B-Healthy, an essential oil mix.  This stuff serves as both food and  a calming agent, as it is strongly scented to help cover up any alarm pheromones released during the hiving process.

Freshly sprayed package.  All the bees are running over the mesh sides trying to suck up as much of the syrup as possible.  So good!

2.) As they're gorging on the syrup, open the empty hive, remove the cover and feeder and take out 3 or 4 frames on one side, and make a small gap between the middle (5th and 6th) frames. Put the entrance reducer in.

Frames removed to make space for the bees.  I haven't made the gap between the 5th and 6th frames yet.

3.) Pry off the small wooden cover on top of the package and, using your hive tool, gently pry up and lift out the can of syrup within the package. Use the thumbtack to make sure that the queen cage attached to the plastic strap doesn't fall into the package. If it seems stuck, rock it gently from side to side as you pull it up.

Poppin' the top.

Pulling out the feeder can.  The white stuff stuck to it is wax that the bees had started to attach to the metal.  Coop a package up too long and they'll start to build comb!

4.) Gently remove the queen cage and shake off any hanger-ons into the hive. Gently set the wooden lid back on top of the hole where the can was, and look inside the queen cage to make sure that she and her attendants are healthy.

Here queeny, queeny, queeny.

See her?  Bottom left, long, fat, and light brown.

5.) Using the corner of your hive tool, remove the cork from the end of the queen cage that has the mass of white candy/fondant in it. If you have a small nail handy, you can gently poke a SMALL hole most of the way through the candy to make the queen release easier. Using the thumbtack, attach the card to the side of the cage so that if the card were laid flat, the cage would be laying on its long skinny side.

Attaching a small stiff card.  I had metal screen handy, so I used that.  A business or metro card would work as well.

Cork in.  The bee on my finger was CHEWING on me.  It's a funny sensation.  I probably spilled some sugar syrup on it earlier.

Cork out.
MAGIC!

6.) Hang the queen cage by the card you tacked on in the small gap you made earlier between the middle frames and gently push them together. Neither entrance of the queen cage should be blocked, and the side with the mesh should face the frame next to it.

Queen cage hung between the middle frames.

7.) Using your hive tool, start prying off the bottom and sides of one of the mesh walls of the package. If the bees get active, spray them with some more sugar water. When you're done, you should be able to lift away the mesh on three sides, like a screened door.

Emily opening the second package.

8.) Open the side, hold the package over the space in the hive that you created by removing the frames earlier, and give the package a good firm SHAKE. You won’t hurt them (bees are strong!), but avoid hitting the package on the sides of the hive. The bees should come out in one great blob and fall directly into the hive.

Shaking out the bees.  We may have missed the gap, but it doesn't really matter.  The bees will immediately start moving down into the hive.

9.) There will still be some bees in the package. Shake those remaining bees out directly on to the queen cage, vigorously.

Shaking some leftover bees from the first package right onto the queen cage.  PAY ATTENTION TO THE QUEEN, GUYS!

10.) Give the bees a couple minutes and slowly reinsert the missing frames as the bees spread out over the hive. Set the pollen patty on top of the reinserted frames and poke several holes in it with the corner of your hive tool to help the bees access it.

Reinserting the frames.

Putting on the pollen patty and pushing the bees out of the way so we can replace the feeder.

11.) Briskly brush any bees out of the way, put your feeder on (how you do this will vary according to what sort of feeder you have) and fill it with syrup. Remove any bees that have flown into the feeder as you filled it, put on the outer cover and seal the hive.

Fill 'er up!

Kamikaze bees flying right into the syrup.  Lucky for them, I'm a trained lifeguard.

Ratchet straps prevent the hive from getting knocked over by the wind.  You should use them.

12.) Shake out any stragglers onto the front porch of the hive and leave the package to the side of the entrance so that any remaining bees can find their way in.

Hooray!  All done!

13.) Check yourself and any helpers for bees (they're curious!), take off your protective gear, and have a beer.

Meg Paska loves bees, and they love her.

They also like my head.

You've got bees! Mazel tov!

In a couple days (5-7ish, depend on your timing), you should do your first SHORT hive inspection to check if the queen has been released.

If she is still in the cage, pull it out and observe any bees that come with it. Are they acting aggressive, running over the cage and biting at the mesh protecting the queen? If so, they may not have accepted the new queen yet and you should give them a couple more days to get accustomed to her scent. If the bees hanging on the cage are calm, sticking their tongues out and trying to swap food/pheromones with the attendant bees, they’ve accepted the new queen and you can release her by using the corner of your hive tool to gently pry out the cork on the non-candy end of the cage. Make sure you do this low over the hive so that you don’t drop her on the ground or force her to fly, and she should scurry right out.

Once she’s loose, close the hive back up, fill up the feeder and leave them alone for at least another week or two. Fill the feeder with fresh sugar syrup whenever it gets low, but keep any other interactions to a minimum. This is a busy time for a new colony as they are scrambling to build comb and raise enough bees to replace the old and dying ones that came in the package.

When you check back on them in two weeks, you should see a large amount of capped brood with a solid laying pattern and plenty of freshly drawn comb starting to be filled with gathered pollen and nectar.

Frame Assembly: DIY

Y'all guess what was in that cool new cardboard box I showed off last week?

That's right.

Frames. Glorious Frames.

Building frames is just about the MOST fun you can have in beekeeping. With all that gluing and assembly and hammering, how can you go wrong?! It's like all of my favourite things wrapped up into one soul-sucking chore that seems to never end.

It really isn't all that bad. Once you get into the swing of things, you barely have to pay attention and the frames start to come together really quickly. Plus, if you build it right, a good frame will last forever. I'm still using wood frames that I put together over a decade ago. I've had to cut out the comb and renew the foundation a couple times, sure, but the frame itself is just as solid as when I first built it, with the addition of a lovely propolis patina.

As with all other aspects of beekeeping, there is much debate over the best way to build frames. In my opinion, they're pretty much all fine, but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to show you my preferred method.

All (wooden) frames consist of the same basic parts: (1) top bar, (2) side bars, and (1 or 2, depending on the style) bottom bar(s). Depending on whether you are using wired wax or plastic foundation, they might be constructed in a slightly different manner, but the basics are the same.

Today, I am going to be building deep frames for wired wax foundation, with a wedged top bar, V'd side bars, and split bottom bars. V'd side bars? Let me show you what I mean:

Check out that sweet V, bro.

V'd side bars make it easier to remove frames by reducing the contact area between frames within the hive. I like them, but they make assembly a bit tricky because you have to pay attention to what direction they are facing. As I assemble frames, I prefer to keep the V on the right side bar facing me and the V on the left side bar facing away from me, like so:

If you have side bars like this, make sure you are consistent in how you orient them. If you have side bars with two flat sides, it doesn't matter!

SO.

LET'S DO THIS THING.

First, put a little splotch of glue in the notch on the top of each side bar:



Then, JAM IT ALL UP IN THAT TOP BAR. Like so:



Nail each side bar through the top of the top bar. Do it good. I use a single 1.5 inch galvanized nail. If there is any excess glue, wipe it off.



Once you've gotten both side bars nailed to the top, flip the whole assembly over and dot the notches on the bottom of the side bars with some glue.

Insert the bottom bar(s), nail it/them down, and you're (almost) done.

If you're really gung-ho about it (like me) then you should take the time to put in an extra nail through the flat side of the side bars into the top bar. These extra nails make the frame remarkably durable, but has the flip side of making it nigh on impossible to take apart and repair. I figure that frames are cheap and having them come apart when you're working a hive is a huge pain.

In the end, you're left with joints that are stronger than the wood the frame itself is made from.



MAGICAL.

Rinse, repeat x 1 million.

So what about adding the foundation?

I didn't cover it in this article! I prefer not to add foundation until a day or two before I put the frames in the hive. The stuff is a pain- it's brittle when it's cold and it sags when it's hot. Just like me.

Plus, my new foundation hasn't come yet. Stick around for a while and I'll post a follow-up showing you how to DO IT YOURSELF. AWESOME!!!

And in closing: LOOK! A SLIDESHOW!!!

Hive Bodies: DIY

After my crotchety old man rant the other day, it seems only fair that I do my part in guiding those people who were foolish enough to take me seriously and assemble their own hive equipment. The winter is the best time to do assembly work, since the bees just want to be left alone and, you know, it's cold out. Really cold out.

So. . . I had a bee brunch! I invited my beekeeping apprentice, Emily, over for some bacon and buckwheat blini (crème fraiche and caviar! [don't be jealous (OK be jealous)]) and some hive assembly! Hoo-ray! Hive assembly!

We're going to start with the simple stuff and move onward and upward from there, and hive bodies of all sizes are the easiest components to assemble. They can really only go together one way, and if you have quality equipment, they really want to come out straight and square. However, there are always some small variations in the lumber, be it a slight bowing of the wood or millimeter differences in the width or depth of box joints. These variations rarely turn out to be a big deal, but to someone who has never knocked a super together, it can seem pretty daunting. Luckily, I have a method that works every time (60% of the time.)

Totally, like, angular, dude!
Image Copyright BoroughBees.com 2011

First, you want to mock up the hive body, just to make sure that everything fits right, that you have all the right pieces, and that you have them oriented correctly. Most manufacturers build their boxes in such a way that it is impossible to put any side upside-down, but it never hurts to make sure. Personally, I try to match sides that have similar grain/texture, but I'm neurotic like that.

Dab it.
Dab it good.
Yeah.
Image Copyright BoroughBees.com 2011

Second, you put a dab of glue on each contact face of the box joints. You really don't need to use very much, especially if you're using one of the newer glues. I've been using Elmer's Ultimate and have found that it both foams and expands as it dries, so just a dot of it will spread and expand to fill any cracks.

D.I.Y.

Many beekeepers, especially old school ones, have a decided DIY streak. You can't be a beekeeper if you don't enjoy working with your hands and for many of us, that enjoyment spreads out from the apiary and into our homes and apartments.

There is a growing trend in beekeeping toward the sterile standardization of beekeeping practice and equipment. Some experts suggest that beekeepers (new ones in particular) go so far as to purchase pre-built and pre-painted hives. They argue that so few people have the time, skills, tools, or space to assemble their own equipment and that it is often more effective and
enjoyable to have the work done for you.

That's bullshit.

One of the greatest pleasures in beekeeping, at least in my opinion, is working through a colony and realizing that you built it. Obviously you didn't make the bees or the comb they built, but the framework was your doing, your labor, your love, and I think that counts for something. The enjoyment just doesn't flow as deep when you don't take the time and effort to get your hands dirty knocking together some woodenware on your living room floor. You didn't make these things, you just pulled out your credit card and had someone else do it for you.

That's sad.

In a time when it is so easy to disconnect from the life going on around you, there are more and more people struggling to rebuild that bond. People like Martina at Farmtina who work hard to grow their own food and try new things. They may not always go the way they expect, but they gain an invaluable appreciation for just how much time, effort, and love can go into something as simple as eating a fresh tomato in the summer or putting local honey in your morning tea.
Beekeepers should strive to have a deeper connection with their bees, not to weaken it by giving one more honest experience away to the faceless voices at the beekeeping catalog.

My friend Melanie, who proofread this article for me, told me that I sound a little (read: really) judgy. She's a knitter and she loves it, but she has no interest in spinning her own yarn. Does that make her a bad knitter? No. Of course not. Nor does not having a full on woodworking shop in your shoebox of a NYC apartment make you a bad beekeeper. I certainly am not recommending that you go out and buy a bunch of power tools and start practicing box joints. I just think that you should try your hand at making something before you get someone to make it for you. Maybe it'll be a disaster! Maybe it just won't be for you. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The experts who push toward pre-built hives cite the fact that beekeeping supply catalogs are terrible at providing instructions. It's true, and I know beekeepers who have killed off entire colonies by misassembling equipment sent without any sort of instructions. Some kits are worse than others. Some are like IKEA from hell. Mistakes have been made and will continue to be made. I've built my fair share of crooked frames, but I've gotten better with practice and so will you.

I'm not saying it's easy.

I'm saying it's better.