Wednesday, April 8, 2020

The next day after installing a package of bees

After you put in your package bees, you need to check on them the next day. The grass needs to be removed from the entrance and the feeder pail needs to be checked.
 Take off the Telescoping cover, lift up the feeder pail, the weight will tell you that it is full of syrup. If it has leaked out, the pail needs to be filled up and there must be a reason the syrup leaked out.
 The pail should be filled with syrup, not a 1/2 a pail, a full pail. The hive has to be reasonably level or the syrup can leak out. You can level the pail instead of the hive to make it easy.
 Also, the beekeeper needs to make sure the bees main cluster is directly under the feeder pail. If a beekeeper does not check on this, there is a possibility the bees can starve if the bees are not under the feeder. It is going to cool off late in the week. The main cluster needs to be under the feeder pail.
 Bees sometime migrate to the outside frames of the hive when the sun is shining on the side of the hive. The bees move to the warmth. That is why putting bees in near dusk works better. There is no sun warming the hive.
 If the bees are on the outside frames of the hive,  and it gets cold, the bees will not be able to break cluster to go to the feeder pail which is four frames away from them, and the bees may starve.
 When you lift the pail, look to make sure there is a large cluster of bees under the pail. If you only see a few bees, there may be a problem. Light a smoker, remove the feeder pail. Lift up the inner cover, a couple puffs of smoke. Look at where the main cluster of bees are. If they have moved to the outside frames and are not underneath the feeder pail, you need to move the cluster. Pull out frames on the opposite side of the hive from the bees. Then, gently slide the frames with the bees on them to the center of the hive, under the feeder pail. Put the frames back into the hive box where the bees were. No you can close up the hive and the bees will stay there.
  If the bees are under the feeder pail, they should be fine.