When package arrives, place in a cool dark room; ideal temperature is about 65 to 70 F. Package bees can tolerate coolness better than heat.
When ready to install…
- Get one story of your hive body ready. Including the 10 frames
- Remove 5 frames and place them to the side of the hive
- Reduce entrance(s) as much as you can, leave only small openings. New hive can not defend itself against predators
- Have something to cover the opening of the cage, if your cage does not have a wooden cover
- Have something to puncture the candy plug in the queen cage…a nail works
- Wait until late afternoon so bees will settle down and not drift and will have overnight to adjust to the new hive environment
- Coat bees by spraying 1:1 ratio sugar syrup mixture through the metal screen into the package
- Shake the cage vigorously in a downward motion so the cluster of bees will fall to the floor of the cage
- Remove the cover of the cage
- Remove the feeder can
- Remove the queen cage and make sure the queen is alive
- Cover the hole in the cage where you removed the feeder can and queen
- Puncture the candy in the queen cage so the bees will have an easier time releasing her
- Place the queen between two frames, candy end facing up and cage screen exposed to the bees (not facing the comb on the frame)
- Shake the cage vigorously in a downward motion, again.
- Flip over the cage and shake the bees into the open area of the hive (where you removed the 5 frames earlier)
- Repeat the above step until nearly all of the bees are out of the cage
- Place cage in front of the hive, so any bees remaining in cage can crawl/fly out
- Replace the 5 frames back in the hive using a “back and forth” motion to reduce the chance of crushing the bees
- Add top hive sugar/water feeder
- Close up hive
- Return package/cage for deposit refund
- Check the hive in 5 days and refill feeder as necessary
- Check the hive 10 days after package installation to verify queen has started laying eggs
- Remove the empty queen cage and discard