Our bees arrived on May 26th. Hubby went to collect the hive and brought it back in the cab of the truck. As a Pest Control Technician of many years, he isn't phazed by small stinging creatures and has always been fond of bees.
We are on a bit of a steep learning curve since we hadn't put the frames together correctly (our instructions neglected to tell us we needed to wire the frames for extra foundation support - luckily the gentleman who is patiently tutoring us pointed out our mistakes and showed us how to correct them - thanks Carl!) so we had to do a mad scramble and get those corrected.
We are using sugar water to ensure they have sufficient food - this cool, wet spring weather in Oklahoma has really put a monkey-wrench in a lot of our plans - still, we'll keep them well fed until the first deep is 80% full and we know they have a strong start.
I surprised myself by not being worried about being stung as we worked to get the bees off the frames gently without overly stressing them.
Looking forward to helping conserve bees - fascinating creatures!
We are on a bit of a steep learning curve since we hadn't put the frames together correctly (our instructions neglected to tell us we needed to wire the frames for extra foundation support - luckily the gentleman who is patiently tutoring us pointed out our mistakes and showed us how to correct them - thanks Carl!) so we had to do a mad scramble and get those corrected.
We are using sugar water to ensure they have sufficient food - this cool, wet spring weather in Oklahoma has really put a monkey-wrench in a lot of our plans - still, we'll keep them well fed until the first deep is 80% full and we know they have a strong start.
I surprised myself by not being worried about being stung as we worked to get the bees off the frames gently without overly stressing them.
Looking forward to helping conserve bees - fascinating creatures!