We installed the bees Thursday evening at dusk. The next morning, we toyed with the syrup feeders. Jordan stacked up a couple of plant stands and put the baby chick waterer on them, high enough we hoped the chickens wouldn't spot it, and I pulled a few nice pebbles from my rock collection to put in the tray as little islands for the bees to stand on. As far as we could tell, they weren't interested in the hummingbird feeder. And then we left town!
We got back some 48 hours later. It had occurred to me sometime on the drive down that I didn't take anything off the queen cage before we dangled her into the hive, so, I called Neil first thing when we got home. Yep, we were supposed to take a cap off the cage to expose a bit of sugar foam that the workers would eat, releasing the queen. The cap is there to keep them from letting her out in transit, duh. I should have realized! Our queen was still stuck in her little travel capsule. Dang!! I knew her retinue would be feeding and cleaning her, so she should be alive and well. The bad part is, now we would need to open the hive again, take her out and open her cage, then re-hang her.
So we buttoned ourselves into our long sleeved shirts, and this time I tucked my pants into a pair of tall socks an so nobody could fly up my pants leg. We gave them a little sage smoke as I explained, "We're going to let your queen out ..it's going to be a little disruptive, but we'll be really careful...bear with us..." Who knows if it helps the bees? It helps me get into the right frame of mind. So--we lift off the tin roof. Jordan uses a paint scraper to loosen the bars so we can lift out the one the queen's on. It comes out with gorgeous piece of white comb the size of a large man's hand attached! I'm so impressed their progress, after only two full days in their new home. Unfortunately, mama bee's cage has been used as a structural member, and getting her loose means we end up breaking off the comb.We can see her moving around through the plastic mesh, and she seems well. Certainly there are at least twenty workers on her cage, caring for her. The comb is beautiful, white-clean and perfect, already partly filled with honey and a little green stuff we assume is pollen. And, of course, everything is covered in bees. I set the faintly smoldering smudge stick down and Jordan and I ticklishly take turns holding various things while the other shoos bees, opens caps, scrapes out some of the sugar foam so she can get out sooner, and weedles the bar back onto the hive.
Again, we make it through the process without getting stung. I'm 100% amazed by this.
After dark, I went out to fetch the syrup feeder so I could clean and refill it--there was already some mold growing inside. I hadn't seen anyone bellying up to the hummingbird feeder, so I brought that in too. I figured I'd move it someplace where it might attract hummingbirds, or give it to my mom...as I took it apart for cleaning, I realized if I left the lid off the little tray, the bees would be perfectly able to feed from it just like the chick waterer. Aside from being decorative and equipped with a hanger, the humming bird feeder also has a little brass roof to keep the rain out, something that had concerned me with the chick waterer. And it's glass. I rigged it up with fresh syrup and some pebbles for the bees to stand on. Then I put the broken comb on a plate and slid it under the roof so the bees could reclaim the syrup they'd already stored.
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