Hello Beepeeple!

I'm curious, I know nothing about bee hives. What is this marshmallow thing you're talking about and why/how are they releasing the queen?

Thank you, @mikiz I was going to ask the same question!

When you buy a package of bees you get about 3lbs of bee in a screen box and a queen bee in a little cage. The queen is with the bees, but not WITH the bees, this lets them get to know her and to accept her as their new queen. You put a little piece of marshmallow in the end of the cage where the cork was so the bees will chew it out and release her. You don't want her to get released too quickly as they are still doing the meet and greet and if she gets out too soon they may kill her. The queen cage is about 2" x 3/4" and you just hang it in the new hive between the frames.

The packages of bees I have bought have a queen cage with a piece of hard fondant candy as the plug and the bees just chew through that, I have never had to put my own plug in the cage. Also the queen will sometimes come with attendant bees in the cage with her and they are the ones that chew her free.

Once they chew out the plug the queen will start laying her eggs in the new hive and the colony will begin to do all the mysterious things that bees do best.

Oh I get it now, that's awesome. I thought it was something along those lines but it all sounded a bit odd! Thank you for explaining

Latestarter said:

Oh yeah! Cardboard for a termite is like pre-digested manna! What is it but wood pulp after all! And if you didn't know, they will also tunnel vertically through sheetrock/wallboard. They poke little pin hole breathing holes through the paper as they move upwards.

That rain hit us about 3am Sunday morning and maintained through about noonish today. It's still cloudy, cool, and damp, but is supposed to clear out overnight and be back in the 60s then 70s over the coming days. Like you folks in CA, we really need and appreciate the rain when we get it. It's amazing how much greener everything looks in just the past 48 hours because of it.

I'm actually glad about it happening right after I installed my bees as well... They won't come out in this weather, so they'll have nothing to do but draw comb and work on releasing the queen so she can get down to business! I've been working horrendous hours, but I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet on Wednesday when I get home and open the hives to check/pull the cages and see if they need more syrup... I also need to replace the 3 frames I had to take out when I installed them! I do NOT want a burr comb nightmare in there! I'm also really curious to see how things went with the previously drawn comb fame that was placed in each hive as a starter...

I need to retire again so I'll have more time to do all these things I keep taking on! At least they're more fun than work

Click to expand...

Yes, they are more fun than work. I learn something every time I open my hive. The rain will give them time to get used to their new queen too.

babsbag said:

When you buy a package of bees you get about 3lbs of bee in a screen box and a queen bee in a little cage. The queen is with the bees, but not WITH the bees, this lets them get to know her and to accept her as their new queen. You put a little piece of marshmallow in the end of the cage where the cork was so the bees will chew it out and release her. You don't want her to get released too quickly as they are still doing the meet and greet and if she gets out too soon they may kill her. The queen cage is about 2" x 3/4" and you just hang it in the new hive between the frames.

The packages of bees I have bought have a queen cage with a piece of hard fondant candy as the plug and the bees just chew through that, I have never had to put my own plug in the cage. Also the queen will sometimes come with attendant bees in the cage with her and they are the ones that chew her free.

Once they chew out the plug the queen will start laying her eggs in the new hive and the colony will begin to do all the mysterious things that bees do best.

Click to expand...

Yep! My first queen was killed by the colony and I had to get a replacement quickly. I installed her and things went smoothly the 2nd time. I have not had to add my own candy either, it's come that way from the beekeeper I bought them from.

Some of my new youngsters were out for flight school today! It was kind of gusty - that bee right off the landing board makes me laugh...

Crosswind training!

You nailed it!

They wanted to face the hive, but the breeze was so strong the best they could do was to fly at a 90° angle to it! There were just as many bees behind me and the camera... I can't wait 'til the first flights number in the thousands!

That's an awesome photo @Maggiesdad

So I already posted pics of my instal with the bee box/pkg already mostly empty on the ground in front of the entrance. Here's a picture of the empty box with the empty queen cage inside as it was mounted when I received it. Mind you, when there were 7-10,000 bees in there all clustered around the queen cage, you couldn't even see it!

Here's a picture of the empty queen cage. The hole you see at the bottom is how they got her in there. After they put her in, they stuffed a cork in the hole to keep her there.

Some bee pkg sellers plug the hole with a piece of hard candy (fondant) that the bees will lick/chew their way through. Mine had the cork. The bees can't remove that themselves, so you either replace it with a marshmallow, or open the hive and release the queen yourself after a few days for them to get acquainted and accept each other.

I raced home from work at lunch time today as the temp was 73, sunny w/a light breeze. I needed to open both hives and take the (above) queen cages out and make sure the queens had been released... They had Both hives are very active and robust and are drawing/building comb. Didn't have time to go in-depth and take pics today as I had to get back to work. Tomorrow after work I'm hitting the road on a 23 hour road trip so won't be able to get back into the hives till I get back on Sunday or Monday. When I get back, I'll pull frames and try to get picks of eggs/larva/capped brood.

Here's a pick of the entrance of one hive at lunch time: You can see a bee loaded with a nice deep orange color pollen.

I didn't even take time to fire up the smoker! Just changed into a white T-shirt and put on my veil. No issues once again!