Everything went great. First time I have actually handled bees. Today was the first time we saw a live installation too. We used the set-package-in method. Much neater than dumping them in and having many bees flying everywhere. Pleasant calm weather. Picked up bees midday, got them home & installed in late afternoon as sun starting to go behind the trees. Looked like very few dead bees. Will take out the boxes tomorrow and slip in the rest of the frames to take up the space.
No problems except for the first hive, Hive A. We pulled the wrong cork out - no candy. I held the cage with thumb over hole until husband got back with marshmallow. Queen managed to get out as I was trying to get the marshmallow in without squashing her or the bees that were holding on for dear life to the cage. I caught her in my hands, but when I tried to get her back into the cage, she flew off. We were very surprised - she was marked, and supposed to be clipped.
We figured (Hoped!) she would come back. She did. I got her again, and then she flew away again while I was trying to get her back into the cage without hurting her. We did not know whether she had been with the package long enough for them to accept her or not. It was the first time I tried to pick up a queen by the wings & I didn't have a good enough grasp. We saw her flying around, but I was unable to pick her up again, before we saw her wing up into the trees.
The 2nd package had 2 queens - the marked one, in her cage, and an unmarked one loose with the package bees - definitely a queen, looked just like the other queens, but without a green dot. Long, slender, shiny body, colored like the queen, and almost 2x as large as the bees. No drone eyes on her.
I caught the unmarked queen and dumped her into Hive A after the marked queen had flown off. I am thinking she may be a virgin queen though, caught when they were shaking out bees for package? We were not sure what to do, but figured if we left her in hive B, she would kill the caged queen, or the bees would accept her and kill the caged queen when they got her out. We didn't know if we would ever see the marked lost queen again - still don't.
We closed up the other hives, but left Hive A open, in case the marked queen might come back. When she flew off, no other bees seemed to go after her. Most of them were still in the package. We think we saw her trying to get in to one of the other hives thru the bottom screen board. (We took the bottom cardboard's out to give more ventilation for tonight, because we have the entrances blocked.)
Will she come back? What should we do?
Leaving it open for a while is a good idea. After an hour or so you're not accomplishing anything though. Ten minutes will probably do. She will or she won't Check back and if the bees have moved next door they were queenless...
It's fortunate that you got more than one package to start with. You will most likely either end up with 2 hives or one strong one, so it might not be what you planned, but it's all good. Get those shipping boxes out of there though or they might start to build bad comb inside of or onto them. Packages build comb really fast for a few days but then slow down - you don't want that to go to waste.
Thanks :) The top cover was off for somewhere between 1/2 hour and an hour, then the bees started drying off and lots started coming out so we put the top cover on for the night. We left the entrance on that hive unplugged for the night so they & hopefully the marked queen could come back home before dark.
That hive still does not sound the same as the others. Higher pitch, like unhappy, slightly minor key. Sounds like a lot more active in there.
If they all drift, then the others will be stronger & we have an empty hive if needed.
Thanks for the info on not losing the package building burst!
Like a lot, I didn't know that. We will hop to pulling those boxes & entrance plugs on the others!