# I picked up my bees today, a day earlier than planned.



## Terri (May 10, 2002)

A Youtube of installing a package of bees into a new hive, the youtube was NOT made by me: [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHflUXyTJ44&nohtml5=False[/ame]

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Every year a local gent picks up a load of bees in a warmer state to sell, and this year he arrived a day earlier than they had intended. This is because there was a warm front predicted in California, which is where he got the bees, and they were afraid the heat would affect the bees. Cecil left a day earlier and made a mad dash for Kansas! Meanwhile, his partner sent out e-mails, explained we could get them early if we chose to, and gave us the pick-up times. 

So, on Thursday Cecil got in after driving all day and spent the next 4 hours passing out bees. He must have been exhausted. They will also be handing out bees today and tomorrow morning, as originally planned. 

I got mine early this morning, and I noticed that fully half of the bees had already been handed out. Well, the sooner the bees are in their new homes the better, and there is no point in delaying. 

Cecil was telling folks to feed the bees immediately, and I could easily see why! Every package of bees is shipped with a container of syrup, and one of my packages had an empty container and the other was low. As a result my bees were restless and cranky! Now, it is easy to feed bees in a package-just put syrup on the screen and they will lick it up- but the day is chilly and I wanted them in the warm hive ASAP, so I decided to install them before I fed them. 

SO! My bees are in their new hives. The syrup is cooling on the stove and I will soon feed them. And, after they have had the new syrup for a bit I will shake the packages out a bit better and then remove the empty package(they were cranky so I did a too-fast job of it), check the queen cages, and I will be done for the day.

The bees have had the new queen for 2 days, now: according to the e-mail Cecil set out on the 6th. I think I will check on her tomorrow evening. I think she should be ready to be released by then. If you release a strange queen too soon the bees will regard her as a trespasser and they will kill her. And, the queen in a package *IS* a strange queen: one queen is simply placed in every package. 

The trick is to leave her in the little queen cage until she smells like the rest of the hive: then they will feed her and care for her and the hive will prosper.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

*"The trick is to leave her in the little queen cage until she smells like the rest of the hive: then they will feed her and care for her and the hive will prosper."*

The above is not a true statement. The queen has her own pheromone that the colony need to get use to not the other way around. 

 Al


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

alleyyooper said:


> *"The trick is to leave her in the little queen cage until she smells like the rest of the hive: then they will feed her and care for her and the hive will prosper."*
> 
> The above is not a true statement. The queen has her own pheromone that the colony need to get use to not the other way around.
> 
> Al


Oh, OK!


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