The undeniable SweeTart™ smell of Russian Olive trees perfumes the air of early summer.

It's message? It's time to super! Beekeepers, your job is to help your honeybees take advantage of the nectar flow, or what I like to call the "wax flow." For us top bar beekeepers, that means removing the follower board/false back if you haven't already and inserting bars. Warré beekeepers, whether you super or nadir, do it now so your bees can draw out lots of wax honeycombs. Here comes the honey!

Already forming tiny buds and the tell tale tongue (bract), the Linden trees will take all the moisture we've been getting and develop huge canopies of award-winning honey-producing blossoms, hail notwithstanding. It's been a tough June so far, and we have a long way to go before severe weather season is behind us. But stay positive and get your supers on today!

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A post shared by My brain runs on Bees. (@backyardbee) on Jun 11, 2019 at 10:43am PDT

Unseasonably warm. Consider feeding your bees.

Warmest, driest February for you, too? March is when most colonies starve to death. Now, rather than asking if your bees have enough honey in their hive, ask yourself is it where they need it? There's brood in the hive now, and when the weather turns winter-like again the bees will not risk the brood getting chilled. They will not leave to get food. If they are not in direct contact with food, then isolation starvation can happen in as little as 72 hours. Take advantage of this warm weather to rearrange things in your hive. In other words, move combs of honey from the back of your top bar hive right to the edge of the cluster.

You may also be interested in The List.

Unseasonably warm. Consider feeding your #bees. 🐝 #Honeybees are more active than they should be and little is in bloom. The nectary of #JupitersBeard is too deep for them but some pollen is offered freely.

A photo posted by My brain runs on Bees. And 🍫🍫 (@backyardbee) on Nov 10, 2016 at 10:26am PST

[Originally published on 11/10/16.] Did you leave enough honey in the hive to account for record warmth in October AND November? This week would be good timing to make and insert candy for your bees.

EPIC Linden Bloom

Are your supers on? This year's linden bloom is the biggest I've ever seen in the 20 years we've lived in Colorado. The air is so thick with the smell of EASY-OFF® — the hubz says they smell like oven cleaner and for once I'm not arguing  — it's difficult to breath!

Miller moth foraging on #linden tree blossoms, a terrific nectar source for #pollinators. #tilia

A photo posted by BBHB (@backyardbee) on Jul 13, 2015 at 7:23pm PDT

Are your supers on? The honey… err… WAX flow is on!

May is our rainiest month and this one did not disappoint. Thursday's hail storm took out quite a bit of the Honey Locust bloom, but I can already smell the SweeTarts® aroma of Russian Olives in the air. Your "supers" should be on so that the bees can take advantage of the nectar flow to draw comb. For us top bar beekeepers, now is the time to remove the follower board/false back if you haven't already and insert new bars. Warré beekeepers, whether you super or nadir, do it now. Here comes the honey!

Linden trees are the host plant for eriophyid mites, evidenced by leaf galls (red protrusion at left). 

Already forming tiny buds and the tell tale tongue (bract), the Linden trees will need all of June to develop huge canopies of award-winning honey-producing blossoms. All the while, yellow sweet clover will sweep across undeveloped fields. This is your window of opportunity to get your bees to draw comb. Don't miss out. Get your supers on today!

My Colorado Bloom Calendar

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Your might also be interested in Foraging linden: which parts are edible, and how to use them?

Winter Candy Board for a Warré Hive

The one thing I like about a vertical hive system is the options it gives you, but "options" means additional equipment which can present a storage space problem. If you're someone who appreciates buying something when it's on sale, with a coupon, using a card that gives cash back then you'll like this piece of equipment.

In the summer, I use a 3/4" wood rim as an Imirie shim. In the Fall, I attach 1/2-inch hardware cloth to it and use it as a comb-crushing screen for strained honey. Today this piece of equipment is being converted into a Winter Candy Board. The candy will be placed above the super (under the quilt), to provide emergency food should the bees eat all their honey. My preference is to have the hive winterized (i.e.: stocked with emergency food and wrapped) by Halloween, but a candy board like this can be slipped into the hive very quickly any time during the Winter.

No-cook Candy Board

No-Cook Candy Recipe: combine 3# sugar, 1/4 cup mineral salt (optional), 6 T. cold water, and 1/2 t. vinegar (optional). You may also add a few drops of anise essential oil to stimulate the bees' appetite.

If the cluster has moved to the top of the hive, the sugar provides both insulation and moisture wicking directly above the cluster. These properties play as big a role in the bees' Winter survival as food stores. The 3/8" hole on the side of the rim provides a very small amount of ventilation and is (technically) big enough for the bees to use as an exit/entrance if necessary. It'll take only one dead bee to clog that size hole so if you're looking to provide your bees with an upper entrance, you might want to drill a couple-a-few (as they say in CO) holes for them.

Preparing the Hives for Winter

File Photo: Blue Orchard Bee Cocoons.
Learn more about the BOB life cycle at Crown Bees.

The Mason Bees
We harvested the cocoons in June a little earlier than normal, because A) it was extraordinarily hot already and B) I was seeing chalcid wasps. After last year's losses to the parasite, I felt the need to protect the cocoons by bringing them inside the house. There the bees could continue to metamorphose safely. After a couple of months at room temperature, I put them in the dorm fridge to put them in diapause. I check the cotton ball in their little container periodically, to make sure the cocoons don't get dessicated.

The Top Bar Hive

The little TBH is still sitting over at Marty's house. He was glad to learn that we found a host site for our beehives just a bit north of us and said that the nectar sources in the area, especially sunflowers, would be good. He's just waiting for our call to say, "We're ready for our bees." I have yet to actually talk to the host and hostess, let alone see the site, though, so it's going to be just a tad bit longer before we reclaim the TBH. (My next venom shots – my 58th, 59th and 60th shots – start the Maintenance Phase of my immunotherapy, when it'll be less likely that a bee sting can kill me. That's pretty much what's been the cause of the delay.)

Late-Season Management: Combining Two Warré Colonies

First, a quick update on the TBH: after the deadout, it was restocked with a package and a Carniolan queen this Spring. The hive is about 3/4 full, and forage in the Boulder area continues to be "superb." The hive will be moved back, however, closer to home to overwinter. Can't wait to see her again!

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Here's the skinny on the Warré hive. After four swarms, the parent colony (AKA Remainder) dwindled and dwindled until it was apparent that there was a problem. Traffic was decreasing, not increasing, and comb construction in their second box was slow at best. (Gotta love them windows.) We had hoped Remainder's new queen was as well-mated as the one in Swarm #4, but it turns out that she was short-bred and is now a drone layer.

The one good thing to this is that the bees, having little brood to care for, have been able to focus on honey production. While their numbers are not great, they managed to fill several combs with honey. Rather convenient for her daughter hives.

File Photo: Honeybee on marigold taken with a Canon 20D, EF-S 18-55 f3.5-5.6 lens and Cokin 3X filter.

The prime swarm is doing great, due to the fact that it is headed by a queen that is in her second year. She shares genetics with the Ole School Survivor queen that we got from Grampa's Gourmet last year, and she lays honey-producers. It's the 2nd, 3rd and 4th swarms that are in predicaments. This is not unexpected, as an afterswarm typically issues while the daughter queen is still a virgin and it takes a good 2 weeks for her to mature, mate, and really get to laying eggs. And all the while worker bees are dying off.

The Beekeeper's Calendar: Late-Season Management

This is the time of year to think of supering for the fall flow, of requeening, and of combining weak colonies. Perhaps you do not actually do all of these things in early August, but you do think of them and begin to observe and plan. — excerpt from Hive Management: A Seasonal Guide for Beekeepers by Richard E. Bonney

Swarms 2&3

Swarms #2&3 were hived on May 29&30. The bottom box was baited with a ladder on 16 Jun. As of 9 July, the box is maybe half-built. This late in the Summer, we must say this is a weak colony.

The main nectar flow is over with just a few young Lindens still blooming. It's late Summer and today we are assessing our colonies. Our hivesitter JB has had a busy year with a full backyard apiary and a couple of outyards. Here's the situation where our hive (called "Remainder") resides:

Fixing Crooked Combs in a TBH

Today's post is in response to a search term that people are using to land here, hence the new label "because you asked." I confess, it's a compilation of experience and some information and images found on the 'net. But if there's one thing I learned from teaching, it's that people just love love it when you share with them the tips and tricks that work. (That, and that half the class will only hear 50% of what you said, whether you're mic'd up like Madonna or not.) So rest assured, I'm sharing good info with you. But before we get to Fixing Crooked Combs in a Top Bar Hive, let's start with some prevention.

Straight Combs Beget Straight Combs
Bees are pretty adamant about maintaining bee space, so the shape of one comb almost always conforms to the one before it. If you can get them started on a straight path, you'll really set yourself up for success with a TBH. To encourage the bees to build straight combs to start, I recommend using a follower board (AKA false back). When you restrict the bees' construction with a follower board, they are more likely to build straight combs. But don't cramp them, lest it encourage them to swarm. Make sure they always have 3ish top bars to build on, and monitor closely. Three bars is plenty of room for them to get creative, 2 bars less so and with 4 you're gambling. But give them what works for you. If you're nearby and can keep feeding in top bars, go with 2. If it's a bit of a drive to get to your hive(s) and you can't visit often, give them 4. Commonly the bees will curve just one end of the comb, increasing in likelihood with the length of your top bar. In other words, 19-inch top bars are more likely to have curved combs than 14-inch top bars. You can cut it off (it's usually honey, so enjoy it) and hope they do better next time, or you can cut the curved part free from the top bar and push it gently in line. It'll be a sticky mess, but the bees will reattach it.

When you have two properly spaced, straight combs, all you have to do is put one blank top bar b/n the two and you're golden. The bees will construct a new comb between them that will be straight. Repeat until the hive is full of straight combs. NOTE: Brood combs are the easiest to get the bees to build straight. Don't open the brood nest, though, unless you know the colony can keep an expanded nest warm. If you don't think the colony can manage that, then the next best place is where the brood nest meets the honey stores. This can work well, in the Spring or early Summer, to stretch the brood nest.

Crooked Combs Beget Crooked Combs
If you've got crooked combs, you've got two choices. Some comb can be "fixed" but others you just have to get rid of. It's important because once the bees go off-course, each subsequent comb is worse than the last. If you see it starting, nip it in the bud! If it's too late, bite the bullet and remove any comb you can't fix. (You'll be happy to have the bait comb when you're setting up swarm traps.) Fixing comb is Best done when the comb is fairly new, but not completely white... about 2 or 3 weeks old... Cut the comb next to the top-bar with a knife, push to straighten and pinch the comb onto the bar. Don't try to do more that 25 - 30% if [sic] the comb width at a time or it can all fail. It's best done when combs are light. Don't feed the bees for at least a week after the straightening. They have a habit of storing the syrup in the weak comb, which will collapse. Hope that helps! Bentham Bees

What To Do with Catawampus or Crossed Comb
Heavy honey comb should just be harvested.

If you have a bunch of straight combs built diagonally across several top bars (crossed comb), use a long knife (like a bread knife) to cut as much brace comb as possible, then do your best to lift all the top bars across which the combs cross, together. The goal is to keep the combs in tact so as to avoid a disastrous mess in the hive. Once out, cut the combs off as best you can, trim off the honey band, then have the bees reattach the combs to top bars for you. The image below (left) is a fast and secure way to hold the comb in place while the bees do this work. It's a viable route for those of us who don't have a table saw but do have access to a hardware store. Hardware cloth is way better than fiddling with string or rubber bands, which always slice into the combs, which never quite hang plumb. Rather than staples, I recommend using twist-ties to secure the wire cloth to the top bar (enables quick tool-free removal later). You will want to remove the wire cloth as soon as the bees have completed the reattachment. If you let the bees embed the wire cloth into the honey band, you'll have a sticky mess to deal with. Weather patterns, nectar flow, the size of your colony,… will all influence how quickly the work will be done. But you may be surprised how much progress they make in just a few days.

If you have the tools to split a top-bar, you can fashion a skirt-hanger type top bar like the image below (right) and rehang combs that way. Works with both tough brood comb and newer combs (as long as there's no honey getting squished).

If you take either route, drop me a line and let me know how it goes.

LEFT IMAGE: David LaFerney's "Simple Way" to tie in comb.
RIGHT IMAGE: Garret's "Split Bar" is a follower board of sorts, for fixing crossed comb.

Frame User? A Bee Rescue Cut-Out Tip from Instagram

The most cost effective and time effective way we frame #honeycomb from our rescues. We also put them in the transport box upside down, so by the time they get a permanent home, the #comb is right side up and attached to the top.

A photo posted by Bee Man Dan (@bee_man_dan) on Sep 9, 2016 at 11:07pm PDT

File Photo: Blue Pollen

It's always exciting to see the bees out flying in March, especially when they are returning with pollen. It means that the queen must've survived Winter and the colony is rearing brood. It does not, however, mean that the colony made it through Winter, so don't breathe a sigh of relief just yet.

Generally a colony will not rear more brood than it can cover, but bees are reactionary, not predictive. They raise brood in response to incoming pollen. They don't know that March is our snowiest month. It is a precarious time for the colony.

Both our colonies are bringing in pollen, so the focus of our hive management moves from providing just the right amount of ventilation, to keeping them warm. At this time of year, the top-bar hive in the greenhouse has a slight advantage over the Warré hive in the garden.

BTW, the Warré will continue to receive pollen sub but no more fondant. We want the colony to eat its honey stores to make room for all the egg laying we're pushing for. The TBH, conveniently still supered, is getting fed extra bits of comb honey yielded when we culled the old 2009 combs. The bees are going up and cleaning up, and they're even eating the old shiny pollen out of it.

everything's nice 'n' neat

It may look like everything's nice 'n' neat and in order but it was anything but. The smoker was out of fuel, I beheaded 3 bees, and I really MUST learn to stop blocking my own way out of the greenhouse.

The plan was to do a quick Spring Cleaning (even though it's Late Winter); take the old combs from the front and replace them with some honey from the back. It's kind of early for this manipulation, but with a 60°F forecast (even warmer in the greenhouse), I figured even if I was only partially successful, I'd at least have pulled some old combs out, which would be good in case I never finish. The way this colony is behaving, I think it's going to be booming before you know it. I would rather they didn't swarm, so I started from the back, and the first thing that happened was

Supering a Top Bar Hive

The bees were beginning to beard, which means A) they're hot and/or B) they're crowded. Hot is a given. Looking in the window, crowded is a given.

I hadn't really thought about it when I bought the Survivor stock, being interested in that particular aspect only, but these bees came from a guy who sells honey for a living. So of course these bees are honey producers. In the State of the Hive picture you can see all the honey combs, braced to the window.

The bees haven't constructed any swarm cells, that we can see, and we don't want them to feel crowded lest they start thinking about it. It's been way too hot to harvest honey though, and the forecast isn't conducive to waiting, so we decided to super the TBH. 

Swarm Prevention Measures (cont'd)

"The loss of egg-laying capacity is one of the great stimulators for the colony to swarm. It is important for the beekeeper to take corrective action to prevent a honey-bound colony from swarming." – The Peace Bee Farmer

Top Bar Hive management sometimes requires frequent honey harvests, especially smaller hives like ours. Our colony, however, is so brood-heavy they are using nectar as fast as it's coming in. We're pretty sure they're building up to swarm, and there isn't much honey at all. We pulled a comb that should've been full of honey but not only did it have brood on it, there were 2 queen cups, too. We're up to 9, at the very least. We're probably past the point of preventing a swarm at this point, but we're still hopeful.

For one thing, the shortage of honey could be good. Bees are not supposed to swarm unless there's enough stores for those left behind to get by on for a bit. When a colony swarms, many of the foragers leave (with their stomachs full of honey) and the nurse bees left behind to tend the developing brood aren't able to collect nectar themselves. They won't be of age to forage until their replacements emerge, so they need a stocked pantry. The bees know this, so (in theory) will only swarm if they're leaving behind an adequately provisioned hive and there's a nectar flow on, to ensure survival of both halves. I wonder if they know the Lindens, a favorite food source, are about to bloom.

Can you see the queen cups?

After harvesting honey, advice from the Natural Beekeeping Network is to split the hive, which means ending up with two hives in the Backyard. This is NOT an option. (We could also give some away, but that involves thinking and coordinating, strangers in the Backyard, and I'm not into that right now.)

With the discovery of more queen cups, we're a bit nervous. Even though another blogging beekeeper says, "Adding another box to a strong colony will not stop swarming," we gave them the Warré box to move into. They're supposed to put only honey in the super, but without a queen excluder it's possible that they will expand the broodnest upwards (yikes). Whatever they decide is up to them. All we know is that we have GOT to relieve congestion.

Immediately after supering, the main box looked less congested, so it appears that they are aware of the new space and did move up. If this works, they'll stick around as one huge colony and we'll have a bumper crop of honey easily harvested by simply pulling the super off. If it doesn't work, they'll swarm and we'll be lucky to have enough honey to pull them through another Winter.

Swarm Prevention Measures

One goal of prevention measures is to remove any perception of crowding. You can do this by taking stuff out, or by putting space in.

Construction of new com inhibits swarming, so early measures for us included giving them busy work (and ultimately more room to store honey). We gave them a top bar with a bit of old comb, properly centered, to work with. However, after buttoning up the hive, we looked in the window and they still looked crowded. The space we'd just made was immediately filled with bees.

This is what they built in just 5 days. Isn't it beautiful? Unfortunately, the comb is not centered on the top bar despite the start we gave them.

Here is comb #14. It used to be a fat honeycomb. 

The next swarm prevention measure we had planned was to make sure the bees were not honeybound by removing any old honey abutting the brood nest. We were a bit surprised to find the one we'd earmarked had been converted to brood. (Did we not move them forward enough? The brood nest is really expanding toward the back of the hive.) Anyway, we stuck to the plan and removed it. It had lots of drone cells, which gave us our first opportunity to drone cull. 

Marty Hardison is a strong proponent of drone culling, recommending that all drone pupae be removed up to 3 times a year. In the image below, you can see a varroa mite on a larva that was about to be capped, the foundress' preferred timing. By some statistics, 80% of varroa in a colony are under the caps. In other words, each mite you see roaming around represents 5 in the hive!

The flat caps on the left are worker bees, and the bumpy caps on the right are drones.

Varroa mites prefer drones because they take longer to develop. The mites have more time under the protection of the cap to reproduce. In a worker bee cell, 1 mite becomes 8 but in a drone cell 1 mite has the potential to become 27!

It helps to have something pointy to scratch open the cap and remove the pupa. Don't try to pull out larvae; they disintegrate.

There are 4 females and 1 male varroa (small white one on his left eye) on this pupa. By culling this drone alone, we've reduced the load on the colony by 108 varroa in the next brood cycle and 2,916 in the next!

While it was difficult to kill so many developing bees, all but one of the dozen or so pupae we examined had a rider on it. This was a good comb to pull out of the hive. (We put in under the bird feeder but the birds weren't interested. The squirrels, however, loved it.) We doubt that we'll ever be as comfortable with the prcedure as Marty, but we now fully realize the prevention value of drone culling and won't be so squeemish about when it's time to do it again.

So, we've done both "take stuff out" and "put space in." We're up to 3 queen cups now, so hopefully our swarm prevention measures will be effective. Meanwhile, we have the varroa mite problem to deal with... 

Ahead of the Curve

2010 Spring Cleaning = 12 lbs. of Honey

A year ago today, we were installing our package bees. It's amazing how far ahead of the curve we are in this beekeeping season, having successfully overwintered a colony. Instead of feeding and keeping our fingers crossed that our 10,000 bees won't fly away, our queen has been laying eggs for weeks, if not months, and we already have what looks like thrice that many bees. Additionally, our colony benefited from having their hive inside a greenhouse. The few degrees of extra warmth enabled the queen to lay earlier than in a hive left out in the elements, which explains the incredible Spring build-up we're seeing. With a strong force already out foraging and returning to feed lots of developing brood, our worries this year turn to swarm prevention. Removing surplus honey was just the first step. Here's what else we did to Spring Clean.

Spring Inspection & Early Swarm Prevention
Click to start/stop the slideshow.

spring cleaning

The To-Do List:
1) remove entrance reducer: allows free-flying now that it's warm and nectar is flowing
2) look for queen cups: potentially a sign of swarm preparations
3) look for drones: they won't swarm without 'em
4) old combs out: good housekeeping (and an opportunity to Sugar Roll 'em)
5) move brood forward = reversing hive bodies

What's reversing hive bodies, you ask? It's a maneuver Langstroth beekeepers do in the Spring to get their bees to the bottom of their stack. Over the Winter, bees eat/move through the honey (up in a lang stack) and then they don't like to leave the nice clean combs. If they get to the very top of the stack, they might feel that the house is too small and start swarm preparations. So Lang keepers switch the (empty) bottom and (full) top hive bodies and their bees are set for the year ahead (sort of).

In a horizontal hive, the bees move backwards. They leave empty combs in the front, and if you time it right you can pull out combs that are dark or misshapen while still broodless. Then you push the nest area forward, give 'em fresh bars in the back, and the bees can start their annual migration anew. Nobody swarms and everybody's happy.

State of the Hive

A 1-year-old queen, crowding and a strong nectar flow are a recipe for swarming. The only thing we're missing is drones.

When the first nectar flow begins, the bees start to think differently about their stored honey. It's been key to their Winter survival, but now that the colony has changed focus to Spring buildup, all that honey is just in their way. It's finally time to harvest!

We'd planned on harvesting on the Equinox, but instead found ourselves waiting for 8" of snow to melt. In Colorado fashion, it only took 24hrs, and then conditions were perfect: a clear 55°F day. Working inside a greenhouse we didn't have to wait for a windless day but, since the trees have yet to leaf out, it was almost too warm. 75°F feels very warm when you're wearing a bee-veil.

This was our first time harvesting from a live colony, so it was little nerve-wracking. The combs had bees all over them, and trying to brush them off just agitated them. Misting them didn't make them any less flighty. Knocking a bar to get them to drop off resulted in a honeycomb breaking off. Luckily there was no domino effect, but you should have heard the roar!

In the end, we decided to just lift the combs out, bees and all, and leave the box of harvested combs several yards away, in the shade for awhile. We watched the bees fill their stomachs with honey and within a half hour or so, they'd pretty much all flown home, drawn to the scent of their fanning sisters. Without any pushing, it was a LOT less stressful for everyone.

Perhaps too young to fly, a small cluster of bees formed on this comb while it was still in the shade.

This comb was fairly close to the Winter cluster and much of the honey was eaten out of it. We noticed that rather than working their way through entire combs, small sections of honey were eaten from all the combs. The east (right) side seems to be their preference for all activity.

We harvested 6 honeycombs – leaving the one closest to the brood for upcoming wintery weather - and are crush-and-straining them in a special honey bucket. Hopefully the bees'll eat their way through their last comb and fill it with brood. We'd like for them to move "backwards" so we can pull out some of the old combs toward the front of the hive. Next month, we're "supposed" to cull old, dark combs. We have a few from 2008 and, although pulling combs with bees in them would reduce the possibility of overcrowding, it would be nice if they were broodless.

Meanwhile, they have 3 fresh top bars in the honey area, so the new bees that are of wax-producing age have something to work on, building new combs in which to put fresh nectar. The flow from the Silver Maples was cut short by the last snow storm, but dandelions are coming on - that's major. In theory, with new space to fill as they please, any intentions of swarming this year will be prevented.

Comb Management

A few posts back, I mentioned that the honey combs were going off-course and that a comb management system had to be put in place. The plan was to keep opening up space between the straightest combs and to put fresh top bars in-between. The construction on the blank bars would be restricted to the space b/n existing combs, and therefor new comb wonkiness would be mitigated.

The only remaining problem would be the falseback. I think it should be designed to mimic the face of another comb. Since it's more like a piece of foundation, the bees have ample room to make a nice fat comb next to it, before beespace becomes tight.

Fat combs hold more honey - no complaints there - but the falseback is so close to the actual back of the hive, we barely have room to get our fingers in to work the hive. If the girls put up honey right up to it, it could get really messy in the Spring when we do our first inspection. To prevent that, we decided to put a finished (i.e.: already capped and not being expanded) comb there.

mid-summer inspection

Update 9/1:  tapping on the top bars, the blank ones still give a hollow sound. We'll give them 'til the end of the Fall flow – according to my allergies there's a lot of something blooming out there – to build and fill a comb there. If they don't make significant progress, the bar will have to be pulled out to reduce air space that needs to be kept warm through the Winter.

Eventhough the Farmers Almanac says it's an El Nino year, we're not too worried about breaking the propolis seal or cold drafts. BackyardHive.com says the latest to move the false back into position is Halloween. And besides, the greenhouse will keep them safe.

Secret Installation

A normal package install goes something like this:
1) take the feeding can out
2) hang the queen cage in the hive
3) knock the box on the ground, hard, then shake and pour the bees into the hive.

The problem with this method is that you end up with a cloud of confused bees, and new beekeepers are going to want to wear protective gear. Not exactly clandestine.

We are still keeping our bees a secret so we decided on a walk-away install:
1) same as above
2) same as above
3) No roughing up the bees. Just leave the package on top (like a super) so they can walk in on their own.

Well, the best laid plans...

Installing the Package

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Installation - Part II

No peeking inside for a week!

What to do after installing a Package	Feed as long as comb needs to be built.
Week 1	Leave them alone.
Week 2	Release the Queen if the bees didn't free her.
Week 3	Look for eggs and larvae. Move the falseback to stay ahead of the bees but keep 'em tight and building straight.
Weeks 4 and 5	Look for capped brood. Look for supercedure cells.
Week 6 through 8	Keep moving the falseback as necessary.
Continue to feed as long as the bees will take it.	Make sure they always have 2-4 bars to build on.