Hiving bees in the rain

[doodlemaier]

The girls arrived in the mail this morning. The non-stop rain started yesterday morning and it looks like it's going to be like this for the rest of the week. Do I just muddle through the hiving process and keep 'em as dry as possible

Comments

[heinleinfan]

My husband and I waited 4 days after installing our bees to check it, and that check was only for a quick peek to make sure the queen was out of her cage, she was so we removed the cage, stuck in the last frame, and closed it up. Then, a week after that quick check is when we did an actual inspection to see if she was still alive and laying eggs.

As mentioned, we did do the thing where we left out a frame, to have room for the hanging queen cage; that queen cage had a hard cork stopper that we pulled out and then we stuffed a marshmallow in the hole. That gives the bees a little more time to become adjusted to the queen as they eat through the marshmallow. Some package bees actually have a sugar candy stopper instead of cork there, and in that case you could just get a nail or pin and poke a hole through it, to encourage the bees to keep widening that hole to release the queen.

Our beekeeping club recommended not leaving the bees in the package any longer than 4 days after we'd received them, with the knowledge they had already been in transit for 2 or 3, because the sugar water can with them only lasts about a week, then they would starve. And they said if we could not install the day we had them delivered, to keep them in a cool, dry, dark place for that 2 or 3 days we had to wait.

As for the rain, yeah, my first thought would be that you do not want to open a hive in the rain, unless you had some way to cover the top, I don't think the bees would mind too much, we actually had a squirt bottle of sugar water to spray them with to keep them non-flying during the install, but too much moisture in a hive can cause problems.

Would someone be available to maybe hold an umbrella over it or could you rig up a tarp or anything? I would just think you'd want to avoid as much actual water/rain getting into there as possible, especially if it's going to keep being rainy for the next few days, so there won't be mold or mildew developign in the hive, or any water damage to the inside of your hive.

It probably wouldn't be a problem to open it up in the rain for a quick peek, but when my husband and I did our install, it took quite a bit of shaking with the hive open to get as many of the bees out of that box as possible.. It was about 30 minutes with the top off the hive and us taking turns shaking that box!

That's my thoughts, but I'm no expert, my husband and I are just on our second year (the ladies made it through a Colorado winter, yay!) but that's our experience, hope it helps.

Good luck to you and your ladies!!

[doodlemaier]

You're two years ahead of me that's commendable experience. Congrats on getting them through the winter, especially up there! That's encouraging. My bees shipped from KY on Friday so they've been in the crate for four days, now. Tomorrow will be the 5th and I have to install them no later than tomorrow, regardless. Every time the rain let's up I gather together everything I need only to have it start right back up again.

I think I'm going to wait until tomorrow afternoon then remove half of the frames, take the lid off the crate of bees and place the whole crate down inside the hive and then hang the queen cage, put the hive-top on, close it all up and come back on Saturday. That way I'm limiting the exposure as much as possible, even though the forecast promises rain straight through to Sunday. Jane, who took my order for the bees at Kelley's did mention a candy plug behind the cork for the queen cage. Again, congratulations and thanks for your encouragement!