NUC Installation
Holy crap has it been busy! I have learned so much these last few weeks.
First let me start by saying, I put my hives out way to early and had to bring them in for a few weeks. When setting a new hive out you only need to set it out the morning of or the day before and tape the opening so no little critters move in 🤦♀️
Fast forward to the 29th of April. My hubby and I drove to Mann Lake in Clarkson Kentucky to pick up our first 2 NUCs. We brought them home, sat them on their hives and opened the entrance. We left them there for a few hours to orient themselves to their new location. While I waited hubby left me to play golf….Yes! Golf on bee day 😫😫😫 I also went and picked up our 3rd NUC from my mentor’s place. He had everyone in his bee class there practicing installation. After that it was back home with more bees!!!
That afternoon I suited up and began installation. I only did a cursory look for the Queens as not to irritate the bees too much. I encountered my first problem with Hive #2 which shall be called “Silent Hill” from this point forward… There were several swarm cells though I didn’t realize what they were at the time. I contacted a few bee friends and inquired and that is when I learned what they were and that I needed to knock them off. I went back into the hive and could only find 3 of the 4 I saw. I knocked them off, put the hive back together and went about my business. Everything was all good, or so I thought.
A few hours later my son was cooking dinner and I happened to look out the window to the back yard… To my surprise there were about 1000+ bees flying around the yard. Silent Hill had decided enough was enough and they had swarmed…. Luckily enough they landed on a dogwood branch in our back yard. I set up a swarm trap and we left them for the night. Sunday we woke up to see they had chosen not to move in to the amazing rent free residence we had left out 🤷♀️. It was at this point drastic measures were taken!
We pulled the swarm trap off the top ladder step. While hubby moved the ladder into place next to the tree trunk I laid out a sheet and set the swarm trap it the center. He tried shaking it a few times which just max the ladies mad more than anything. Next it was time to take down the limb. We did this easy enough and shook them right over the swarm trap. We were confident we had them so we walked away to let them calm. These jerk faces decided to regroup on the next branch over. Take 2…. We took down the second branch only this time we gently laid it in the trap, cut the limb down and we’re able to fit what was left fully into the box, we closed it up and waited for my mentor to come assist.
That evening with no time to spare before a huge storm rolled in, my mentor arrived and had the swarm resettled into their hive within minutes! Thank goodness for experienced beekeepers. We barely beat the rain but it ended up being a fairly successful and education filled weekend! First week update coming soon 🤪