You might remember that we opened the hive a couple of months ago and found our large colony of bees had disappeared, except for a small cluster (and a queen) huddled near the front of the hive. We weren’t convinced they would survive, and they didn’t; I suppose it’s possible that they flew away in search of a better location, but mostly they perished. It’s been a wild spring, with a whiplash of temperatures, and neither the plants nor the insects seems to know how to behave these days.

Luckily, I had ordered a new colony from Mann Lake in Davis, and this past Saturday we took a long and rainy drive out to pick them up. Mann Lake is a huge, national operation, but we had never visited one of their stores before - it was a wonderland for beekeepers, with every possible piece of equipment on display. We picked up a few useful items like a new brush (used to brush the bees around softly when you’re elbow-deep in the hive) and some hop pellets for the smoker, but mostly we were there for the bees. We picked up a regular package of Italians, three pounds or so (which is about 3000 bees), with a queen and a can of sugar syrup to keep everyone satisfied while traveling.

It was raining when we got back home, and it’s ideal to install the bees late in the afternoon or just before dark anyway, so we put them aside while we did other chores. (It’s ideal to install a colony just before dark, so they aren’t tempted to fly away.) Earlier in the day I had spent some quality time cleaning out of the hive, scraping away a lot of the old wax and propolis, extracting some ants and washing away their tracks with mild, unscented, eco dish soap, and using some penafin on the hive legs, both to protect the wood and deter any ants who tried to climb up.

Finally, the raindrops slowed enough that Tom was able to install the colony. It always kills me that I can’t help with the bees anymore, but at least I can take pictures.

You can see that we’ve provided them with a jar of sugar syrup (1-to-1 ratio) since they don’t have any stored honey to eat and it’ll be a while before they can store anything they collect. There’s plenty of nectar and pollen available now that it’s getting warmer, but until they have some comb built, it won’t help them much.

Tom hung the queen in her cage between the bars; the opening to the cage is stuffed with a marshmallow-type candy, which the worker bees will eat. By the time they free her, they will be attuned to her pheromones and will not be tempted to slaughter her. Instead, a ‘hive mind’ will form, where all the bees are working as one. Honeybees are one of the few insects to do this; ants, wasps, and termites are the others. This is called ‘eusociality.’ It’s pretty fascinating.

I’ve been checking on the hive regularly and everyone seems to be doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing; that is, drinking the syrup, orienting themselves to the hive entrance, and hopefully (inside where I can’t see it) building comb. This coming weekend, Tom will go in the hive again to remove the empty queen cage and check that everything is going according to plan. Meanwhile, it’s great to have a buzzing hive back at Poppy Corners. I love native bees, but it just doesn’t seem like a real garden without the honeybees.