My Bees Arrive

The bees arrived today at Dadant in Watertown. Randy Schade picked them up for me, came over, and showed me and Barak how to put them in our hive. He sprayed them with sugar water to make them docile and then dropped them onto the bottom brood box. We then enjoyed a beer and he had to leave to populate more hives. Jeff Grode and his sons were there to take pictures and we all stayed around the hive till the bees moved into the box. I put the bottom part of the hive together and left them to make their new home. I'll check back regularly to make sure they have enough sugar water in their feeder, and to see how they are settling in their home. I'll check the top brood box to see how many panels they are occupying. Once they hit six or seven panels, I put the supers on top of the hive separated with the excluder.