Bees are in

Thanks to the help of Joe, Guy, and Sharon I was able to get the last three posts into the ground around the bees. As I was a dork last night and had to separate the two bee boxes, I was unable to put them into their hives because I had shaken them up too much. So I prepped everything and waiting until today.

I put the first colony in this morning. It was a nice overcast morning so I went outside at 6am and started to prep everything to put the bees in. I took out their feeder can and got the queen out. I took out the cork and filled the hole up with granulated honey. The dratted queen holder had a broken metal hanger so I had to squeeze two of the frames to make sure that it would stay close to the top of the hive. I then put as many of the bees in as I could and closed up the top. Lessons learned - purchase white turtlenecks because I had a bee crawl under the mesh and was crawling around on my neck and face. It didn't sting me but I would like to make sure that I don't end up with more bees crawling on my face while I work on them. I did get stung in the inner thigh though. So my lesson learned from that is: wear pants that don't have holes near the crotch and probably get some new pants... and also done kneel down and then come up and close your legs, it just grinds the poor bee between your thighs and you end up with a stung thigh. I was surprised at how little the sting hurt. I remember getting stung as a child and thinking it was the end of the world... it was probably because I got stung on my feet and because I wasn't expecting it. It probably hurt less because I knowingly went out to work on bees.

During the day I was able to see some bees get close to the house. It took them a bit, but they were all having fun with their new hive that it was not until near the end of the day before they came over to look around the house.

At night I put in the second colony. This one went a lot smoother but I did have trouble with the tape that held the queen container. It would simply not come off and thus it took me longer to get this queen out. I got her free and I took out the cork. The honey was a little runny, but I hope it worked out well and that the bees don't kill her. I'm pretty sure they will not because as soon as I put most of the been in and I put the frames back they all did their happy butt dance. What I mean by the happy butt dance is they designated this as their new home and they all raise their little butts in the air and start fanning their wings. That signals to all the other bees from their colony to go to that location. I'm assuming that they will not kill the queen as they usually do this when they have designated their new home and they do not have a new home without a queen.