Sunday I went and picked up our second attempt at bees and as stated waited till Monday to put them in. Well, this was a mistake! Monday was rainy and chilly as a cold front moved in our way. Dan got home later than expected, so at 6pm we are out in the yard throwing all caution to the wind trying to get the bees into their new home. We didn't use any protective clothing, no smoke, and we didn't feed them first to calm them. Needless to say we both got a sting. Not too bad when considering how we put them in.
The bad part came with the shift of weather. I woke up at 4am Tuesday to an inch of snow! Oh no! Most of the bees hadn't had the time to make it into the hive (or figure out that they wanted to get into the hive) and here they are about half of them, cold, un-moving covered in snow. I got home at 2pm and scooped some back into the shipping container and brought them in. There were maybe a dozen moving. Low and behold within an hour 100 were moving. By this morning all but 100 were moving. Apparently bees are pretty resilient little buggers!
I put them back out today, not wanting to have them away from the queen any more than needed. Hopefully we do not loose them all!
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