This is a picture of what my beehive and feeding looks like today. I have added entrance feeder (thank you, Mr. Oakley!) and gave the bees the sugar water (one part sugar & one part water). I have also left the cans which came with the bee package for them to savor just outside the entrance. Also added few more bottles which I used to feed the feral bees before. All my feral bees seem to have disappeared after my new bees came in! I guess they understood that there is some one else in the house - I feel sorry for them, but they have eaten over 75 pouds of sugar in the last month (I buy 50 lb bags of sugar, the biggest package you can find from Costco or Sam's Club - costs $25, $0.50 a lb!). I would love to see how their hive looks like it must be pretty big. Even late into evening, the bees have come out to feed from these extra kept sugar feeds.
In spite of my training duing bee pick up, I have decided not to close out the entrance of the hive after installation. Even though advised to just use the entrance feeder, I am using feeder outside of the box to see how they respond. I have a good feeling that they would thrive and build the comb faster when there is more food to eat.
I am not sure if the wings are clipped on the queen I have. While at work, when I was pining to see my bees, and to make sense of everything, I feared that if the bees didn't like my hives, they might leave en masse with the queen, and my $180 for the bees have just lost by their elopement! I sincerely hope it won't happen, and I am visualizing that the lady bees are building combs like crazy on my Pierco black plastic comb starter frame before the queen gets free from her cage!
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