Last Saturday I was able to bring my bee packages home from Knight’s Honey.  They used Bee-Bus packages this year which are made from recycled bags.  They are very cool and you simply recycle them when you are done.

Here is a video of me loading the hives with the bees.  I installed two 3 lb packages of bees into my hives.  This video is the second hive I loaded.  Some have asked if I had any hand protection. I did not.  I read some posts that said when loading the hives the bees are typically not aggressive so it is good to be able to feel what you are doing.  I did get one sting on the hand during my first hive, but it was a quick sting and not painful.  Overall, I thought I would be more nervous but I was actually very calm and it was a very cool experience.

After installing the hives I wanted to add stands underneath the hives so I went out with my son Porter late at night and taped up all the exits and then mounted them on the bee stand (seen below). I was nervous about that experience since we were lifting the whole hive and I didn’t want to scare the bees away, but we did a good job and we never even saw one bee.  It worked awesome.  Here is a picture of our beehives on the stands.

Being six days in, it appears my bees have taken to their hives.  I will inspect them using smoke tomorrow afternoon to make sure the queens are out and laying eggs.  This is going to be a lot of fun. I will take a video checking the bees and using the smoker tomorrow.