Installation (read previous post first)

It took 35 minutes to get home. I figured the back yard install would be easy, since I had done it before, but the porch would be the challenge. I did the back yard first. I had already put a sugar water feeder in its little stall. Sprayed the bees with sugar water - Jim Bobb says you can't overspray them as far as he knows. Got the queen out and she was alive, so far so good. This time, I melted some wax on the back of the queen box, after brushing off her outside entourage. It seemed to stick on the side of the hive ok. I thought this would be better than the duct tape I used last year.

Temperature was in the 70's so the bees were very active. I am reusing comb from the last hive so I moved it out of the way and removed some empty bars and dumped the bees in. I did manage to get the bars arranged properly without squooshing too many of them. Left the package on the ground in front of the hive and moved away - they really were all over the place, including around my head and landing on me occasionally.

Now it was time for the porch hive. First, I had to install the queen. I wasn't sure about the wax method, so I cut a little piece of wood and screwed it into the side of the hive horizontally. Then, I got her out of the package and used the wax. So far, so good (she was also alive).  I did remember to remove the right cork for both queens, and decided not to used Jim Bobb's technique. He leaves both corks in and goes in 4 days later to remove the cork that lets her out right away. He does this because he doesn't trust the bees to eat through the sugar plug and also because he doesn't mind going into the hive.

The biggest problem I could see was how to get the bees out of the porch after dumping them. I took out one storm window to give them an exit.  After the sugar water spray and thumping the box, I dumpted them. The package is the same size as the top bars so I just put the package in place upside down. However, they didn't seem in a rush to exit, so I had to find a place to put the package near the entrance and let them find their way. I meant to have a solution, but didn't. What I finally did was pretty hokey, but it worked.  A 20 ft extension ladder comes to just under the window sill. Since the package wasn't the right size to just sit on the top rungs, I wedged it under the sill - see photo. This worked.

Meanwhile, some of the bees were having trouble finding their way out of the porch. They persisted in trying to get out of the other storm windows. I guess that individually they're not that bright. I left this arrangement alone so the bees could get organized.

Here are some answers to questions I had:

• They found the feeders pretty quickly; I didn't know if they would. I'll watch to see if they try to seal the sliding plastic doors I have. They may if they think this is part of the hive.
• The packages were empty in an hour or so.
• The porch bees figured out the entrance pretty quickly although you could see that they examined them very closely - 5 in. tubes of PVC.
• The bees settled down in the hive towards night time. That left the dummies on the porch hanging around the storm windows. I finally put a screen in so the window wasn't totally open.
• When night came, the dummies settled quietly. I realized that I could brush them into a container and dump them in the hive. They're almost all gone from the porch. The cold damp weather today also helped because I could get most of the rest in day time. There were still bees at the feeder, though, so it looks like that idea will work.
• I did get stung twice - very minor.
• The observation window is a wonderful thing. I could see that today the bees were huddled together on the old comb keeping warm. I need to use a flashlight to see anything.
• Now the wait begins. Will the queens get out of the boxes, be accepted and start laying?  Bees will be dying and have to be replaced. It will be at least 3 weeks before any new ones appear. 6 weeks is the waiting period to see if the hives are functioning.           

I don't have any other photos for now.  There wasn't anything else to see that was really different from previous photos.