Installed my Nucleus today! Thanks for everyone's help :-)

Beekeeping - Basics
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Thanks to @busso, @Valli, @adagna, @Dawn_SD, @Michael_Bush, @Martydallas, and even @jape for all of the sage advice. I am very happy to have my bees, I hope they live long and prosper.

My wife was kind enough to record the nuc install. The video is very boring in my opinion.

Everything went really well. There were quite a few small hive beetles (SHB) in the nuc box and even a dead wax moth. After transferring all of the frames I set the nuc box next the hive and after about 10 minutes the bees figured out how to get into the hive and after 20 minutes 80% of the bees left in the nuc box had moved into the hive. I can already tell I will be spending a lot of time sitting in front of the hive watching the bees.

Other things…

  1. I checked my oil tray before it got dark and there were already 10 SHB in it! (I guess it works!)
  2. My entrance reducer has 6 or 7 holes in it that are large enough for 1 bee. I initially reduced it down to 4 holes, but, I think that was too much as it caused a traffic jam.
  3. Within the 1st hour, the bees were already foraging quite a bit of pollen, I was very surprised.
  4. Watching the bees left behind in the nuc box figure out how to get into the hive was really neat. At first, I thought they would never figure it out, and eventually 1 bee figured it out. Then in a matter of about 5 minutes the entrance was covered with bees trying to get in.
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Very nice video, Lorne. Great technique, nice and gentle. Just one minor comment - there isn’t much point in smoking the remaining bees in the empty nuc box - their usual response to smoke is to go and gorge on honey. If you took the frames out of the box, they are going to have a hard time doing that. I guess there may be a bit of honey in the bottom of the box, but you can see what I mean. :wink:

Please thank and congratulate your wife, she did a great job. Oh, and I don’t think your video was boring at all! :smile:

Dawn

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That makes sense. I definitely smoked them more than necessaey. I think the smoke had a psychological calming effect on me. It helped me feel in control. As I get more comfortable around the bees I am sure I will be more judicious in my application of smoke.

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Great job n vid … Congrats to your great camera person/wife. She did awesome n got braver as the time went on especially that great in Nuc box footage ! You did great on the install. I have 3 Nuc’s coming mid April … Will your camera gal come up n do my vids too ! :grinning::video_camera::+1:. Guess I’ll do some extra n unneeded stuff too. Looking forward to some inspection vids as time goes on. Nice triple jar feeder. Where did you get that one ?

Keep on keeping on bro !
Gerald in WShington state.

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I used some plywood I had laying around and my scroll saw.