Packaged Bee mistake (?)

Beekeeping - Basics
1

OK…this is my story, I bought one FlowHive during the crowd funding stage and another which was on offer because I bought the first one. They have been in storage for nearly 3 years - all in anticipation of our tree change…now that we have started our tree change I went ahead and bought 2 packages of Bee. I picked them up this morning and did a transfer before the sun went down…but here is my mistake…I did not put in the queen excluder sheet between the brood box and the Super…What are the consequences? Should I wait a few day and fix my mistake?..silly error based on excitement. Thanks,
Olivier

2

Hi Olivier,

The super should be left off until the bees have built out the brood box. You should take off that top box & shake any bees back down into the brood.

I’ve never bought packages, but others on here will have good advice on whether you need to feed them or not.

Good luck with your bees :smile:

Cheers,

Julia

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3

Yes - Julia is correct; too much room for them with the Flow super in place. I’d probably take the roof off, smoke the top of the Flow frames and then carefully remove each frame one by one and shake all the bees off each one as you go (by doing this you should avoid accidentally removing the queen from the hive), making sure they are falling into the brood box- not on the ground.

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4

Have a good look here
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespackages.htm

Everybody else is right too.
The flow super doesn’t go on till you have every frame drawn in the brood box and every frame filled with brood and stores.
If you know nothing about package bees then reading michaels page is imperative
Good luck

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5

Packages need feeding for a while till they get themselves organised. Like the others have already said, take the super off and let them get their new hive going. Also close your entrance by half, easier for them to defend, keep the bottom board closed and put some flywire over the hole in the inner cover, you don’t want them building in the roof cavity.

Cheers
Rob.

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6

Thanks Rob…Teo the bees are being Feed via an in Hive feeder. Will go going back to them this late afternoon to check on them. Appreciate the advice.
Regards,
Olivier

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7

Thanks Dee…will read the info you mentioned. Regards,
Olivier

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Thanks Dan2…will check in on them this afternoon, my wife checked them last night and there was a lot of activity. Amazing what bees do to a places ambience.

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9

Before o I go and disturbed them, what would be the negative consequence of leaving them without the excluder?

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If you are using a flow box you absolutely need a QE. If the queen lays in the flow frames the cocoons will bind the frames together so you can’t crack them. Fixing this is not nice.

Also, a package is fully occupied by a single box, adding a super above gives them lots more space to patrol and heat or cool. It takes a strong hive to handle supers! Get your package strong then put the super on.

Cheers
Rob.

11

As long as you remove the top boxes and flow frames as others above described- there will be no problem yet for you. Later on it would be a big problem if the queen started laying eggs in your flow frames.

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