You have your hive assembled and painted. You have your veil and your smoker and a vague sense of impending doom mixed with wild excitement. And now, in your hands (or more likely, vibrating loudly in the back of your vehicle), you have a screened wooden box containing ten thousand bees and one very important queen.
Welcome to installation day.
Installing a package is not complicated. But it is strange. You are about to dump thousands of insects into an empty box and ask them to build a civilization before winter. The good news: they know exactly what to do. Your job is simply to not interfere too egregiously with their plans.
Let us proceed methodically.
Do not — and I cannot stress this enough — do not improvise package installation. Have everything ready before you crack that shipping container open.
You will need:
The best time to install: Late afternoon or early evening on a calm, warmish day (above 60°F if possible). You want the bees settling in for the night, not immediately taking flight to explore.
Remove four or five frames from the center of your hive box. You need space to dump the bees. You'll replace the frames later.
The bees have been traveling. They are confused, possibly irritated, definitely wondering what fresh hell this is. Your first job is to calm them.
Spray the screened sides of the package liberally with sugar syrup. Not a light misting — a proper soaking. The bees will immediately stop buzzing and start licking sugar water off themselves and each other. They are now distracted and cooperative.
This is the beekeeper's equivalent of giving a toddler a cookie before attempting something ambitious.
On top of the package, you'll find a small rectangular cage, about the size of your thumb, containing the queen and a few attendants. This cage is your most important piece of cargo.
Gently pry up the wooden cover of the package. The bees will start to boil out. Do not panic. Spray them again with syrup. They'll settle.
Locate the queen cage. It's usually wedged between the top of the package and a can of sugar syrup. Remove it carefully. If you drop it into the mass of bees below, you'll be fishing for it while bees crawl up your sleeves. Not ideal.
Inspect the queen through the screen of her cage. Is she alive? Moving? Good. You may proceed.
The queen cage has two ends. One is blocked with a cork or plastic plug. The other is sealed with white candy (fondant). You have a choice to make.
Indirect release (recommended for beginners): Remove the cork, exposing the candy plug. Place the cage between two frames, candy-end up, screen facing out so workers can attend to her. Over the next two to three days, the workers will eat through the candy and release the queen themselves.
This method allows the colony to accept her gradually. By the time she's free, they've decided she's theirs.
Direct release (for the bold): Remove both cork and candy plug and release the queen directly onto the frames. She'll disappear into the cluster within seconds.
This works if the bees are calm and you're confident. But if they're stressed, they may kill her as an intruder. The indirect method is safer.
For your first installation, use the candy plug. Give the bees time.
Now comes the part that feels absolutely insane.
Hold the package over the open hive, where you removed those center frames. Give it a sharp downward shake — the kind of motion you'd use to knock ketchup out of a bottle. Half the bees will tumble out into the hive in a buzzing waterfall.
Shake again. And again. Get as many bees as possible into the hive.
Do not worry about the bees flying everywhere. They are disoriented but not aggressive. They'll circle, regroup, and follow the scent of their sisters into the hive.
Set the package down near the hive entrance, on its side, screen facing the entrance. The remaining bees will walk out and join the others over the next few hours.
With the bulk of the bees now in the hive, gently place the queen cage between two center frames, screen side facing out, candy end pointing up. Make sure it's secure — you don't want it falling to the bottom of the hive.
The workers will cluster around her, feeding her through the screen, learning her scent. By the time they eat through that candy plug, they will have accepted her completely.
Gently — gently — replace the frames you removed earlier, moving slowly to avoid crushing bees. You will crush some anyway. This is unavoidable and not your fault. The bees understand the risks.
Place your feeder on top. Install the inner cover and outer cover. Reduce the entrance to a single bee-width opening using an entrance reducer. This helps the tiny colony defend itself from robbers.
Walk away. Your work is done.
A package has zero stored resources. No honey. No pollen. They are entirely dependent on your feeding until they can draw comb and start storing nectar themselves.
Feed 1:1 sugar syrup (one part sugar, one part water) continuously for the first three to four weeks. Check the feeder every two to three days. If it's empty, refill immediately.
This is not optional. Fail to feed a package, and it will starve. Beekeeping is not always romantic.
Do not open the hive. Do not peek. Do not check on the queen. Leave them alone.
The bees are settling in, learning the location of their new home, and deciding whether to accept this queen or kill her. Your interference will not improve matters.
You may sit near the hive and watch the entrance if you must do something. You'll see bees taking orientation flights — hovering near the entrance, facing the hive, memorizing landmarks. This is normal. This is good.
On day three, you may peek inside briefly to check if the queen has been released. If the candy plug is gone and the cage is empty, she's free and (probably) alive. Close up and leave them for another four days.
Sometimes the bees kill the queen before or during her release. You'll know because you'll find her dead on the bottom board. If this happens, you must order a replacement queen immediately and introduce her using the same candy-plug method.
Sometimes the bees refuse to draw comb, even with heavy feeding. This suggests they're diseased or the queen has failed. Consult an experienced beekeeper.
Sometimes — more often than anyone admits — everything goes perfectly. The bees accept the queen, draw comb like maniacs, and by mid-summer you have a thriving colony.
That is the goal. That is the hope. And with care and a bit of luck, that is what you'll achieve.
"Installing a package is an act of faith — in the bees, in the queen, and in your ability to keep a spray bottle of sugar syrup filled for three weeks."
— Confessions of a First-Year Beekeeper