What are the risks and rewards of a Italian package of bees?
Packages are very interesting and I want to take you step by step on how they are packaged.
The first step is manufacturing the package box. The plywood box is normally a one time use box that has two sides of screen wire. This screen wire allows the bees to have a good amount of air flowing through the box.
The day that the bees are packaged are called “shake days”. Shake days consist of going to the hive body and taking the frame of bees and giving one good shake into a funnel which helps load the bees into the package. Packages are sold in 2 lbs, 3 lbs, and 4 lbs. sizes.
The next person takes the funnel off the package and places a newly mated queen (which is in a queen box) into the package of bees.
The next person places approx.. 16 oz. can of sugar water to feed the bees. The sugar water container will only have two or three small holes in the bottom to feed the bees.
The last person then staples a thin laminated board over the canned sugar water to keep everything tight for shipping purposes.
Now you know the process. What are the risks? The risks are the bees in the package could reject the queen for a variety of reasons. If this happens, the bees in the package will kill the queen by not feeding her or sting her to death. The second risk is that you have not seen the qualities of the laying pattern of the queen. By week two, you should see a laying pattern. If the pattern is bad, order another queen.
How do you minimize these risks? I will empty out the package into the hive and wait for about 20 minutes for all the bees to exit the package into the hive. Then, I simply take the queen (in the queen cage) and lay that queen cage on the top bars of the hive and watch how the bees interact with the queen. If they are trying to sting her through the screen of the queen cage, they are rejecting her. If they are feeding her, they are accepting her.
If the queen rejection is happening, it is time to order another queen!
What are the rewards? The rewards are 3 lbs. of bees with a good laying queen will take off and grow very quickly.
If you have any questions, feel free to write me at ra*@****************ey.com
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Ray