May 25th Installation

 Temps this morning.

Previously installed wild swarm box.

It was a very interesting install day. Alex and I had 4 packages to install this morning. Started foggy and about 65 degrees but very quickly was at 70 and already becoming very humid.

I had already installed a wild swarm a few days ago and wanted to recheck while we installed one package at orchard. So while setting up area after trimming some grass I moved one of the concrete blocks that make up the platform for where the new bees will be sit. Moved 2x6 to uncover the hole in block and low and behold about 40-50 bees were underneath. This was quite unexpected and I moved very slowly while moving block. The wild swarm you see in the above photo is about 16' away from this area. A bunch were on the underneath part of the board. I took those and placed them in front of "Parkwood" hive. Went back over and looked very closely only to find the Queen bee. Astonished that I had found her and she looked in good shape and was just right there. Anyway, slowly placed her into wild swarm hoping that she was indeed their queen and all will be good. Time will tell.

Otherwise, we installed all packages, one at orchard and 3 at vineyard. Also took out last of the feeders at other established hive near barn. I may have to add other supers on top as they look to be getting very full of bees already!