Fifth Day – Again Some Sun to Come Out

Today was another day with some mixed weather. When the sun was out, the bees came out of their hives to fly a bit around or to empty themselves right onto the outer walls of the hives.
   Yesterday I built and attached the "landing pad," just as Bill told me to do. It can be seen with three dead bees in the photograph. The dead ones were brought out by the worker bees, who clean the house.
   I also had a look wheather there was still sirup in the two hives. I checked for moisture on the styrofoam that covers the inside of the outer cover. There was none.

I took this photograph of the queen cage. While she was traveling from New Zealand, she was inside there. Because of the grid, the worker bees could get accustomed to the feromones that she exudes. When the bees are installed, a little plastic led on the left end has to be broken. When the weather is right, the workers can chew right through the sugar to make a channel as can be seen. But the weather was cold. So Bill took out much of the sugar. And when the queens did not appear to have been released, I had to go into the hives, get the queen cages, open the sugar completely without letting the queen fly away, and place the cage again into the hive.