May 21st is National Bee Day, and we’re more interested in celebrating this year, as we now have our own hive. Buffalo has so much greenery, so many parks, and so many gardens and fruit trees that there’s little worry that our bees wouldn’t have enough to eat and store honey to get to next year.

We got a nucleus hive (a nuc) from Masterson’s Garden Center in East Aurora, and this year we made sure to order it in December, before they sold out. A nuc contains five deep (or brood or super) Langstoth hive frames with a queen. We had to go out and get the nuc early on a Saturday morning before it got too warm and they needed to let the bees out so they wouldn’t overheat.

In preparing for the bees, I built a Langstoth hive. There are 8 and 10 frame hives as standard sizes, and in a spirit of optimism I decided to settle on a 10 frame size. I built two deep boxes, and made sure to have five frames ready to fill out the box, but made ten initially because I had the materials.

I made these out of pine, dovetailed the joints (and put in some screws for extra strength), and then hit the exterior with shellac for some basic protection. I also made a ventilated base with a screen floor, a divider to go between the two supers, and an escape/ventilation top and roof to top it all off.

We were ready for bees.

We went to pick up the bees, and on the advice of a friend took a tote that should fit a nuc, with a lid. We got there around 7:30 and the bees were still pretty sedate, so not all the workers/volunteers were totally suited up. They popped the nuc in the tote and happily clipped the lid on to make sure we didn’t have any ‘wanderers’ in the car with us.

Being that it was a nice sunny morning, I was ready to use the a/c to cool the car if need be, but the temperature where we picked them up was in the 50s, and it was only in the low 60s when we got home.

One thing that I really wasn’t prepared for was how heavy the nuc was. It made me a little trepidatious about having those two 10 frame supers if 5 frames weighed that much! But I was able to get the nuc-laden tote up to the loft entrance to the carriage house, to give the bees a southern facing entrance that was clear of any obstructions for more than 20 feet. This would mean that we could be on the ground, and the bees wouldn’t see us as a threat as the came and went from the hive. It’s the basic location I wanted to have the hive permanently, so all was good.

Once the nuc was placed, I removed the little plug, and opened the half inch square opening, and the bees started to come out and explore their immediate area.

I was a bit surprised that the bees weren’t traveling farther than about 10-15 feet from the nuc. They certainly were going in and out of the entry, and there guard bees were hanging out there doing their job, but they weren’t looking for blossoms (one of our apple trees was in bloom only 40 feet away), only flying about in front of the nuc.

I had been advised to leave the bees in the nuc for 3 to 7 days, and they were so active by the 3rd day that I decided to move them to the new hive. Part of this decision was based on the trouble the bees were having in getting into and out of the nuc through that little opening. There was just too much traffic.

And it was a good thing I did, as the bees were trying to build new combs in places that they shouldn’t in the nuc! The bees had come with their own solid food source, and they were just going about trying to expand their little hive. But I wouldn’t really understand that until I opened up the nuc.

After getting the new hive base and first super in place in the loft entrance, I got my hood on, some wrist gaters, and leather gloves, started up my smoker, and popped the lid with one of my hive tools. I knew there would be a bunch of bees, but I didn’t expect so many!

Using a bit of smoke in the entrance of the nuc, and a little under the screen area at the bottom, I went to try and slowly and carefully remove one of the tightly packed frames and move it to the new hive. This took more time than I thought, and I wasn’t confident about not hurting the bees, so I didn’t look as closely as I had planned, and didn’t search for the queen.

At first, the bees were pretty docile, for the first couple of frames, but one of the frames next to the food bin stuck, as the bees were building comb onto the food bin and the frame because they were so close together. In moving the frame I apparently jostled some bees and broke a bit of comb that had a larva in it, and a couple of guard bees came to attack my gloves.

After that, I tried a little more smoke, but the bees were still a bit agitated, so I just focused on getting the frames into the new hive. My big issue overall was just getting the empty frames to fit, do the super was full. There were just so many bees on the frames I moved that I was worried that there would be squished bees in-between as I closed the open space, or that one would move suddenly, and the bees would become more agitated.

So, working carefully, moving slowly, and still trying to get things done so that the bees could feel more calm in their new home, I finally got the frames in place. While I had planned to just put the top on and let the bees fill up the new frames, instead I put in the divider and the second super, and put the food bin inside it.

I had already set up a water source for the bees, but they hadn’t really touched it over the couple of days in the nuc. Once they were in the new hive though, the really started going after the water. It’s a simple thing, just holes drilled into the lid of a mayonnaise jar turned upside down over some stones in a shallow container. It’s like one of the pet water feeders that will let you more water when the level drops low enough to let air into the jar. Before the move, I had observed a maximum on a single bee at a time getting water, but after the move, six or seven bees at a time was pretty usual.

So, for the last few days, the bees have been coming and going from the hive, drinking water, and having some loud buzzing activity times, but still hadn’t gone far from the hive. But after yesterday’s rain, where the hive was pretty quiet and I didn’t see much of any bee activity, today they were ranging out to the front of the house, going after little flowers in the lawn, and (I think) our lilacs. I was able to see them coming back in with yellow, white (very light lilac blue?), and dark red (deep lilac purple?) pollen on their legs.

This is a great sign, as one of the main uses of pollen in hives is for feeding larva to get them ready to be functional bees. So even though I didn’t see her, it seems like the queen is doing her job, and the bees are settling in and ready for more workers.

Next year we will hopefully celebrate with our own honey!