Those wooden covers on the top of each package of bees is not just there to keep the bees in. It’s there to cover the syrup can (which feeds the bees while they’re in transit) and to hold the queen cage in place (through which the attendants feed her until they manage to release her). Pop that wooden cover off, and you get this: one syrup can, and the silver tab there is the tab of the queen cage.

 

 

One of the most difficult parts of the entire operation is getting the syrup can out of the box. I use the wooden cover to slide across the bottom of the can as I lift it out to force the bees back into the package, and cover the hole. With that out of the way, I grab the queen cage tab, shake it a bit to get the ball of bees off it, and lift her out, then cover the hole again.

 

After removing the cork that covers the candy plugging the hole in the queen cage – the bees will eat through this and release her – I hang the queen cage on the frames in the middle of the hive body. Push those frames together and remove a couple on the side, then spray the bees in the package with some sugar syrup to keep them busy, and it’s time to dump them: bang the package on the ground to clump them, them upend them, remove the cover, and they drop right into the hive in a massive fountain of bees.

 

They immediately begin crawling up the frames on either side.