My bees – I’ve finally got bees! We now have two hives in the apiary at my allotments.

My bees arrived on Monday evening. On Tuesday I put them in the hive!
They arrived in a correx nuc from a local beekeeper who breeds queens!

I have been reading as much about bees as possible and watching videos. I tried to move the frames as smoothly as possible. They were a little stuck down with propolis though so I had to use my j tool to unstick them either side before moving them in. I kept them in the same order. I had people assisting with smoke although I don’t think they needed much at all. I put the spare comb of stores in – it was too big to fit in the nuc box as there was a lot on the frames. They were quite heavy. The frames were put the same way in the box as they had been in the nuc with the spare comb at the front, and right at the front was a dummy board. I put in 3 spare empty frames and another dummy board and that was that! Lid on – with tray of thymol crystals as recommended by the beekeeper who bought the bees. I’m to leave them for a week to let them settle in and then have a look to see how they’re getting on.
I will then add in some extra frames hopefully filling the brood box next week and then on the inspection after that they should be ready for a super.