Welcome back! In Part 4 of our B-Hive Talkin’ series, we'll cover what to expect from your bees and, more importantly, what they should expect from you. We'll delve into the principles of gentle beekeeping and the essential first steps in establishing your new colony.

Understanding the Beekeeper-Bee Relationship:
Let's be clear: no one can fully teach you beekeeping. Just as each bee colony has its own unique character, so do individual beekeepers. Your personal beekeeping journey will be shaped by your own observations, actions, and interactions with your bees. However, we can guide you with essential principles to ensure a positive and productive relationship with your buzzing partners.

The Importance of Gentle Handling:
Think about your hive stand. It's not just a separate piece of equipment; it's connected to the hive and effectively becomes one unit. Any jarring movement on the stand will reverberate through the hive, disturbing the bees. Even gently placing the roof back on after an inspection can sound like a wrecking ball to the bees inside. Remember, you want a calm and respectful environment for your bees, just as you would in your own home.

Protecting Yourself and Your Bees:
Your safety is paramount, allowing you to confidently carry out inspections. Leather gloves are a must for new beekeepers. But consider this: you wouldn't use dirty gardening gloves to prepare food in your kitchen, so why would you use them time after time when inspecting your bees without cleaning them? Bees meticulously coat the inside of their hive with propolis, a natural antiseptic, to maintain a clean and healthy environment.

We recommend wearing disposable, oversized clinical gloves over your leather gloves, both of which we have on sale here at Hagens. This simple practice offers numerous benefits, including minimising the spread of diseases within your apiary. We'll explore this crucial topic in a future segment.

Thinking Like a Bee:
Your bee colony is, in many ways, like a human family unit. Imagine someone pumping smoke into your house, removing the roof, moving furniture around, and harming your family. You'd be understandably upset! So why do we sometimes treat our bees with such disruptive methods?

The Smoker: A Tool to be Used with Care:
The smoker is a valuable tool, but it should be used judiciously. If you start with the most extreme measure of control (heavy smoke), what options do you have left when that doesn't work?

Consider a gentler approach. Start with a light spray of water at the hive entrance. Then, after removing the roof, gently spray through the holes in the crown board, remove the crown board then spray across the top of the frames until the bees move down below the top bars.

You could also try a pheromone disrupter, which can help calm the colony during inspections. While smoke is commonly used, it signals alarm to the bees, prompting them to gorge on honey and prepare to abandon the hive. This can take days for them to recover from. Water, on the other hand, mimics rain—a natural occurrence—and is less alarming.

Mastering the Smoker:
If you choose to use a smoker, it's essential to use it effectively. A smoker that goes out during an inspection is often due to poor preparation. Choosing the right fuel is critical. Avoid random bits of wood from your garden – you don't know how long they'll burn or what they've been treated with. You need a fuel that produces cool smoke, not acrid smoke or flames as produced when burning cardboard, the glue does not burn it smoulders.

Think of it this way: you've invested significantly in your beekeeping setup. Why compromise your bees' health and comfort for the sake of saving a few pennies on smoker fuel? Have a look at our various Smokers and fuel options (cotton and hessian) we can offer you on our website at Hagens.

We recommend a combination of materials: plain cardboard egg cartons (no labels!), newspaper for kindling, clean hessian, small wood pellets, and a handful of long grass for the smoker's nozzle. Have a look at our Smokers and Fuel Hagens have for sale here at Hagens, we use these on our own Apiaries. The "no labels" rule is crucial. Labels mean glue, and burning glue produces acrid smoke that's harmful to bees. The grass at the nozzle acts as a filter, preventing sparks and flames from escaping and harming your bees.

Lighting Your Smoker:
Lighting a smoker takes practice. Don't wait until you're in the middle of an inspection to learn! Inside your new smoker, you'll find a metal plate. Remove it, turn it over, and bend the prongs outwards to create a platform. Place it back in the smoker, prongs down, to allow airflow. Crumple half a sheet of newspaper and place it on the platform. Light the newspaper (no bellows yet!). Add small pieces of egg carton. Now, use the bellows gently until you see flames and the egg carton is smouldering. Add your chosen fuel (pellets, cotton or hessian). Close the smoker. Use the bellows to create a good amount of smoke. Stop using the bellows when you have a good amount of smoke being produced, open the smoker, and loosely roll the long grass into a ball. Place it in the smoker's nozzle, this will help prevent sparks and flames being sent into the beehive.

Your smoker should now burn successfully. Give the bellows a squeeze every so often to keep it going. You'll learn with experience how much fuel you need for different inspection lengths.

A Gentle Approach:
Water isn't a magic solution, and every bee colony is different. However, starting with the least invasive method is always a good idea, and its cheap. Always keep your smoker lit and ready nearby, but not upwind of the hive.

Welcoming Your Bees:
Your bees have arrived! They've had a stressful journey, moving from their original hive to a small travel box. Now, it's your turn to provide them with a comfortable and welcoming home. Don't rush this process.

In the weeks leading up to the big day, assemble your hive and place it on the stand where it will be, facing the direction it will be in when the bees are installed. The morning your bees are due to arrive, place your assembled hive on the ground next to the stand.

When your Nuc arrives, place the Nuc box on the stand, in the exact same position and facing the same direction as the hive was. This is crucial for the bees' orientation. If the bees arrive in a box with roof ventilation mesh, cover this with a piece of wood or cardboard to protect the Nuc from the elements, sun or rain. Leave the Nuc box in this position for as long as possible that day – at least four hours. If the Nuc arrives at midday, leave it until 6 pm, for example. Plan to transfer the bees in daylight.

Preparing the Nuc:
Put on your bee suit and gloves. Your Nuc box might have a mesh top. Remove the entrance block and let the bees begin to fly and orient themselves to the new location. Sometimes they'll fly out quickly, sometimes slowly – there's no set pattern.

If the weather is unsuitable, keep the Nuc box in a safe, dark, cool, and draft-free location. Ensure ventilation at the top of the box. Place the Nuc box on the stand as described the next dry day.

Gather Your Equipment:
At the chosen time probably late afternoon or early evening, you will need wellington boots or ankle-high shoes, your bee suit, gloves, hive tool, water spray, smoker (lit and ready), lighter, a large feeder, and syrup. Your bees will need carbohydrates in the form of syrup to help them build comb and raise brood until they can find local forage.

Transferring the Frames – a step by step guide:
- At your chosen time, lift the Nuc box to one side of where the new hive will sit.
- Remove the roof and crown board from the new hive.
- Remove eight frames.
- Fit the entrance block to the smallest opening.
- Place the floor on the stand where the Nuc box was, then place the brood box with four frames inside on the hive floor. Imagine the hive from the
  side, entrance to your left or right. Mentally number the frames. Frames one and two are new foundation against the wall closest to you.
- Positioning the Nuc box and then the hive is crucial. We want the bees to be calm. They've oriented to the Nuc box, so they'll orient to the hive in the
  same spot.
- Take the roof off the Nuc box and spray the bees with water until they move below the top bars.
- Remove the first frame (mostly stores, no eggs or brood) lift as vertically as possible to avoid rolling bees against the adjoining frame and place it in
  position three of the hive.
- Place a new foundation frame in position four.
- Transfer two frames at a time, gently prying them apart from the remaining frames in the Nuc box. This minimises disturbance.
- Place these two frames in positions five and six of the hive.
- Do the same for the remaining two frames from the Nuc box, placing them in positions seven and eight. Inspect frame eight (no eggs or brood) and
  move it to position nine.
- Add another new foundation frame to position eight.
- Add a foundation frame to position ten and then the dummy board. For now, you'll have ten frames and a dummy board, making inspections easier.
  Squeeze the frames together tightly with the dummy board in place. There will be a larger gap after the dummy board.
- Replace the crown board, add the feeder on top, and then the roof, all as gently as possible. Remember the wrecking ball theory!

The Waiting Game:
Now for the hardest part: do nothing for ten days! This is vital. The Queen needs time to settle and resume laying.

Take this opportunity to simply observe your bees. Watching them on a sunny day is a joy. Seeing them collect pollen is a great sign. Avoid standing directly in front of the hive, as this disrupts their flight path.

Your First Inspection:
This is it – the moment you've been waiting for! Your first hive inspection. Let's approach this with confidence and purpose.

Remember this: every time you open a hive, you're causing a temporary disruption, no matter how careful you are. Never open a hive without a clear plan. Know precisely why you're opening it and what you're looking for.

Preparation is Key:
Before you even approach the hive, gather everything you'll need. This includes:
• Your bee suit and gloves (on and ready)
• Your hive tool
• Your smoker, lit and producing cool, calm smoke (no flames or sparks – ensure that grass filter
  is in place!)
• Your spray bottle (filled with your chosen calming solution – water is a good start)
• Glasses (if needed)
• Notepad and pen (essential for recording your observations)
• Camera phone (for documenting your hive's progress)

The First Inspection: A Fact-Finding Mission:
A good time for inspections is usually in the afternoon, temperatures are higher and the bees will be flying, judge this by local weather conditions.

Even on a sunny day when the bees are flying try to keep your inspection as short as possible, 10 – 15 min would be good, remember you have a task to achieve so if it takes a little longer for the first few visits don’t worry, it will get quicker as time goes on.

The primary goal of this first inspection is to confirm that everything is proceeding normally. We're not specifically hunting for the Queen at this stage. Our focus is on seeing the signs of a healthy, developing colony: eggs, larvae, and sealed brood. Finding the Queen is a bonus, not the objective.

The Plan (and Why It Might Change):
We have a plan, of course. But remember: bees don't always follow our plans. Be prepared to adapt to what you find. Flexibility is key in beekeeping.

Opening the Hive: A Step-by-Step Approach:
Before you even touch the hive, remind yourself what you are looking for. Larvae are a good sign. If you spot eggs, excellent! You can relax a bit. If you don't see eggs, then you can take a quick look for the Queen (especially if she is marked). If you see eggs, don't worry about finding the Queen at this point. Disturbing the hive unnecessarily is counterproductive.

Navigating the Frames: What to Look For:
New beekeepers often find it challenging to spot eggs. We'll discuss techniques to make this easier in Part 6 of B-Hive Talkin’. For now, just do your best.

Your Next Steps: Reading the Signs:
Your next visit will depend on what you observe today. If you saw eggs, give the bees some space. Focus on the stores in frames four and eight (the new foundation frames you added). These should have eggs, perhaps larvae, and stores. However, the Queen might be laying in only one direction (frame four or eight). Make sure she has room to expand her brood nest in that direction.
• Scenario 1: Laying towards frame four: If you see eggs/larvae on frame four, remove frame three
  (the original stores frame) and move it to position two. This prevents it from becoming a barrier
  to the Queen's laying. Now you have a fresh frame of foundation next to the brood area at
  position three. This is the beginning of "brood spreading," a technique we'll discuss further
  (Ted Hooper's book is an excellent resource on this, available at Hagens).
• Scenario 2: Laying towards frame eight: The same principle applies; remove the frame on the
  other side of the brood area.
• Adding Frames for Expansion: We want the hive to grow. Add a new foundation frame in position
  six (one frame out from the brood area). Check the frame you added when setting up the hive.
  If it has eggs and larvae, remove frame three (the original frame from the Nuc). If it has no
  eggs, larvae, or sealed brood, add a foundation frame between frames three and four. The
  original stores frame should now be in position two.

Feeding and Ongoing Observations:
By now, the bees should be establishing themselves. The Queen needs space to lay. Ensure you provide syrup again (likely the last time for now).

On each hive visit, aim to see at least two out of these three: eggs, larvae, or the Queen herself. Also, check honey and pollen stores. Taking photos of each frame will help you compare frames between visits. Ensure the Queen has space to lay. You'll need to check for Queen cells and perform health checks (for mites, etc.) at least twice a year.

Key Reminders:
    • If you see eggs and larvae, the Queen is present (even if you don't see her).
    • If you see the Queen and larvae, you probably just missed the eggs.
    • Don't obsess about finding the Queen if you see eggs. It's unnecessary and disruptive.

Recap: The Nuc needs room to grow. Add foundation frames between stores and the brood nest. Feed syrup.

Next Visit: We'll cover adding the Queen excluder and honey supers, visual Varroa checks, checking for Queen cells, and more.

Thanks for reading, hope this has been helpful!