Installing My First Package of Bees: April 26th

On April 26th, 2009, I traveled to Forestville, NY to pick up my first package of bees. They had just been transported from Georgia the day before. The package was $69 for 3 pounds of Italian bees (that's about 10,000 bees!) and an Italian queen. There are a few different types of bees, but Italians tend to be the most docile and a pretty good producer. The queen is inside the package, but contained in a small cage with a few 'attendants'. This is to give the bees time to adjust to their new queen; if introduced too soon, they could kill her.
That evening was a perfect time to install- cool lower 60's, and a nice sunny day. I was quite nervous though, so I dragged Peter down with me- only he had no protective gear :0). First, I sprayed the bees with a sugar water solution (food), then a few puffs of smoke to calm them, and I pried the lid off the package.
It was quite hard to open, and when I finally did get it open, a cloud of bees came flying to freedom! I then extracted the queen cage, and dumped the bees down into the super. I had been told to thump the package hard to let them fall out- but it just seemed a tad scary to bang an open package of 10,000 bees, so i just shook it a few times. Only about 60% came out, so I set the package at the entrance, hung the queen's cage on the frames, and closed up the hive. Within a few minutes, the bees began a parade up the cinderblock and into the hive entrance- smart little suckers!
Now it was time to walk away- and no peeking for at least a week. I fed them three feeders full of sugar water that week, and then left them to do what bees do best! All in all a nerve-wracking but satisfying first installation by yours truly!