Abuzz with Exitement

The day has finally come. My bees were available. I had ordered a three pound package from Spell Bee co. and it finally arrived. THe bees were as loud as the drone of an air conditioner and had to be picked up at the post office. (They even kept it open late so I could get the bees!) I brought it home and a few hours later I installed it.
I covered the package with a thick sugar syrup and gave it a sharp bang against the ground. The cover was pryed off with my hive tool and I removed the feeder can and eventually the queen cage aswell. Trust me, there is no more intoxicatingly adrenalin inducing experience as slamming 12,000 bees to the ground. Anyways, I removed the cork and placed the queen cage between two of the frames. Next, I had already removed four frames from one side so I began shaking the bees into it like yesterday's garbage. Then, I noticed something horrable! It was begining to rain. Rain and wind are the two elements that will drive bees mad. Immidiateely they began grabbing onto my veil as if they were trying to attack my face. I continued shaking and thousands of bees fell against the bottom board. Slowly I began replacing the frames of foundation and then slapped the cover on just as the rain started falling harder. Some bees were left in the package so I left the package there so they could join their breatheren.
I attached the feeder and put on the enterence reducer then headed away. When I got back int o the house I noticed that there was something on my veil. I took it off and noticed that a few bees had flown on there but never left. This is probably the part of the story where I'm supposed to tell you how badly I got stung, right? Wrong! I was able to carry them over to the hive and brush them onto the enterence without wearing a veil, gloves or anything. How's that for docile?

These photos go in order from the bottom to the top. The very bottom photo shows me shaking bees into the hive box. The next photo depicts me replacing frames of foundation and the photo after it shows me(of cource) sliding the hive cover onto the hive as the rain starts to fall. The very top photo shows the covered hive with a pint sized mason jar inverted for feeding.

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