Hello from Oregon,
I just received my package bees five days ago. I live on a nice small organic farm/orchard on the oregon coast. There are many things flowering usaully until blackberries at the end of the berry season. I followed instructions and left the cage in the hive and seperated the two frames for the queen. The next day I fed them removed the cage and placed a marshmallow in place of the cork. After putting the feeder/top back on I noticed a marshmallow on the front of the bottom board. Not sure if i dropped one in the excitement I opened the lid again and went back to the queen box that was completely covered in bees again. The queen was still in there but i was still timid enough that I didn't want to handle all of those bees again. I put the lid on again killing slightly less than the time before. The next day I removed the queen box which was empty and placed the pollen cake on top of the frames. Then the next day i refed bees and noticed a large clump of bees in the feed box hanging from the cover above the center and comb being built . I had more sugar syurp ready knocked bees off scraped comb off refed and closed up. Today I checked again they are still clustered in the center of feed box cover but not building comb. I was going to check for the queen and make sure the frames were close enough together. There are many bees working the three frames closest to the sun. Unsure if I will injure the queen be recklessly removing the frames with all the bees I decided to ask someone.
So my two questions Are:
I am checking to often?
HOw do I check the frames for the queen and should I wait a couple of days rather than finding out sooner?
The bees are in a great place anyone willing to help me pull off a crash course in beekeeping we will both be thankful.
Aaron B