It has been cold in Georgia and the bees have not been building up as fast as expected. The West Nyack Mall bee delivery is now scheduled for the wee hours of April 9th.
As I understand it, the bee packages are made at large apiaries from vacuuming out bee hives, taking a bunch of bees from each hive, but leaving the queen and the half the bees behind. The early Spring in Georgia means that the hives have been building up for a month or more before the hives are vacuumed. If there is bad weather, the brood will be late and everyone will have to wait in order to get enough bees.
Queen breeders provide the queens, and the schedule of starting the queens and mating them has to be coordinated with the making of the Bee Packages.
The bees are added to a shoebox sized mesh box with a can of sugar syrup and the queen cage. It takes about 16 to 20 hours to get from Georgia to the NY area, depending on conditions and traffic. I understand last year the 3AM shipment didn’t arrive until 10AM. If the truck loads at Georgia 6AM and all goes well, the bees will arrive as scheduled. If there is a line and the truck isn’t loaded right away then all bets are off.
I am bringing a pillow with me when I go to pick up the bees.
