So, funny story about our first two hives. We bought them as nucs (nucleus hives) from one of the other members of the local beekeeping association. He was really cool about it, and built the nucs right in our own boxes - so we would not even have to move the frames to install them, just bring them home and open up the doors!
Due to scheduling, Mark went to get the hives early in the morning. Since the best time to let out new bees is evening, we placed the closed up hives in the shade and waited. They were full of angry bees that wanted OUT OUT OUT! But we were patient. So patient. Finally the time came to put them on their new stands and take off the travel screens to free the bees. We put the hives on the stands and went to put feeders on top of the hives. Which of course leaked all over the place because we were noobs. So we decided to just take the screens off, release the bees, and place feeders later. We took off the first screen.
And then we realized that we had not lit the smoker.
Several very awkward minutes of being chased by newly freed bees later, both hives were open and the bees (still very angry) were able to do some orienting flights and clean up some of the spilled syrup. And that's how we learned to never again approach a hive without a lit and smoking smoker.
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