This is my 4th year with bees, so I've installed several packages before. I installed two yesterday, and am worried about one.

Here's the sequence and what I am observing:

queen 'box' removed and installed correctly and uneventfully.

The bees were very difficult to 'pour'/shake into the open hive body. They just didn't want to head out the hole.

I think 1/4 to 1/3 bees were still in the box when I decided to stop trying to get them out. They were sounding angry.

I propped box up with opening facing the hive opening at bottom.

I swear to you, those bees were actually crawling back into the package. They were covering the front of the hive body and crawling back into the wood package box!

I left them for the evening and the early this afternoon was my first chance to look at them again. There were many bees still in the package...and some burr comb was actually drawn inside it.

I considered some options, and went inside to do a little research. When I came back out an hour later, many of the bees were gone from the package. I carefully removed the screen from one side and the rest immediately flew out. I removed the box from the vicinity.

What's the problem? In the ensuing hours I saw no activity around the entrance. There were not hundreds of bees flying in and out. There were very few around the top feeder. (I checked and the holes in the feeder top were free flowing)

Compare to other hive (the control group) : bees just "poured" into hive body, only 20 or left, and the package was completely empty within a half hour. Control group bees were going in and out entrance non stop, and there were too many to count around the top feeder. Bees in the this hive were also visible in the center frame.

I'm leaving that worrisome hive alone, expecting the bees know what to do. But I really am worried because this colony has behaved differently from any of other six I have installed in my brief life as a beekeeper.

Can you think of any thing I may have done wrong? (BTW, the queen was certainly alive when I put her in)Or might there be something wrong with the bees? Do you have any recommendations? If I open the hive to investigate what should I look for? Any particular 'signs' that might indicate if there is a problem.

I hope I'm worrying over nothing, but I welcome your thoughts! Or reassurances.

idabean/marie