I set 4 hives of Italians today in some of my old boxes that still had some filled comb in them. There were a lot of robbers bees trying to get into the box to get the goodies too. I put the hives over some old carpet and it was very clear that there were a lot of casualties. Hope it was the robber bees and not my new Italians!
I have a question for anyone - I ordered a box of Russian bees by mail and they are due to arrive sometime mid april, does the Post Office usually call you to pick them up right away? I can't see that a rural carrier would be able to do their job peacefully with an angry bunch of bees buzzing at them from a screened box...
