Hi - just wanted to mention how I did my package install last year.
I personally thought that shaking the bees out of the package seemed... well... unnecessarily aggressive. I wanted a calm install and so what I did was put an empty deep on the bottom, removed my queen cage and the can of sugar water from the package, put the wood lid back on top and then put the package box on the bottom board inside that empty deep. I had a medium with frames ready to go and put the queen cage in that between two frames. Then I just took the wood lid off the package box, picked up the box of frames and set it on top. I stuck an empty box on top and put the sugar syrup can (there was still syrup inside) atop the frames and then I buttoned up the hive with the inner/outer cover.
The bees then found their way out of the package and five days or so later I went out to check on them, removed the empty deep and the now-empty package box and put the hive back together.
This was a very calm experience. I try to be really calm and slow around the bees and this method worked well for me.
Make it a great day,
Matt
