Basic Beekeeping with NUCs:
There are several options for replacing or adding colonies into your apiary whether you have one or one-thousand hives. Packaged bees have always been a popular method for replacement or expansion. However, they sometimes pose supercedure issues due to the fact that you are combining a young mated queen with unrelated loose bees in an empty hive with pheromones (odors) unfamiliar to all. Often with new beekeepers, the bees are put into new equipment with undrawn combs. It is easier for bees to adapt to introduction onto comb that is already drawn and ready for the queen to lay eggs.
A five frame bee nucleus (NUC) consists of:
- a "laying" queen that has already been accepted by the hive
- inner frames containing brood in all stages
- two outer frames containing honey, pollen, and adhering bees.
Advantages of NUCs:
- NUCs build up more rapidly than packages and do not suffer the sudden drop in population (dwindling) associated with the aging process in packages. The population of the package dies off without the advantage of having a stockpile of young bees hatching off and replenishing the population.
- Recent increases in package bee prices and postal rates have made NUC prices very close to the price of package bees.
- NUCs are not as delicate as packages and do not require the careful handling associated with package bees. We guarantee that your NUC will arrive alive.
- Our NUCs are less likely to supercede their queen. She is already a functioning part of the hive. She has produced the brood that is in the NUC. It is already a fully operational beehive, only smaller.
- NUCs can be installed later in the spring as weather conditions improve and more reliable nectar and pollen sources become available.
- NUCs do not require immediate installation relieving the urgency to immediately install in adverse weather conditions or at inopportune times as may be the case with package bees.
- Our NUCs are grown in Louisiana and can be picked up there, or at our two farms in the Northeast (MA and NY). While we are based in the northeast, with over 12,000 colonies, we were the first beekeepers to offer NUCs to beginners, hobbyists and commercial beekeepers alike as an alternative to packages. Remember, NUCs build up faster increasing the chances for a bigger honey crop!
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