Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
This is the queen cage, where the queen is protected from being killed by the worker bees until they've
accepted her.
(Photo courtesy of Meg Allison Zaletel)
Sometimes experienced beekeepers will have packages available for sale as they split their largest
hives to prevent swarming, so check with your local beekeepers before ordering a package through
the mail. The local stock will be less stressed by a long shipping time, and will be well adjusted to
your local climate! The downside to purchasing a split from a local beekeeper is that you risk buy-
ing a package of bees that is infected with mites or an illness.
Nucs are one of my favorite ways to establish a new hive. Instead of purchasing only the bees them-
selves, you are purchasing a few frames of filled goodness to go along with the bees. It's basically a
mini hive box with anywhere from three to five frames. We started with five frames in ours and got
three frames of brood, one frame of honey, and one frame of pollen. Plus of course lots of bees and
a queen are already established in this mini colony.
The benefits of beginning with a nuc is that you have brood that is ready to hatch in various stages
of development, which can grow your hive a little faster. Eggs usually take 21 days to go from
brand-new egg to fully mature worker bee. By giving your bees a jump on increasing the number of
workers right away, your population won't suffer as big a decline before the newly hatched workers
can help boost the workforce.
The downside is that nucs can be more expensive to purchase than just a package of bees, and you
will need to make sure that the frames you are purchasing will fit in your hive box. Some nucs
