Package bees 1,2 Kg

01 · PACKAGE OR NUC

One brings bees; the other brings a hive already started

This is the first decision and it pays to be clear. A nuc arrives with frames: brood of all ages, stores and drawn comb, so it starts sooner and within weeks it is a hive. A package is bees and a queen, with no comb at all: it goes into your hive, draws your foundation and builds from scratch, which takes longer and asks for more feed at the start. In exchange it gives you two things a nuc does not: you begin on your own wax, inheriting nobody's old comb, and the colony fits your equipment from day one.

02 · HOW TO INSTALL IT

Inside the hive, and the queen after two hours

Setting up is simple if the order is respected. 1) Take out as many frames as you need to make room. 2) Put the whole package, transport box and all, inside. 3) After two hours, open it carefully and release the queen over the frames of foundation. 4) The next day remove the empty box and close the hive up with its frames. 5) Give stimulative feed: a colony that has to draw all its own comb needs energy and will not find it on its own. And one condition for the day: the temperature must be above 12 °C.

03 · THE WINDOW IT OPENS

With no comb, fewer problems travel — and varroa is in plain sight

Here is the real advantage of a package, and it is not the one usually told. Carrying no comb, brood or woodware, it does not bring with it the substrate where the problems of used equipment live — residue-laden wax, wax moth, the spores that shelter in comb. It reduces the risk, it does not remove it: the colony still has to be inspected. And there is a consequence worth gold to a beekeeper: a package arrives with no sealed brood, so every varroa it carries is on the adult bees, with no cell to hide in. That is the window many people use for varroa control within their own health plan.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It works by booking: reserved between October and March and supplied from April to June in order of booking, on Saturdays from 9:00 to 12:00. The specific dates of each season are chosen when you book. And being livestock, a week of rain or wind can move a collection: if that happens, we call and find an alternative.