Beam’s Bees

Suggestions for Getting Started with Your Honeybee Nucs

(Note: These are just some suggestions. The same things don’t always work for everyone in all locations. Be sure to check with multiple sources to get a variety of ideas and don’t be afraid to experiment to determine what may work best for you.)

Planning for Your New Hives:

In advance of picking up your new bees, please make sure you have the necessary equipment to get startedon your exciting new hobby. While this may vary for folks, most people will need:

  • Protective clothing that may include:
  • Veil
  • Bee Suit or long pants and shirt with sleeves
  • Gloves –cowhide or latex gloves – you decide which you prefer to work with.
  • Beekeeping Equipment

●Hive tool

●Smoker

●Hive composed of:

●Metal-Clad Cover

●Inner Cover

●Brood Box - Deep or Medium Box (Depending on what size you prefer)

●Bottom Board (We use screened bottom boards)

●Hive Stand

●Frames with wax foundation

The next thing is to pick a location for your new hives and prepare it accordingly. While there is no absolute right or wrong location, many folks prefer:

●A location that is at least mostly sunny (some afternoon shade may be desirable)

●Has a south, east or southeast orientation

●Is not in an area that will be windswept in the winter nor at a location where cold air will settle in and stay

●Is out of the way of well-traveled paths and play areas

●Not pointed directly at the neighbors or pet areas; etc.

If you don't have the absolute ideal location, many times you can make accommodations (e.g.: winter wind breaks) to make most areas acceptable. There is a lot of information and suggestions online about picking the ideal location.

Once you've picked a location, you should prepare it ahead of time for your bees. Think about things like future mowing / weed-whacking around your hives. You may want to put down mulch or stones or something in order to minimize the amount of routine lawn care that you will have to do once your hives are in place.

If you live in bear country, be sure to consider some measures to protect your hives from hungry bears. Consider investing in a quality electric fence or other bear-proof measure.

The important thing to remember is that (although not impossible) it is difficult to move your hives once you've set them up somewhere. You don't want to just pick them up and then later move them 50' or change the orientation.Your bees will become confused and may not find their way back to their hives. So, pre-plan your location carefully.

Picking Up Your Nuc(s):

Picking them up around mid-evening is generally the best time. At that time, the bulk of the foraging bees have returned to the hive (so that you don't leave without them), but yet it's not too late that the bees get irritable when working with them. It's also cooler to transport them home in your vehicle.

Starting in 2018, we will only be offering nucs in either a corrugated plastic or waxed cardboard temporary nuc box for your pick up and transit home. As such, you don’t need to bring anything with you unless you have an outstanding balance due. We do still recommend that people bring a roll of duct tape or something with them in the off chance that they have a “leak” of bees occur on the ride home and need to button-up an opening or better fasten something. (And, some would say you should always travel with a roll of duct tape regardless…)

All pick-ups will still be by appointment only which is set up once we contact you saying that your nuc(s) are or will soon be ready. Do NOT just show up because you were in the area as your bees won’t be ready for you. As stated earlier, we will still generally make appointments around mid-evening unless other special arrangements are coordinated.

Once You Get Your Bees Home:

Once you get your nucs home, it will most-likely be dark and we don’t recommend working with bees after dark. (They tend not to be too happy and can see you much better in the dark than you can see them.) We recommend that you set the temporary nuc in the location where the permanent hive will be located and quietly open the temporary nuc entrance for the night. Then, go out the next morning when you can see and transfer them over into their permanent hive.

When transferring over into their hive, we recommend that you start with an empty brood box (i.e.: temporarily remove your other frames) and transfer the 5 frames from the nuc over one at a time in the order they were arranged in the nuc box. Be careful when removing the frames and placing them into the hive to not accidentally roll the queen. Try to separate the frame to be removed from the adjacent ones and then lift out slowly. Try to locate the queen on each frame (until you find her) as you remove and reinstall it in the hive. When installing each frame, place straight down with some space from adjacent frames and then slide slowly against those frames. Since your colony will most likely be bursting at the seams or ready to soon explode in the nuc box, we recommend that you checkerboard a few new frames of foundation or unused drawn comb in between the existing brood frames and outer food frames. Often we put these after the first and before the fifth nuc frame to give the bees frames to quickly work to fill with either brood or food as they see fit. In so doing this, you will then be left with 3 remaining frames slots (on 10 frame equipment) and 1 (on 8 frame) which you can just put outboard of the nucleus frames before pushing them to all stack on one side of the hive or the other. (It’s very important to push all brood frames against each other to maintain bee space.)

If you didn’t find the queen after transferring all the frames, we suggest you carefully look through them again. It’s very easy to miss her even though she’s marked, particularly if she may have been laying an egg or something at the time. Also, look into the mass of whatever bees may still be in the nuc box to see if you spot her there. Do this before you put the remaining frames into the hive as it’s easier to move the frames with less in the hive and it also gives her less places to move to while you’re trying to find her. If you still don’t see her, we suggest that you just dump the remaining bees into the hive and close it up. Look quickly around on the ground and outside of the boxes just to make sure you didn’t drop her. But, otherwise, assume that she’s probably in there somewhere and close it up. When you check it again in a few days, if you see eggs, you’ll know she’s in there even if you don’t see her.

Your bees won't need the full entrance opening for some time until the colony increases in size and strength. As such, you may want to reduce the size of the entrance to allow them a better chance to defend it. (You probably will notice them dragging a few more dead bees out of the hive than normal the day after the move as there are always some additional losses when transporting; however, it should be insignificant in the scheme of the overall population.)

●Feeding --While the nucs are strong, established starter colonies, they are just that, starter colonies. What was a bustling, bursting at the seams colony in a 5-frame nuc box will only initially half-fill a 10-frame hive body. So, offering them some 1:1 sugar syrup and perhaps even a pollen patty is generally a good idea. This will encourage them to draw out comb and expand the brood nest and encourage the queen to lay lots of eggs to increase the size of the colony. You may want to continue feeding them for awhile, or if it's during the height of the nectar flow (typically from around mid-April to mid-June in our area), you may be able to cut back or stop a short time later. You will have to be the judge based on how you see the colony expanding and the relative food stores for the expanding colony.

●Don’t plan on taking “honey” from your new nucs the first year! They need all the food stores they can get to draw wax comb, rear a lot of brood, and generally get ready for winter. Your first year should be focused on getting them strong and healthy to give them the best chance to over-winter and be ready to produce honey on drawn comb the next year. Besides, if you’ve been feeding them, what they are producing is not honey, it is essentially sugar syrup. (Honey is generally defined as being produced from flower nectar.) Even if you steal a taste, please don’t bottle it up and sell it to someone under the label “Honey”!

When the bees have drawn out comb and started rearing brood and/or storing honey and bee bread on approximately 70% of the frames in the first box, it's time to consider adding anotherbrood box for them to continue expanding into. (Repeat as necessary)

●Checking for swarm cells -- Rapidly-expanding colonies are subject to swarming as part of their natural reproductive cycle. This is especially true during the height of the nectar flow and if they feel they are too crowded. While not necessarily a bad thing, most beekeepers would prefer not to lose half or more of their newly-purchased bees through swarming. The only way to attempt to avoid this is to actively inspect your bees weekly, checking every frame for signs of swarm cells or other indications of swarming. Make sure to continue to give them plenty of room to expand into.

●Check for mites and other pests (e.g.: small hive beetles, wax moths, etc.) regularly! Research and perform the appropriate tests (such as the sugar roll test). These pests can really drag down the strength and health of your hive, and can jeopardize the chances of winter survival.

Make sure they have plenty of food stores going into the winter! The main nectar flow in PA / MD is very short and early. Even if they have stored what seems to be a lot of honey at that time, they will quickly start eating it by mid-summer and can literally be starving by fall. Keep checking the weight of your hives and start feeding again in the fall in plenty of time to allow them to store and properly cure enough honey (generally considered 2 deep boxes or 3 mediums at a minimum) in time for winter. This is often considered to be between 60 – 100 lbs. per hive.

Beekeeping is an amazingly interesting and enjoyable hobby. Spend lots of time working with your bees and learning about them (via internet research, publications, local associations, fellow beekeepers, mentors, etc.). Involve the whole family, too. What better way to get outside, learn something new, spend quality time with others, and help the environment than by welcoming 60,000 super-industrious insects into your family?!

Enjoy your bees!

The Beam Family