2-pound Package with Queen (April 24, 2021)

Description

There are always a few queens (about 4%) that go wrong. Most colonies release the queen successfully and thrive. We gladly replace queens in Spring City, Utah within the first 10 days.

Copy of health certificate available upon request.

A package is different from a nucleus colony. Packages and nucs are both starter colonies that you could put into your hive. The jargon is confusing, because “package” can also mean a grouping of items for sale. In this case, it means a grouping of worker bees in a cage.

A package is 2 pounds of bees in a wood and wire cage, with a queen in a separate cage, and a can of sugar syrup. Beekeepers take the package to their apiary, shake the worker bees into their hive, then release the queen. Bees quickly begin foraging outside the hive and building out comb, storing honey, and the queen starts laying eggs. Beekeepers need to feed them sugar syrup because of spring weather fluctuations. We time the packages so that bees are with their new queen long enough to know her smell, but they need to be installed in a hive within 24 hours of our April 24 pickup. Otherwise, they begin to die off in the cage.

Package

Nucleus colonies come on 5 deep frames. They include a queen bee, workers, eggs, drawn comb, larvae, and some pollen and honey stores. They are farther in their progression than packages. When beekeepers buy a nuc, they come with a deep box, lid, and bottom board to the pickup, and then move 5 frames from our nuc box into their box. Nucleus colonies come from active hives, so we transfer them during daylight hours so we can see and most bees are out foraging. Then you would move them from our apiary to yours after dark, when all of the worker bees are in for the day and they will stay in the hive while you move them.

Nucleus Colony

We are going to sell all the packages that we can, and then install them into our hives and offer them for sale as nucleus colonies a few weeks later. We increase the price from $135 to $160 to charge for the frames, sugar syrup, and labor.