Are you planning on buying Bees?

What Is a NUC?

We are a family honey bee farm located in Olean, Mo. Our bees are all local Missouri bees, bred and raised here on the farm. We have Italian, Carniolan and Russion genetics available.

I do not sell any bees before May because the weather here in central Missouri is too cold before April for bees and it takes a few weeks of nice weather to get your NUCs ready and make sure all queens are laying with acceptable patterns.
For bees to be able to fly it has to be above 50-55 degrees. Otherwise they stay in the hive, or in a tight ball in the hive during cold harsh weather.  
The first active month is the end of March and we build the NUCS and get them ready for you before the honey flow starts so you can have a productive year.

Buying bees is not a 100% success rate for everyone. It takes management and study about bees to become successful. You can accomplish beekeeping by reading books and watching videos and mostly by getting your hands Sticky!

Some people sell bees sooner than I do but they are more than likely shipped up from a yard in the south USA like Florida, Mississippi or Louisiana. Remember these bees are not native to our climate, some may do okay and most will not winter well. 

I always recommend starting with 2 hives. If something happens to your queen, for example you could accidently crush her learning how to go through a hive the first time like I did!
Some people have a great start with 1 hive and do great, however I started with 2 and I am glad I did because I accidentally rolled my queen (crushed between 2 frames) but I had bought 2 NUCs so I had taken brood from the spare hive and the bees made a new queen with it.

I began beekeeping years ago with 2 hives as a hobby and over the years of learning what works and what does not, I began breeding queens and belive I have selected the best genetics for this area. 

What is a NUC?       NUC, or a nucleus colony, is a small honey bee colony created from a larger colony.  A nucleus hive consists of 5 frames instead of 8 or 10. It is usually only 1 deep cardboard box for easy transportation. Inside you will have all the components necessary to grow a productive colony. These are all deep frames.

Full frames of drawn comb containing some honey and pollen are inside. Some brood, larva and nurse bees (young baby bees) are present on the frames in various stages of development.
Also is the mother bee the Queen Bee,  and enough worker bees to cover the frames and complete the NUC.
Add them to the center of your 8 or 10 frame hive and fill with empty frames on each side and you have everything needed for the small colony to grow!

When they fill the rest of the empty frames in your deep box add another deep box and frames for them to grow more and keep reserves.
These boxes will become your brood chamber and food storage area for your bees.
I recommend leaving at least 50 pounds of honey (about 5 deep frames) on each hive during the winter. This depends on what area of the country you live in to for example someone in Alaska is going to need more.

So, when do you get honey? Well, sometimes it takes a colony the first year to make enough honey and pollen to get through winter, however my experience is you will get a few jars the first year, remember to leave enough honey for the bees to make it through winter!

Bee Happy!