Wait a second, if I become a beekeeper, how do I start? I have a thousand questions and no one to answer them. We’re going to look at just ONE of the issues that plague new beekeepers and it’s what I need for a pack or nuc of bees.

When my friend and business partner and I started out in beekeeping, I think we were misguided. It was recommended to get packages. Knowing what I know now, this was a mistake. Today I would say spend the extra money and get a nuc.

Option one, a nuc. What is a core? A nuc is a nucleus of a hive. A small bee colony scaled down from a standard eight or ten frame hive, placed in a smaller five frame box, with foundation. The nucleus contains the queen, nurse bees, guard bees, drones, and workers. One nucleus has a laying queen. A laying queen means eggs, eggs must be present for workers to feed and raise a queen cell, if something tragic happens to the queen, such as injury. In this event, the workers choose an egg to raise as the new queen. It is quite an interesting process.

Option two the package. What is a package? In short, a bee box consisting of a caged mated queen and a few thousand worker bees. Queen caging is not a barbaric practice, it is a way of keeping the queen separate from the other bees that would try to kill her because they don’t know who she is. She was placed in the cage and package just before the package shipped. For that matter, none of the bees in the package probably knew each other before they were tossed around inside the package. The way bees leave their hives in the field, into the box known as the pack, they are shaken from frames in large hives in the bee yard, into a funnel-like apparatus and then into the protected box known as the pack . Once the proper weight of bees are in the box, a can of sugar syrup is placed on top of the box with the queen in a cage hanging down in the pack secured by a strap. When removing this, you must be very careful not to drop the queen in her cage into the mass of bees, or someone has to reach the bees and pull out the queen’s cage. Because? You’ll probably get stung a few times while you’re retrieving the queen’s cage. The queen in her cage is fragile and she must be handled with care.

Packages are more difficult to install. The cores can be collected from the bee keeper and transported to their home, where they will immediately begin collecting food to feed the colony. The packs take longer to establish once in the hive, hopefully the queen will be fine and a good brood laying pattern will begin. In one nuc this problem is alleviated because the beekeeper has the bees settled in a good climate when he collects them. The beekeepers job with a package is to place the package in a nuc or hive of honey so that the “installation” process begins. Hopefully, if all goes well, they will soon “settle in” and start working together. In a core they are already working together when you lift the core. they are a colony

In conclusion, I think the nuc, while a bit more expensive, is better for the new beekeeper in the long run over the pack. There is a learning curve and the core is easier for the beginning beekeeper, the core is set, while the pack is not. There is a much higher chance of failure with a package than with a kernel!

HIVE have a good day!