Hi
This is Beehive’s partner.
Firstly, to make it quite clear, Monsieur Abeilles’ post has nothing to do with our bees.
The bees, potentially for sale, are last years nucs, which as drumgerry said, will effectively be colonies when sold. Last year there was “apparently” a greater than normal number of badly mated queens, which led to failed nucs - one of the major problems for beginners who quite often incorrectly start with one hive. These bees will have made it through the winter and the queen will have shown her quality by the quantity of brood observed this year.
Morphology of the bee wings was undertaken by a prominent and respected member of the Scottish bee keeping community 2 years ago and it fell well within AMM requirements. The said person took one of our nucs and flooded their apiary with its drones the following year.
With their “dark” AMM inheritance, these bees are out flying in typical “Scottish weather” when the “bright” foreign strains (that people are so keen to import) are sitting at home waiting for the temperature to rise whilst using up their stores - your potential honey.
As Chris B pointed out, these bees have the potential to produce honey this year, given some suitable weather. Something which every beginner appears desperate to harvest but will be unlikely to get from a 2012 nuc.
As for the price, £250. Collection in person or you may wish to arrange for a courier at your expense. The hive parts were all new national cedar seconds last year. Cedar hive parts will last for years.
Roof £16
Crown Board £10
Deep £15
Open Mesh Floor £12
11 frames fully drawn with stores. What’s that worth to a beginner?
Total £53 plus the drawn frames. So “bees for £50” doesn’t even cover the cost of the hive parts.
Alternatively, make a nuc box from whatever timber you have, then all you need to buy are the frames and foundation. See if you can get the ear of a helpful beekeeper to tell you when a swarm is reported. Hopefully your helpful beekeeper, and new best friend, will give you some drawn frames to get your nuc off to a flying start. Then make yourself a hive and get some more frames and foundation. Ask the old-timers how they got started. It might be a good year for swarms and then again it might not.
A final comment. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and there is no-one more opinionated than a beekeeper!
If you would like one of our last years nucs, please PM.
This thread is now closed.
the one I bought the previous year was an old solid floor, pretty grubby brood box and splintering roof - now relegated for swarm catching duties
