How Do I Get Bees?

This is every aspiring beekeepers first or second question, so here are a few ways to get bees. This thread is to meant help new-bees navigate to world of acquiring bees. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to fire away!

How do I get bees?

• You can order a package of bees from a number of suppliers but the drawbacks are that these bees might require chemical treatments to survive and, if they are not sourced from a local supplier, might not be well adapted to local conditions.

• You can buy a “nuc” (pronounced nuke) colony from an established local beekeeper. With a nuc you get 3-4 frames of brood comb, 1-2 frames of honey and pollen and a laying queen. Nucs can expand rapidly, so your first year honey production may be greater than if you used a package or a swarm. The drawback is that beekeepers generally charge a fair amount of money ($250 and up) for a queen-right nuc.

• Catching a swarm is another great option for obtaining bees. Swarming is how bees reproduce and establish new colonies. Typically this happens in Spring and early Summer and is a result of over-crowding in the brood nest. Swarms consist of thousands to tens of thousands of worker bees, a few hundred drones, and one queen. If you can catch or attract a swarm to a box, you’ll have everything you need to establish a colony. In their quest to find a new hollow space to establish their colony, swarms pick an intermediate location to rest while scouts look for new locations to move into. This is the best time for a beekeeper to gently nudge the cluster of bees into a swarm box or hive body. If you can get the majority of the bees to fall in your box, chances are you will get the queen as well. Once the queen is in the box, all the other bees will make their way inside. Alternatively, you can bait a box with lemon grass oil and beeswax, and a swarm may very well find the way into their new home.