2011 nuc prices?

[Course Bee]

I am very inexperienced (one year of beekeeping) but I started two nucs last summer from the hives that I put packages in in the spring. In hind sight it wasn't the best choice to start them from brand new hives but, it was very educational. I learned how to produce a few queens and if the nucs survive I will have increased my colonies from two to four.

Tim

[specialkayme]

Good work Tim. Most first year beekeepers are afraid to do increase.

Did you do a walkaway split?

[D Coates]

Tim, 

That's the best way to learn.  Raising queen and having about 1/2 as many nucs as you have hives is what I've gotten into.  Requeening the hive in the Fall breaks the mite reproduction cycle naturally and ensures come Spring you've got a fresh queen in there that's less prone to swarm.  Keep the nucs so you have overwintered fresh Fall queens to replace any losses you may have, start any increases you want, sell them, or split them to make more nucs.

[bee-nuts]

[/quote]
I also plan on trying to winter nucs this coming winter.  I actually am this winter but single deeps with six to eight frames of bees.  All six are alive at this point.  I will try to keep up enough equipment to take advantage of all swarm cells this coming season so I can have the queens needed to make small nucs in late july to built up to five frames of bees and winter them side by side, wrapped and insulated.
[/quote]We're in agreement again bee-nuts, instead of relying on southern raised queens and bees with who knows what kind of history, I'm spending my energy, after five years of buying southern packages/queens, learning the techniques required to "keep" bees and raise queens in our neck of the woods.  I bought a NUC (?) two years agao, brought it home and the bees obsconded within a week.  I don't believe it was ever a NUC colony, I just didn't knwo any better.  Won't let that happen again.

thomas
[/quote]

I have only had one nuc obscond and it is one I made with no brood, just honey, pollen, bees and queen.  When I went to check in on them they were gone.  I soon realized how stupid a mistake I made.  I have never had a colony obscond with brood in it.  I stopped several colonies from swarming last season by taking old queen away with two frames of bees and brood.  I then split the swarm cells and remaining bees in two or  three colonies.  Not once did the old queen swarm or obscond.  But I have read that sometimes they will.  I cant imagine a virgin queen in a nuc that has had time to lay for two or three weeks abscond.  My guess T Beek and only a guess is that nuc was recently made, did not have time to settle in before being moved around, opened up and transfered and maybe even had an old queen that was taken from a colony about to swarm.  Who knows.  But today with prices as high as they are and people desperate and having no control where their bees come from and conditions they are in if they want to get bees, who knows what you are getting.

With AHB spreading, and the more we learn about how disease spreads so easily, (even in pollen on flowers that another bee was on) keeping things local is a good idea.  The more I read and learn, the more I want to stay away from other peoples bees.  Yes you cant live in a bubble, but you can reduce exposure by keeping it local, trap your own pollen, raise your own queens, trade queens with other locals, and so forth. 

[Course Bee]

Special, I unintentionally did a walk away. I started the nuc with three frames of brood and bees a frame of honey and one foundation. I came back two days later and took the queen from the donor hive that I wanted to produce queens for me and moved her to the nuc. They had apparently had young enough larva and started their own queens already so they killed my queen. Anyway I ended up with three new queens in June. I found out in December that a guy I work with has a bee tree in his yard about a mile away. He said it's been there for about five years so I think I'm probably breeding some Northern survivor stock into my new queens through the Drones produced in his tree. I've got my fingers crossed.

Tim

[specialkayme]

Course Bee -

You learned a valuable lesson with the unintentional walkaway split you did. When introducing a queen to a hive that has been queenless for more than an hour, always check for queen cells. Whatever though, many experienced beeks make this mistake from time to time, as long as you learn from it. I hope you didn't loose too good of a queen.

In reference to the 5 year old Survivor bee tree, be careful about these. Many people don't understand the difference of when one colony dies out and another one moves in. Most swarms like to find places where old colonies had lived. It's inviting to them. So while it seems like the same colony has lived there for five years, in actuality it's more likely that a hive moved in five years ago and didn't overwinter properly. Then next spring another hive moved in where the old one had died and lived there fore a season or two, then swarmed and absconed as a result. Ect, ect. One of my beekeeping professors actually did a study on them, and found that most of the "survivor stock" bee trees on the perimeter of bee yards arn't what they seem to be. If they are dying out every season (or every other season) as a result of being 'not survivor stock' and new swarms are moving in, you are actually breeding with losing stock.

Just a thought though. It could be the same colony for five years. Who knows.

[Course Bee]

Thanks for the reply Specialkayme. It was the better of my two queens at the time but, I learned a valuable lesson. The bee tree though. I know there is another keeper that has a yard about three miles away. Do you think the swarms would be moving in from there. Also my coworker said he has seen swarms in the trees near there a couple of times. Could they be moving in or absconding?
Tim

[T Beek]

Realistically speaking its doubtful any Ferrel's living too much beyond the equator are there only because beeks had something to do about it. 

Ferrel's in our neck of the woods would likely perish in just a few years without our assistance introducing new genetics from uncaught swarms (from our own hives) each year.  We wouldn't have "honeybees" up here without Beeks keeping them.

They just wouldn't survive.

thomas

[specialkayme]

>Do you think the swarms would be moving in from there. Also my coworker said he has seen swarms in the trees near there a couple of times. Could they be moving in or absconding?<

Very likely, but who knows for sure.

Having a few "feral" hives in the area to mate with probably won't hurt, but it's probably no different than having a few neighbors who have beehives in the area.

[hankdog1]

ill be selling nucs for 100 this spring.
grafted queens from survivor stock.

bailey

Will ya deliver to Bud's?