Review of 5 Frame Nucs Triple Stacked for Honey Production

The Essential Guide to Buying Your Starting time Hive

Buying your first hive has never been easier. Read the tutorial on this folio (updated 2019), or click the image below to receive this information equally a PDF guide, along with a 15% off coupon code for our signature Barn Hive.

Introduction

This guide was inspired by questions from hundreds of new beekeepers ownership their first hives. If you have more questions afterwards reading this, feel gratis to e-mail us at info@thehoneycompany.com. Nosotros specialize in helping new beekeepers become started. Nosotros accept 25+ years (and iv generations) of feel. We'd dearest to aid you get started too.

This folio will tell y'all the basic, essential equipment you need to get started with apiculture. There are lots of things bachelor to purchase in the beekeeping industry, just guide lists the minimum corporeality of tools that you volition need to be successful.

Every beekeeper has unique opinions almost beekeeping. We will endeavour to differentiate between science and our own opinions. We often come up from the perspective of a commercial apiculturist, and realize that managing a few hives leaves more than time and free energy to devote to each hive.

Our Philosophy

• We believe in producing and selling equipment made locally, in Utah or the USA.
• We believe that sustainable hives are those that thrive without adding chemicals to control honeybee diseases and pests. We recommend chemical treatments as a last resort subsequently testing and monitoring diseases carefully.
• We believe in apiculture with natural rummage and in increasing genetic variety every bit ways to help manage love bee colonies.
  

Resources

Nosotros have created a diverseness of learning resources:

Bee Classes Page. This includes PDF beginning beekeeping lessons and updates on local and online classes.

The Honey Company Blog. This resources will keep you updated on current beekeeping issues, product reviews, dear recipes, and beekeeping tutorials. We oftentimes employ customer questions for web log postal service topics. Email united states of america at info@thehoneycompany.com if you have a question of your own and we may reply with a weblog post.

Social Media. This is the hub for all of our notifications. We mail service oftentimes with beautiful photos, the latest news on local bee classes, new videos, blog posts, and interesting bee articles. Be sure to follow the states on Facebook and Instagram.

YouTube Channel. This aqueduct features videos of beekeeping classes and projects, and is growing. Subscribe today!

Newsletter. Sign up for our newsletter to go apiculture updates several times per yr.

Recommended Beekeeping Book. Beekeeping in Northern Climates with Honeybee Diseases and Pests and a DVD from the University of Minnesota Extension Bee Lab for around $xxx.

Basic Items Needed to Start a New Hive

Here are the items you will need to start your first honeybee colony. We'll break down each detail to requite more details and assistance yous brand decisions on how yous desire to manage your bees.

• A Honeybee colony, including worker bees and a queen
• A Beehive with boxes, removable frames, chapeau, and bottom board
• Protective clothing (Bee Adjust or jacket)
•  Bee Smoker
• Hive Tool
• Apiculture Gloves
• Feeder
• Hive Stand
• A fashion to extract honey

Honeybee Colony

At that place are several ways to obtain a honeybee colony. The easiest manner to start a new colony is to buy the bees as a "Package" or a "Nuc" ("Nuc" rhymes with "Luke"). Our customers tin gild bees from January to April each spring, and so pick up the bees on designated days in April or May.

Beekeepers can outset new colonies by

• Purchasing a package or nucleus colony
• Getting a start from a neighbor beekeeper
• Catching a swarm
• Finding someone selling an established hive in local classified ads.

The last 3 means may be less expensive, but will require some extra work and experience. For this guide, nosotros volition focus on starting a colony with a package or a nuc, every bit these are the most mutual fashion to offset manufacture-wide.

Package

A Package of honeybees comes with two or three pounds of bees and a queen in a temporary cage. Worker bees are measured past the pound and funneled into the cage from existing hives. The queen comes in an separate, smaller queen cage. There is a can of sugar syrup to feed bees for a few days.

ii-Pound Package

Beekeepers pick up their packages on a set date, then install them in the hive that evening, and can return the muzzle for recycling. Packages come from California to Utah by truck on a specific date in April. They need to be installed in a hive within 24 hours of the pickup date, equally bees left as well long in the package muzzle will die. Beekeepers need to feed sugar syrup to newly hived packages in the spring to prevent them from starving.

2-Pound Package: This size is manufacture standard, and contains about 6-7,000 worker bees. They are less expensive and are plenty to starting time a hive.

3-Pound Bundle: Many beekeepers like 3-pound packages as they have more worker bees to get the colony started. They contain about 10,000 worker bees.

There are many factors involved in how well a package volition do.  Adept weather condition and expert management are more than important than package size. The number of bees y'all starting time with has the to the lowest degree to do with success or failure.

Packages can exist installed into any type of hive, while nucs are limited to deep Langstroth boxes.

Nuc (Hive Nucleus)

"Nuc" is short for hive nucleus and rhymes with "Luke." A nuc is a 5-frame starter colony of honeybees with a queen. The v deep frames comprise worker bees, drawn comb, pollen, dearest, a laying queen, eggs, larvae, and sealed and emerging brood. Nucs do non include the beehive boxes.

**Nosotros recommend nucs for starting time beekeepers.

5-Frame Hive Nucleus

Nosotros want customers to succeed at apiculture. This twelvemonth's nucs volition come from our over-wintered colonies. We divide the colonies and feed the colonies while they abound onto 5 frames.

With nucs, there is less gamble as a new beekeeper for the colony to die in the spring. The first six weeks of a colony's life tin be tricky to manage, equally Utah spring weather patterns are unpredictable, and new beekeepers lack feel feeding bees. With nucs, we intendance for bees through this initial feeding time, and yous limit the risk of colonies starving.

Frame from hive nucleus

Our nucs need to exist installed in deep Langstroth hives only as they come on deep frames.

Nuc Pickups

Here is how our nuc pickups work. Beekeepers pick up their nucs on i of our set pickup dates, unremarkably on Friday evenings in May.

At the pickup, you will transfer the frames of the nuc, one at a time, into your ain deep hive. We want beekeepers to inspect their new colony during the transfer. You will be able to employ your smoker and protective clothing to see eggs, the queen bee, comb, honey stores, etc. New beekeepers often capeesh having an experienced beekeeper there when they make their first hive inspection. You can also  make sure the colony is thriving with a healthy queen before you have it home.

You will transfer the frames in the daylight, when there are fewer bees at home. And then you will bulldoze the hive habitation after nighttime, when all the foraging bees are home. There will be some waiting time between transferring and moving bees. Y'all are welcome to stay and ask questions, or to leave and come dorsum.

Feral Queen Bees

Something unique to our company is our feral bee projection. Stan Moulton found isolated feral honeybee colonies in Southern Utah that have been living in the cliffs without man intervention for years. We remember they may take originally swarmed from some agricultural projects in the area.

Over fourth dimension, the honeybee industry has selected and bred honeybees exclusively for dear production. In this process, nosotros've lost some of the bees' genetic resistance to affliction.

There is a motility in the apiculture industry to bring back some of these missing cistron expressions that may still exist in isolated populations. We hope that doing so may re-introduce some of the bee's natural abilities to overcome affliction. We are however working through this process and hope you lot will join us in testing out this theory. Our preliminary results are promising.

CLICK Here to learn more.

All of our packages and nucs come with a queen from the feral bee projection. People drive from all effectually the Western U.S. to try our bees. We do not send queens at this time.

Locally-Produced Deep Hives

We are non selling beehives in 2019.

Most years nosotros build and sell new, assembled, unpainted hives. Equipment is fabricated in Utah, from trees grown in Utah, past Utah woodworkers. (If Utah wood is unavailable, we source it from the Western United states of america.) Woodenware is available for local pickup in Spring City, UT and may be pre-ordered and delivered at bee pickups. Equipment is made to order.

Types of Hives

In that location are many types of hives out in that location, however, we recommend that new beekeepers beginning with a standard Langstroth hive. We've found that bees don't mind what type of hive they alive in. They simply want to produce honey and offspring. We cull then, based on ease of use for the beekeeper.

Kickoff-time beekeepers will be most likely to succeed with a Langstroth hive. Afterward your first couple years, it tin be fun to experiment with different hives, like the intermediate-level top bar hive.

Boxes

Boxes are the structure of the hive. They are called "Hive Bodies" or "Supers," depending on their location in the hive. Beekeepers start a honeybee colony in one box until frames are about eighty% total, and so stack another box on top.

**We recommend purchasing 3-4 deep boxes per hive.

Beekeeping boxes come up in deep, medium, and shallow. We apply and sell deep boxes exclusively in our operation because it is more efficient for us. It makes all equipment interchangeable and ways fewer pieces of equipment to handle and store.

Some beekeepers prefer medium boxes for their lighter weight, (which will be piece of cake to find from some other company if weight is an issue). I personally can't lift a deep box that's filled with dear, so I don't. What I can do is elevator individual frames a few at a time. I can also lift a one-half sized, v-frame nuc box full of honey, which is equivalent in weight to a medium box.

Y'all will need iii deep boxes for an average Utah summer. Bees will need the bottom 2 boxes every bit their food storage for wintertime and the tertiary box will incorporate honey for the apiculturist. It can exist handy to have a fourth deep box.

If you go with medium boxes, v medium boxes take the same book as 3 deep boxes. Y'all will too need 50 frames to fill those boxes.

Yous may want to pigment the outside surface of the boxes to protect them from the elements. Employ whatever type of exterior paint, varnish, or other stop. Do not paint the inside of the box, as bees will embrace the woods with propolis, an important part of their disease resistance.

Frames

At that place are 10 frames to a standard box. These as well come in deep, medium, and shallow to match the box. Deep frames are 9 ane/8″. Bees build wax comb on frames, with hexagon-shaped cells. They apply the cells to raise their immature and shop honey. Frames can be used with or without foundation, or a sheet of plastic or wax stamped with hexagons and used to support wax comb.

Centre Bar Frame

The industry standard is to utilise frames with foundation, and we use some frames with foundation in our operation. We also use foundationless frames because we think it has health benefits for the bees to have clean, new wax. It allows bees to build smaller or larger cells, as they desire. It also helps us harvest rummage beloved.

When we want to utilize foundationless frames, we drill holes in the side confined of the frame, and add ii removable dowels, making a horizontal support in the frame. Nosotros phone call these heart bar frames.

Nosotros do this because new rummage in a deep foundationless frame may buckle under the weight of bees and love. Eye bars assist support this weight. In the past, beekeepers used to string wires in the frame to support the comb. This took a lot of work and so at that place were wires in the comb.

Our bees take used middle bar frames for raising brood and storing honey. We utilise information technology to cutting honeycomb for retail or in a honey extractor.

If yous want to make your frames into middle bar frames, WATCH THIS VIDEO.

Our favorite middle bar frames can be used four ways:

1. With plastic foundation. This is the industry standard.

ii. Foundationless. The chamfer forth the top bar will encourage bees to build wax comb in the heart of each frame and the center confined volition support the weight of the deep comb.

Bees building comb on middle bar frame.

3. Foundationless with burr comb. Bees will eventually build burr rummage in the hive. You tin can use information technology to prime them to draw comb on a new frame. Wedge the comb between the middle bars, hexagons pointing up, and bees will build from at that place.

Center bar frame with pieces of burr comb sandwiched between middle bars

4. With wax foundation. Identify wax foundation in grooves in the superlative and lesser bars and sandwich it between the heart bar dowels. Dowels will support the full comb weight. Nosotros don't recommend wax foundation, as sometimes it can be contaminated with disease spores and pesticides.

v. The industry as well sells plastic frames with foundation as one piece. Information technology is sprayed with a thin layer of beeswax to attract bees to build on it.

Special Considerations for Foundationless Hives

You volition need to check foundationless hives every couple days at first and correct off-frame edifice by cutting and moving comb dorsum into the eye of your frame with your hive tool.

We recommend alternating frames in the hive: one frame with foundation, then i foundationless frame, followed by another frame with foundation, etc. We establish that when we put all foundationless frames in the hive, in that location were times when bees go rogue and build off the frame. When the bees do this, it is difficult and messy to remove frames. When nosotros alternated frames with foundation and foundationless, they congenital in straighter lines, and working with the frames is much easier. In one case all the combs are drawn out, you won't need to do this again for that hive.

Foundation

Foundation is a thin sheet of plastic or wax stamped with hexagons. It fits in a frame and gives bees a guide to build rummage. The plastic foundation needs to be sprayed with a thin blanket of beeswax to attract bees to build on information technology.

Sheet of plastic foundation

Lid

There is one hat per colony. It fits on top of the hive.

Lids come in two primary styles, migratory, or telescoping. Migratory lids fit affluent on the sides of the box and normally have a ventilation hole for winter. Many commercial beekeepers utilize these because they are less expensive and it is easier to put hives on a truck, right side by side to each other. The ease of moving them is why they are called "migratory."

Telescoping lids "telescope" over the edges of the box, covering all of the edges of the top of the box. Nosotros need to use an inner cover with telescoping lids (otherwise, bees glue the hat to the hive and you tin't get it off.) Inner covers also help vent moist air in the winter.

Telescoping Lid, Menstruum Hive design

Either type of lid can take a flat or pitched roof.

We prefer a migratory-style lid with a ventilation pigsty, which helps to circulate air. With the ventilation hole, you shouldn't demand an inner cover, which is a separate piece of equipment used with scope lids, which fits surrounds the top of the box on all sides. The migratory style lid is the nigh bones type of lid available. It's durable and functional. (Meridian R and 50 photos)

Nosotros also similar the garden-style lid with a pretty pitched roof. (Bottom 50 photo)

Top Row: chapeau view from pinnacle and bottom
Lesser: Garden Mode lid and bottom lath

Bottom Board

The bottom board is located under the bottom box. (Bottom R photo) It creates an archway to the hive. In that location is one per colony. Nosotros use solid lesser boards, rather than screened. Solid bottom boards are less expensive and, with screened bottom boards, there is a take chances of a common cold air typhoon chilling the brood. A screened bottom lath makes information technology more difficult for bees to control the temperature of their hive. A screened bottom board can be a part of your mite monitoring program, but it's non effective at eliminating mites from the hive. For us, giving bees the power to regulate hive temperature is greater than the advantages of a screened bottom board.

Hive Kit

In the beekeeping industry, nosotros have lots of specific terminology. A "parcel" is a small cage of bees with a queen that we can use to beginning a colony. A "kit" is a grouping of items that apiculture supply companies bundle together to make information technology easier for their customers to buy a new hive.

Kits may include bees, a hive, tools, a bee jacket, or honey extracting equipment.

Protective Habiliment

Protective Wearable can range from a hat and veil, to a jacket, to a full body bee suit. Your choice volition depend on your comfort level around the bees. You are going to get stung if you keep bees. It'southward part of the experience.

The hat and veil is the least expensive option and offers the least protection. It unremarkably either tucks into your shirt collar or has a drawstring that pulls tight, then crosses in back and ties around the waist. Vesture a chapeau and veil with your own thick wearable (long sleeves, pants, and boots) for additional protection.

A beekeeping jacket offers more protection, especially from the waist upwards. Habiliment a jacket with long pants and boots. This is cooler in the summer heat and is easier to put on and take off. Bees tend to enter your clothing at the waistline or pant cuffs. Tuck in your shirt and pant legs for added protection.

A full bee suit offers the nearly protection, covering you from head to ankle. Wear them with boots to protect your ankles. Suits come up in a variety of fabrics, from (stingable) breathable mesh to heavy-duty canvas fabrics. They are the hottest and most difficult to put on and take off, but y'all probably won't get stung wearing i. When our children were young, we made sure they wore a total bee suit. These days, they can choose what they'd like to wear.

We own more than than 20 bee suits, but Stan's go-to is a jacket like this one pictured below. This jacket is no longer on the market, just we wanted to include it so that when you shop, you can look for some of these features.

Features

• Veil has mesh all the way around for meliorate sight lines.
• Veil mesh is thin fiberglass or wire so it is piece of cake to see through.
• Beekeepers tin can unzip and push back the hat for driving or a drink of h2o.
• Pull-on style has fewer zippers, with less fuss and fewer holes for bees to sneak in.
• Long length and elastic waist prevents bees from stinging at the waist-line.
• Pockets
• Rubberband at sleeve opening
• Easily slips on and off
• Made from heavy-duty materials. This makes information technology less "breathable," but bees are less able to sting through information technology.

Notes

Some bee veils have plastic coating on the screen, which makes it difficult to encounter pocket-sized things like eggs. Seeing eggs is critical to making sure the queen is salubrious in your hive. Nosotros noticed the plastic blanket on some of the bee suits on Amazon. Look at a beekeeping supplier like Mann Lake, Dadant, BetterBee, etc. to compare prices and quality. It is as well easier to see through nighttime screen than light-colored screen.

Bee suits are extremely hot in the summer, specially when y'all wear a layer of wearable underneath. It'south part of apiculture to experience summer oestrus. They make mesh bee suits, just bees often tin can sting through them.

Bees that are calm in the spring and summer become more agitated in the fall when nosotros harvest honey. This is the time you will want the most protection.

Protect your feet and legs, peculiarly at night. Bees crawl instead of fly when it is dark. They tend to sting more than when they crawl.

Vesture closed-toed shoes and long pants when yous go apiculture.

You volition probably want an actress bee suit or two so you can bear witness your hive to friends and family unit. Information technology'southward a fun part of beekeeping to share your passion.

Bee suits are ordinarily white with a dark screen across the face. Some say that aroused bees tend to wing towards nighttime colors, perhaps considering bears' sensitive areas (eyes and nose) are dark-colored. White is also cooler in the summertime. The color of your bee conform is flexible. Don't be afraid to buy pretty/handsome bee suits if you'd like to.

A brilliant white bee suit is a sign of a new beekeeper. It becomes stained with bee scat over fourth dimension.

Most bee veils are manus-wash only. Sometimes we can detach the chapeau office from the arrange and wash the suit in the washing machine. You can wash the veil function in the bathroom tub with mild soap if needed.

Bee Smoker

The bee smoker is an essential beekeeping tool. We've tried more than than twenty different smokers and find that the 4×7 inch smoker with a guard and leather bellows fits our needs best. It is small, and therefore less expensive, and the leather bellows are more than durable than plastic ones. The guard helps forestall fires. Nosotros purchased a smoker most recently from Mann Lake Hither.

Rather than purchasing smoker fuel, nosotros utilise old burlap sacks. Nosotros bought java edible bean sacks from the local farm store and they have lasted for years.

Hive tool. This is used to pry open the lid and remove frames. You will need one every time you go into the hive. We like the standard hive tool. It looks like a mini crowbar. It'southward nice to take a spare hive tool. Here is a link to Isle of man Lake's hive tools.

Beekeeping Gloves

We like leather bee gloves with a sleeve attached. Some bee gloves come with mesh ventilation at the wrist. Bees can sting through ventilation mesh, so nosotros prefer the solid kind. Here is a link to some dainty beekeeping gloves. You can make your own bee gloves by adding a sleeve to a pair of leather work gloves.

Feeder

This is to feed bees when there is no nectar flow or honey stores. There are several styles. We use the Barn Hive or a division board feeder, sometimes called a "Pro Feeder." Yous can find it HERE. It replaces a deep frame inside the box. You lot tin buy them with or without caps and ladders. We recommend getting caps and ladders because it will avert drowning as many bees. We've exhausted the topic of feeders on our YouTube Channel.

Hive Stand

Nearly people place the bottom board on some blazon of hive stand to preserve the bottom board and level the hive. Nosotros employ standard shipping pallets and place 4 hives per pallet. Some people use cinder blocks or purchased hive stands.

If you have an good year, or fifty-fifty just an boilerplate one, your bees volition produce honey. You will need a style to extract that beloved from the hive. The nearly common way to practice this is with a centrifuge extractor. You could as well harvest and eat the love rummage, or use Flow frames.

For extracting and bottling honey using our DIY system, see Lesson 10 of our Beginning Beekeeping Series.

Grandpa Arthur's Extractor

There are several local businesses that will excerpt honey from your frames for a fee or a portion of the dearest, if you'd prefer non to invest in the extracting equipment yourself.

A mitt-crank extractor

Hither is an extraction kit that Mann Lake offers. We look for American- or German-fabricated extractors, merely this would work and gives a good price estimate. Extractors offset at around $300.

For extracting beloved, you will need

• An extractor to spin honey out of the frame.
• A strainer, to remove bees' knees.
• An uncapping tool, similar a hot knife or scratcher. We utilise a scratcher to go on the honey "raw."
• Love containers, like mason jars.
• A honey bottling tank. Nosotros employ a food grade five-gallon saucepan with a dear gate for bottling and straining.
• A place to shop wax cappings, similar a second food grade 5 gallon bucket.

Flow Frames

Menstruum frames are a new option for extracting love. The advantage is that you can excerpt honey right from the hive using their tube system without purchasing an extracting arrangement. And they are pretty absurd!

The disadvantage of Flow frames is that they are expensive. A set of flow frames can cost more than an extractor. Beekeepers can just extract honey from the menstruation frames themselves, but bees store honey throughout the hive. To swallow liquid honey stored in traditional frames, beekeepers would either need to own an extractor or forfeit the honey. Therefore, information technology would be more efficient to spend money on a skilful-quality extractor than on Flow frames.

Determination

We hope you take enjoyed this guide. We also hope our many years of experience can assist you in your beekeeping goals. Nosotros can offering you unique products, sustainable hives, and we are doing our best to salve the country'southward honeybee population. If you take future questions, please contact us on our Facebook Page or send us an email at info@thehoneycompany.com.

Click Hither to enter our online store.

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Source: https://thehoneycompany.com/buying-your-first-hive/

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