I picked up three nuc boxes of honey bees last night. Two for me, one for someone who should be picking up her bees today. Here’s a shot of the boxes and the bees close-up.
I’ll install the bees into my hives later today.
I’ll document it all eventually. In the meantime, this is what the bees sound like in their boxes.
(The bees come in around the 1:00 mark.)
Hey there, I have heard bee pollen is good for allergies. What do you plan to do with the honey you get from this?
Hey there, what do you plan to do with the honey and pollen/wax you get from this? Sell it or use it?
Can you get your own extra queens from this to produce your own other hives?
Hey Alan,
Bee pollen is used for all kinds of things. I know people who swear by it, who take a spoonful every day to boost their immune system, reduce pain from arthritis, etc.
I don’t plan to take anything from the bees this year, though. I might get a small taste of honey, but I want the colonies to establish themselves and be strong for next year. Honey I take from them is honey they’ll probably need to survive their first winter.
But next year when the colonies are good in shape, I’ll keep the excess honey and install a pollen collector. What I do with it depends on how much I get. Until then, I can’t really make any plans, for honey or the wax.
I can create my own queens to start up new hives, but the process essentially splits a colony in half and the two halves won’t produce excess honey (the stuff we harvest) that year. So I probably won’t create my own queens for a couple years.
Okay, we just installed the first nuc box. The bees are in their new hive. I smoked the bees and they immediately began to buzz more — they sounded angry. But when I opened the nuc box, only a few flew away and the rest stayed on the frames as I put them into the hive. It went well as far as I can tell.