Getting your first bees (From Smallholder)

Getting your first bees

12:17pm Wednesday 1st June 2011 in Bees and Honey

Brenda Davies helps to get new beekeepers off to a good start It is June and the time when many new beekeepers will be wanting to get their first bees. As usual with beekeeping, there are decisions to be made. Should you buy an established full sized colony or a small nucleus colony or hope to catch a swarm? Let’s look at the options.

Established colonies only usually become available when the beekeeper is down-sizing for some reason. This could be due to the beekeeper moving house, suffering ill health or just getting older. The offer of an established colony complete with hive and the prospect of a honey harvest in the first year may be a big temptation and seem to be an opportunity too good to miss. But is it?

Don’t be mislead by the fact that it is an established colony and think that nothing can go wrong. It certainly can. At this time of year, keeping a full colony of bees under control, preventing swarming and keeping parasitic mite numbers below danger level can be a difficult task even for an experienced beekeeper.

So taking on an established colony should never be contemplated by a beginner unless they have a full time mentor. Be aware that an established colony will have a full compliment of guard bees, each one armed with a sting, and they won’t take kindly to being disturbed by a clumsy beginner.

So what about a swarm then? Catching a swarm of bees may sound a good idea but that is not always as easy as it looks either. It is not something a beginner should attempt without help from someone with more experience. There are different types of swarms. A swarm can have an old queen or a young queen, a mated one or a virgin. Each has its own set of potential problems. It is pot luck what you get and can often end in disappointment.

That leaves us with the nucleus option and in my opinion obtaining a nucleus is the best way for a beginner to get going. A nucleus is a starter colony of bees and it should have everything needed for learning the practical beekeeping basics.

A nucleus is the heart of a colony and should consist of 3-5 frames depending on the design of hive used. The frames will have drawn comb with a laying queen, brood, food and bees. The nucleus should be ready to move into a hive of its own and if it is well looked after it will continue to grow steadily during the summer. You may even get a small crop of honey in your first year but that would be a bonus.

The big advantage of starting off with a small family of bees is that you can easily keep them under control while you are learning what to do and developing your frame handling skills.

Your knowledge should grow as fast as the nucleus does and by the end of the summer you should have become reasonably confident when opening the hive. By then your bees should have filled a brood box or more with drawn combs and should be able to store enough food to last them through the coming winter.

It all sounds very simple but like most things in beekeeping there are pitfalls ready to catch the unwary. So let’s look at some of these things in a bit more detail so that you will know what to watch out for.

First things first, before you arrange to get your nucleus you must have a hive ready to put the bees into. This is because it is usual to obtain bees complete with frames containing combs of brood and food, so it is very important to ensure that the frames that the bees are occupying will actually fit into your hive.

For the full story see the June issue of Smallholder.