I attended my first beekeeping meeting in Atlanta this Wednesday, March 14th, at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. I met some wonderful, quirky people including the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association‘s president Martha Kiefer.
After last year’s loss of 5 hives, I was interested in learning more about getting off to a good start and finishing the season with lots of honey and lots of strong bees. Last year we (my dad and I ) bought 5 hives and queens from the Walter Kelley company in Clarkston, KY.
Unfortunately, when I drove forever and a mile to pick up the bees, I learned that the bees originally came from Georgia! They had been in cages for several days and half my swarm was dead before I had a chance to put them in their hives. The combined effect of a cold, damp spring, and the influx of wax moths and beetles, the bees never made a strong colony. They simply didn’t have the numbers or strength to build up the resistance to make it through the winter.
Since that time I have learned a lot about feeding bees and insuring they have the health and food to survive. I have also learned that I should start with a “nuc” (pronounced “nuke”), which is the nucleus of a beehive, as opposed to just a queen and a swarm.
Last year we bought swarms of bees and a queen for each swarm. The first thing that the bees had to do before going to work was to build out their comb. That takes time and energy. Once the comb is drawn, the queen can lay eggs and worker bees can begin to develop. Again, all this takes time and energy. With low numbers of bees, this process is very taxing to the survival rate of the hive.
With a “nuc”, the hive comes with 4 frames of drawn comb, along with capped brood (worker bees that haven’t hatched yet), some capped honey and a queen. In this scenario, the queen can lay eggs immediately. And while those eggs are developing, the other eggs are hatching and beginning to work. Since there is already drawn comb and some honey, survival is less of a risk.
The only problem with a “nuc” is that I have to get the hive at night and drive them 6 hours to TN. The bees are not caged. But since bees nest at night and are not active, I shouldn’t have to worry too much about a bee wandering out and giving me a nice surprise while I’m driving. I have been warned that carrying a nuc during the day can be quite eventful. So at night it will be….if I can talk my wife into it.
