LIVE BEES
Packages
Packaging honey bees is a technique where by large scale commercial beekeepers in southern teir states with early springs (Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, California, etc) are able to produce excess bees during January, February, March, and April. They are able to take their surplus bees and place them in screened containers for transport to northern teir states. These transfers are done in late March, April, and early May. The bees are sold by weight (usually 2, 3, or 5 pounds). Package dealers from northern teir states drive to the package producers with trucks or trailers, load up the packages and bring them back to our area for pick up by local beekeepers.
In a 3 lb package, there are approximately 10,000 individual bees. Included in the package is one queen bee in a small cage. This queen is not the mother to the other bees that are in the package. She was raised in a seperate operation and added to the package right before it was shipped. She is confined to a cage because a period of time is required for the worker bees to become accustomed to her before the bees will accept her. While in transit a can of sugar syrup with small holes punched in it is suspended in the container to give the bees nutrition during the trip.
Arrangements are made in advance for the shipment and delivery of package bees with your supplier. Most suppliers take orders in January and February. If your are going to order package bees it is best to get your order in early as availability is limited. Shipping dates are somewhat variable based on the weather conditions in the states where the bees are being produced. Package bee suppliers will provide a window of time when delivery is likely and as the time gets closer a more specific date for the packages to arrive in our area. As a beekeeper you will need to be flexible with regard to the pick up date. This is because the bees are living organisms that have specific needs that are weather dependent.
The trip from the supplier to the beekeeper can be stressful on the bees because it is difficult to control the temperatures inside the transport trucks. There is a very short window of time that the bees will survive inside of the shipping package so timing is of the essence. The warmer the temperatures the more stressful it is on the bees. It usually takes two days of transit times for the bees to be transported to New York.
For a beginner with a brand new hive set up it is best to try and arrange for the bees to arrive sometime during the last week of April or the first week of May. This is because the new colony will have no stored up food and no place to store any as the honey comb hasn't been built out yet. In addition, the weather in April can be very 'iffy' with lots of cool rainy days that will keep the bees from collecting food. For an established beekeeper that has honeycomb that already has pollen and honey stored in it, the packages can be installed in late March or early April.
Once the bees arrive, it is best to pick them up and get them inside a hive as soon as possible. There is a more detailed explanation of this on the Packages page. Once again, spring weather in our area can be variable. Be sensitive to this when transferring the bees to the hive. If you want to learn more about the process of setting up a colony from a package consider joining our Beekeeping School.
We have made the decision to no longer supply package bees. We have chosen instead to focus on supplying nucleus colonies. We believe that nucleus colonies are more in keeping with our mission of developing locally adapted honey bees. By producing nucleus colonies from stock that has survived winters in our area and show traits that are desirable to local beekeepers we believe that over the long run local beekeepers will be better served.
Nucs - Nucleus colonies
Queens