Package, nuc, swarm or established colony
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Four ways in
You can buy bees loose in a box, buy a small working colony, catch a swarm somebody else's bees threw, or buy an entire established hive from a beekeeper who is stopping. They cost different amounts, arrive at different times, and demand different things from a first-year beekeeper.
The package
A package is a cage of worker bees shaken from several colonies, with a freshly mated queen in her own small cage and a canister of syrup for the journey. They come in two, three and five pound sizes, and the three pound package is often the best buy.
The bees in a package are strangers to each other and to the queen. They have no comb, no brood and no stores, so everything starts from nothing and the colony has to build before it can grow. That is why packages need feeding and why the first six weeks feel slow.
Packages arrive early, which is their advantage. A package installed in April has the whole season in front of it.
The nuc
A nucleus colony is a complete small colony: four or five frames of drawn comb with honey, pollen and brood, a laying queen already accepted, and nurse bees and workers that are all related to each other. It is a hive that has been running, shrunk down.
It is ahead of a package by several weeks. There is brood emerging from day one and comb already drawn, which is worth more than it sounds, because drawn comb costs a colony roughly eight pounds of honey per pound of wax to build.
Nucs cost more and arrive later in the season, which is the trade.
Swarms
A caught swarm is free bees with unknown genetics, unknown disease history and unknown temper. It is a real way to start and it is not a reliable one, because you cannot plan a season around whether somebody calls you in May.
They also arrive with no comb and no stores, so a swarm behaves like a package with more bees and less certainty.
Buying an established colony
The fastest start and the riskiest. You are buying somebody else's equipment, comb and disease history in one transaction. Old dark comb, a failing queen and American foulbrood all travel with the boxes, and foulbrood spores survive for decades.
Inspect before money changes hands, or buy from somebody whose bees an inspector has seen.
Which to choose
- First season, want the longest run: a package, installed early, fed properly.
- First season, want the best odds: a nuc. It is ahead and it is more forgiving.
- Two colonies rather than one. Whatever you choose, two is the real advice. A colony with a problem can be fixed from a colony without one, and with a single hive you have nothing to compare it to and nothing to fix it with.