Thank you for your purchase from BS Honey Bees, enclosed is your order of nuclei thriving with hard working honey bees headed by a Buckfast Queen.
We recommend the instructions are carried out wearing your bee suit, with a smoker, as they may be slightly excited to get out and about. When you first receive / collect your nuc(s) we recommend to place the nuc(s) in the same position where you plan to have your hive(s), opening the entrance located on the front of the box (marked “entrance” on correx boxes or a rotating coloured disc on a Poly box).
Applicable to correx only – The entrance (located on the long face of the box, under our branding, clearly marked “ENTRANCE”) will be taped and will require propping open with a small twig. We have found it best to place a board or the hive roof on top of the nuc so they are not in direct sunlight, this will restrict the box absorbing all the sunlight and potentially overheating the bees.
You will note that the bees will begin to come out and circle the area trying to orientate themselves to their new positioning, this can go on for a few hours before you see them starting to work. We recommend leaving them in the nuc box for at least 24 hours prior to transferring them to a full sized hive. This is to allow them to get used to their surroundings and re-orientate them to their new position.
Returning the day after, gently smoke the entrance, move the nuc to the side and place your hive in position with the centre 5 (or 6 for poly nucs) frames removed. Whilst applying smoke open the roof / travel screen of the nuc box (this will require cutting the securing tape) and gently hook the first frame out of the box using your hive tool. Begin carefully placing the frames into the centre of your brood box in the same formation in which the frames came out of the box.
After this time there will undoubtedly be bees remaining inside the box. We recommend lightly tapping the bees to 1 corner and shaking them either directly into the hive or in front of the entrance allowing them to crawl into their new home. The nuc box can be put to aside to allow any bees to fly out to the hive.
We recommend feeding your nuc(s) to help them establish their new brood nest (using a frame feeder or equivalent). The bees need sugar syrup, especially if you are installing them onto fresh foundation, to initially establish. If you are using drawn comb this will help them advance quicker. We recommend feeding them until they are covering the entire brood box, this should take about 3-4 weeks depending on the conditions. Only when they are covering the brood box should you consider adding your queen excluder and super boxes. Adding these earlier may delay the bees progression as they will use more energy heating a larger area.
After the initial installation we recommend to just top up the feed as necessary and keep inspection schedules within a 10-day period. Weekly inspection can be vital during the season to ensure the bees are healthy. It is important to manage them well when swarm control comes into play.
We wish you all the best with your bees and hope that this guideline will assist you during your installation. For a better idea we suggest you take a look at the videos below –
Installing a 6 Frame Nucleus (Poly – Collected Overwintered)
https://youtu.be/hTVZwj-U6f8
Installing a 5 Frame Nucleus (Correx – Spring / Posted Nuc)
https://youtu.be/llbYpkJz1ac
Follow up to the installation
https://youtu.be/yn0OgMLm5WY
IMPORTANT NOTE - Please ensure if you notice any abnormalities, have any serious concerns or questions about the bees, that they are addressed to us in writing (with pictures, if applicable), as soon as possible. Once the bees are in your care there is only a limited amount of time that we can offer assistance in resolving any problems you may have. In incidents in the past customers have approached us months after which, if we were informed earlier, issues could have easily been resolved. Customer satisfaction is extremely important to us and the reputation of our business. You must bear in mind these are living creatures, we are reliant upon you to have completed research and/or courses prior to becoming a beekeeper, these variables after receiving your bees make it hard for us to offer any “warranty” as such on Nucs.
Thank you for your business and we hope to deal with you again in the future. Please do take time to leave a review on our Trustpilot page - https://www.trustpilot.com/review/bshoneybees.co.uk.
