Our nucs are in very high demand so order early to avoid disappointment - first come, first serve!
5 Frame Overwintered Nucleus supplied with a family of Buckfast bees headed by an open mated, unclipped & marked 2024 (Green) Buckfast queen to begin supply April 2025* onward (Weather Permitting*).
An ideal way to start beekeeping is to purchase a nuc and with our docile bees it is perfect for beginners whilst still maintaining required traits for production, disease resistance and low swarming tendencies.
Your nuc will be supplied to you with brood at all stages (capped brood, larvae, and eggs) and a sufficient amount of stores**. All of our overwintered nucs are made in the previous season. The difference between an overwintered nuc & a normal spring nuc is that generally you are able to receive an overwintered nuc earlier, are more likely to harvest a spring crop and that they have proved their ability to overwinter.
All our breeding hives and overwintered nucs are treated for varroa routinely with approved VMD medication of which is recorded and kept for 5 years under VMR 2011SI2159, we are also fully DASH accredited suppliers so you can rest assured your bees will be in prime condition on arrival.
Our nucs are supplied on British Standard DN4 National frames (Hoffman spacing 432mm x 356mm) which is suitable for a National Hive & WBC, inside our own bespoke free correx travel box.
Please note these will fit inside of a 14x12 hive but you will have to slowly migrate to your larger frame size. Unfortunately it is not commercially viable for us to produce on several different frame sizes. You can use these in a Langstroth hive (e.g. Flow Hive) by using cable ties to secure a national frame to the top and side bars of a standard Langstroth frame with the bottom bars removed but entirely at your own risk, see Flow Forum guide here. We do have a limited amount of Langstroth Nucs available in April here.
We have many happy customers throughout the UK. Check our outstanding Trustpilot reviews, above pictures and videos above to see how docile our bees really are.
| Availability Timescale | Provisional Delivery Date |
| 1st Round (+/- 1-2 weeks) | 10th April 2025 |
| 2nd Round (+/- 1-2 weeks) | 17th April 2025 |
| 3rd Round (+/- 1-2 weeks) | 24th April 2025 |
| FINAL ROUND (STRAGGLERS) | 1st May 2025 |
Please select the most appropriate date for yourself when placing your order. Please be aware this date cannot be changed in our system once the order is placed.
*All quoted dates are provisional based on conditions and allowance of +/- 1-2 weeks must be accounted for. We cannot control the weather so please bear that in mind when placing your order. Any updates can be seen on our News & Updates section.
** Please note - depending on the time of year stores may vary, e.g. during April / May there is a strong flow of oil seed rape so a larger amount of honey could be expected. Nucs will initially benefit from feeding to establish into a stronger colony when moved into a full size box as demonstrated in our installation video.
Queens overwintered in our nucs are imported from Europe from reputable breeders the previous season.
