"Newbies; Packages or Nucs?" 

We (several persons from our local bee keeping association)  teach a 5 week Introduction to Bee Keeping Class in partnership with our local University of Illinois Extension Office and the local Farm Bureau.    At the conclusion of the class, the attendees have the opportunity to purchase package bees and the needed equipment.  We will make an equipment pickup from the local bee supply store (on the Illinois/Iowa border in Hamilton) to pick up the equipment for the attendees.   The package bees are then usually available a week or so after the class concludes and the equipment has been delivered.

In years past, nucs were an option (where an attendee could purchase a nuc and not a package) , but for the last few years we have strongly encouraged the attendees who start in bee keeping begin with at least 1 package instead of a nuc (actually we recommend 2 packages if they can afford it).   The reasons are as follows:

1. The installation of a package of bees and the subsequent release of the queen from her cage is part of the right of passage in becoming a beekeeper.    Along with the bee feces as many of the package bees take the opportunity to land on you and defecate during the installation process. 

2. The bee keeper can observe how the package bees start off with nothing and lay the new wax down.  They can observe the eggs being laid for the first time and the life cycle from egg to larva, to sealed brood  to emergence.   They learn the queen needs to be accepted by the colony before being released.   They learn the proper time of day to do an installation (late in the day).   If it is too cool to mist the package with syrup, they learn a package can be installed without misting them with syrup.

3.  The packages are available much earlier in our area (as early as late March) where a true nucleus colonies from local sources are not available until late May or June.  The reason being is the local sources raising local queens will not have queens available until then.

4.  Packages are usually less expensive than nucs and are available earlier and in far greater numbers than nucs.

5.  Packages are easier to transport back from the pickup source (we can fit 150 packages in a full size passenger van with all but the driver and front passenger seat removed).  Usually these are packages from California which we get from a pick up point in Watertown, Wisconsin.

6.  Some unscrupulous bee keepers have been known to purchase packages along with extra queens and then split each package into 2 or more nuc colonies, and get rid of their crap comb and frames in the process... These are not nucs, they are what they are, split packages with purchased queens on usually old crap comb.    A beginning beekeeper does not learn much from this other than not to do it again.

Nothing is wrong with splits or nucs except when they are being represented as something they are not (such as locally raised overwintered bees with locally raised queens, when they are not).

Granted, some queens with packages are not fully mated or something is not right with her and the bees seem to know this as we usually see some packages get superseded soon after the queen starts laying.   On the plus side,  it is all part of the learning process of new bee keeper.   If a package queen fails and we do not have a spare, then one of the instructors of the class will do what is needed to make the colony queen right, either through a frame or two of brood with eggs and larva on it or donating a captured swarm later if the package does not make it. 

Steve Petrilli
Central Illinois

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