Jim said:

<I wouldn't take brood comb from my own father's hives, nor him from mine.But a gift of drawn honey-super comb is likely the most valuable gift anovice starting a new hive can get.Sure, there is a slight chance that honey -super comb could harbor disease,but the odds are good that the goods aren't odd.>

If you know and trust your  beekeeper - I'll agree, absolutely.  Gives the queen to start laying right away, a place to store nectar and honey while everyone gets busy setting up the hive.

But, if you are buying nucs to jump start your colonies - ask yourself how the supplier can spare that many combs?  Do you expect them to give you their nice, new, clean honey combs?   If you were to go into your  hives and pick combs to send with bees to someone else - you  might give good ones to friends or family.  

If its a business, and you are scaled up to be able to deliver lots of nucs each your - then I suggest you won't be sending along your best combs.  Best for the customer, you'll just grab and use whatever you can find.  Worst, you'll cull the crap.  Buyer beware.

Frankly, I tell our classes - nucs are a great jump start to get colonies up and going; but its a gamble, and if those aren't the clean honey combs that Jim mentions, but rather old combs with ripped supercedure cells, mouse damage,foul scales, etc. - its the gift that is likely to keep on giving.  In the long run, it'll cost you.  Its their choice and I present them with both the up and downsides.  I've used nucs when I needed a fast start, but for my own colonies, I'd rather start clean and keep it that way to the degree possible.

Maybe you've nuc suppliers in your area that are better than those I've seen in most parts of the country.  The best make sure you don't get obviously bad combs, some don't care, and I haven't seen one yet supplying nice, newly drawn combs from honey supers.





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