2024 Six Frame National Nucleus

Deposits now being taken (don't be late)

Welcome

The Travelling Bee Company is really pleased that you have decided to either start beekeeping or increase the numbers of your beehives. By choosing a 6 frame nucleus with us you can guarantee that it will adhere to the best practice guidance of the National Bee Unit (NBU), but most of all we love bees and want them and you to have a great start together.

We are members of the Bee Farmers Association and supply individuals and professionals with quality well looked after bees. We can’t offer continued distant support but will provide enough information to get you going. We do recommend that you do some background reading and either look to take a course/introduction to beekeeping and have someone you can ask for guidance. We also recommend that the place that you are going to site your bees has been well thought out as moving bees isn’t as straight forward as you might think.

We must be sure our bees are going to be well looked after!

So what can you expect?

A choice of a polystyrene or more traditional wood Nucleus Hive with 6 BS brood frames that comes complete with a built in feeder (wooden Nucleus comes with a 4 pint top feeder). It has an open mesh floor to help with varroa control and to help with ventilation during transit.

The frames themselves are the highest quality DN4 and/or DN5. They are first grade wax with 4 to 5 frames of brood at all stages (eggs, larvae & sealed brood including drones), food stores and a young 2024 Queen marked according to the respective year. Green for 2024. The Queen will be in full flow, laying well and the bees should be almost ready to be rehived

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And the Bees

Well as our name suggests we tend to travel with our bees quite a lot, pollinating crops and giving the girls access to the most fantastic flowers to make the nicest honeys. So what we started off with (local black bees from Hexham and Jarrow) has changed quite a bit over the years. As you know queen bees mate with many drones and drones will travel many miles to mate with queens. We believe diversity is strength and we look to make increase from our strong hives that are gentle and productive. Hives that go into winter strong and come out strong are essential traits in this uncertain climatic period. We are very proud to say that in 2021 one of our Queen bees made her 4th journey to the heather moors in Argyll and back down to Newcastle for the winter.

More about the poly nuc

Polystyrene is a great material for beehives and your investment in this nuc will pay dividends over the coming years. It is something you will use for many beekeeping practices such as swarm lures, swarm control, queen rearing and hive manipulations. Built with 4 feet to keep the hive off the ground, includes a wooden float for the feeder, a disc entrance for easier control of the entrance and a clear cover board for easy viewing without completely opening up the hive.

It is made from a very high density material, 100g/litre – up to 3 times stronger than the material used for packaging. It is lightweight and durable, the insulation properties also makes it especially suitable for nucs, because nucs are smaller than established colonies but they are still required to maintain the heat essential for effective brood rearing.

Bees image

Bees image

More about the Traditional 6 frame wooden Nuc

Custom made from high quality exterior plywood. Glued and pinned for extra strength and painted for weather protection. The Nuc has a ventilated floor and a sliding board for varroa control and temperature control. Comes with a rapid 4 pint feeder.

Bees image

Bees image

Bees image

Bees image

Bees image

Bees image

Immediate aftercare

When you get the colony home there is no urgency to transfer the bees to your full sized hive immediately. We would suggest that you place the nuc on top or beside your hive for a few days to allow the bees to orientate to the area. Keep an eye on food stores and feed if necessary.

After a week or so you can get prepared and transfer the bees to the full hive. It is really very easy so don’t get stressed as this will transfer on to the bees because they are amazingly adept at picking up signals. All will be done in about 3-4 minutes (honestly).

Once in the hive you can feed the girls a few more times over the next few weeks and that will help them to develop the rest of the new frames in the hive.

And so begins another age old partnership between bees and people.

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Collecting the bees

We work on collection only as this is the nicest and most stress-free journey for the bees. The timings will be early to mid-morning, weather dependent June/July and we will offer a couple of collection dates as the time approaches.

We cannot allow inspections of bees as this will result in bees getting lost.

Good luck!

We can offer you a return guarantee of 1 week. All deposits are non-refundable as we’re sure you can appreciate the time, cost, demand, and preparation that goes into nurturing a nucleus of bees, including the time we spend rearing the queen for the colony.

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