What To Consider Before You Buy Bees
Aspirant beekeepers whether they’ll be doing it as a hobby or they are looking to do this as a profit making side business, need to thoroughly research the pros and cons of this activity including the equipment and protective gear to help make this endeavour a successful experience. Once the choice to be a beekeeper has been taken and the equipment and safety gear is in place you need to acquire bees.
Buying bees can be a difficult exercise for an inexperienced person as there are many variables to getting the best for your buck and there are various ways of obtaining bees.
1. The simplest and best route of acquiring bees as an inexperienced person in beekeeping, is to purchase a bee colony as it comes ready made with everything you need to get going. From a bought colony you’ll get a queen, the drones and more than twenty thousand worker bees that have an established honeycomb that has a brood which might have a little bit of honey for the bees to live on while settling into their new home or environment.
Bee colonies may be bought from suppliers in your area. A word of advice for all newbies, is that they should register with a beekeepers club in their area so that they’re in a place to receive info about the most ethical, reliable and the best beekeeping equipment suppliers that they can do business with.
2. You can buy a nucleus which includes a Queen and a few frames of worker bees with an established foundation. Usually the frames of a nucleus will consist of three to five frames and they offer your bees a good start for you to build on until you can develop a good understanding for the beekeeping activity.
3. The other option is to purchase Packaged bees, also attainable from beekeeping supplier or breeder , which will consist of the Queen and approximately three to five pounds of worker bees. The positive to buying packaged bees is that they have a clear medical history and they have a good bill of health, they are easily treated to avoid mite infestation. The disavantage to packaged bees is that they are available seasonally and they exclude a brood.
4. The route of swarming is probably the cheapest way of obtaining bees however there are risks attached to it and it’s a bit difficult if you you’re inexperienced with bees. Swarming implies catching bees yourself (N:B this is not to be done by beginners as bees can be dangerous for the one who doesn’t have the experience of handling bees. Swarms can have diseases so it’s highly important that thorough inspections are done to spot any health conditions of the bees including the queen bee so they can be treated quickly.
The best period to set up your starting hive is in the last month of winter so that when spring starts your bees are already a couple of weeks in their new environment or home and have settled in. This is done to ensure that you don’t risk them not having adequate honey so they can survive the first winter months in the new environment.
It’s important to keep this in mind when you buy bees that in first year it’s not about the profits but ensuring that you grow your skill in beekeeping. In the the case that your first twelfe months go according to plan it’s likely that your harvests thereafter could make you money and that will help your confidence going forward.
