Norfolk Honey - Honey Bees for sale
May 2010
Bees in a brood box for collection or delivery from the 1st May 2010
The first orders for bees in a brood box that I will be taking for May 2010 will
be ready for collection from Norwich from the 1st of May
Bees in a Standard National brood box
My May 'nucs' will have 2009 queens that
have been taken out of one of my brood boxes and put into a new box for you.
There will
be two good frames of stores and two frames of brood and eggs. The
queen will already be laying well and marked green. The two frames of brood
will have a fair amount of eggs and capped brood. The capped brood will soon
hatch out to give you young nurse bees. The other frames in the box will be
made up with new undrawn foundation.
The brood box will be attached to a stainless steel open mesh floor for traveling.
The entrance block will have two entrances. I advise using the small entrance
to start with. Later when the colony has built up their numbers the larger
entrance can have it's tape removed. The crown board will have a single central
hole for feeding. The hole in the crown board will be taped over for
traveling.
A brood box will fit easily into the boot of a car and because there is so much room in the box and the floor is open mesh the bees will travel long distances with mimimal stress.
Price: Complete and ready for collection £285
I will deliver in Norfolk for £50. Deliveries further afield can be made
by arrangement.
Once you have taken the box to your apiary and it is sited there
is no reason why the box needs to be detached from the floor during it's first
year of use. It will of course need a roof, supers and queen excluder.
When sited I advise leaving the entrance taped up for a few hours to give the bees time to settle. Once the tape has been removed and the bees are flying you can start to feed your bees with a little fondant. When the fondant has been eaten you can put on a rapid feeder and build up your colony. Notes on feeding bees
In a few weeks after feeding your bees if the weather is good you
would be well advised to stop feeding and to add on a queen excluder and two
supers. If
the weather is not so good then you can keep feeding until it is.
If required I can supply roofs, queen excluders, supers, made up frames, feeding
buckets, Ashworth feeders, blocks of fondant, bee
keeping suits, smokers, hive tools etc. etc..
Buying a queen from the previous year has lots of advantages. However, I must
point out that it also has one possible disadvantage in so much as the bees
are more likely to swarm. For this reason I also offer an online Queen
rearing course where I will take you step by step through the process of
splitting your hive as a method of swarm control and queen rearing.
A nuc of bees in a traveling box £235
For those that don't want a their bees in a brood box I will also be offering
four frame nucs in a traveling box. I make each box from new plywood. If you
have already have a new traveling box I am happy to swap mine with the bees
in for your empty box for just the cost of the bees £185.