2025 Information Coming Soon!

Description:

These strong 5-frame nucs come with 3 frames of brood with the remainder being frames with food and space for the queen to continue laying. Nucs come with a young queen. These nucs are produced in Lillooet area.

The box style is the Pro Nuc, which is ideal for ventilation and transportation, and is yours to keep.

Golden Cariboo Honey Apiaries in the Lillooet region is an area of very low beekeeper density. This allows for particularly low risk of disease spread issues for producers in the region. Additionally, moisture is very low even in the early season. All of these factors help produce early, high-quality nucs for our market. We look forward to bring them in for the Lower Mainland this year! Below is some info about their nucs direct from Golden Cariboo:

“Nucleus Colonies: Nucleus Colonies have been shown to be the strongest way to start a new colony in the spring. Because they have a laying queen with emerging brood, they are ideally suited for taking the most advantage of spring and growing large enough to make a reliable honey crop. We take pride in providing nucs that out perform packages and have customers returning year after year.

Healthy Hives: Any experienced beekeeper knows that a nucleus colony battling nosema, EFB, chalkbrood or varroa is worthless. We wont let any hives leave our apiary unless we know they are in tip top health. Which is why we never sell any colonies without a clean bill of health from a Apiary Inspector.

Lots and Lots of Bees: Size truly matters. We want your nucs to be so large they are a swarm risk within the week. This means that you will get a minimum of 3 frames of brood in a 5 frame nuc. And every frame will be covered with bees to the bottom.

Quality Queens: When making up nucs we make them up small, introduce a queen, and monitor that queen for 3-4 weeks. This gives us ample time to asses the quality of that queen, how well mated she is, and if she will perform well that season. Any signs of spotty brood and that nuc is getting requeened and will stay with us for the season.”

Note on Nucs in 2024:

We are shifting our focus from supplying BC nucs sourced locally in the lower mainland, to sourcing from more interior regions of BC (such as Lillooet and the Okanagan). The lower mainland has seen issues related to high overwinter losses, unpredictable weather, and high prevalence of disease and pests. These problems are much less intense in many other regions of BC.

We are also changing our nuc supply to focus on 5-frame supply, as opposed to 4-frame. We believe that this will help colonies rapidly build-up as well as be more resilient against poor conditions at the time of arrival, and as a result much more productivity and better colony health in the first year. 

The downside is a significantly increased final price due larger nuc size and high transport costs. However, we believe that customers will receive far more long-term benefits if they can start with earlier, stronger nucs, while still supporting our BC bee breeders!

 **Please note that unfortunately this year we will only be offering nucs for pick-up, due to a lack of capacity to accommodate shipping this year. We hope to resume nuc shipping in future seasons!**

How Pick-Up Works:

After reserving we will receive your order and contact information. As we get closer to the arrival date and get updates from our supplier, we will pass along those details to you and finalize pick-up dates / times. Typically we aim for pick-up during morning hours, so that the bees can be (1) safely sealed up early in the morning before they go out to forage, & (2) the bees do not have to spend too long inside of the nuc box, minimizing stress including chance of overheating.

Nucs do not need to be installed immediately. Nucs can be placed in the spot where they will eventually be hived into full equipment, and the nuc box opened and the bees allowed to fly. They will then orient to that location and will experience less stress and risk than if they are left sealed up. That said, it is always good to try to install a newly received nuc into a full hive within 2 days after receiving.

Reservations Include a $30 non refundable deposit  *

* This means that if you have to cancel your order, you will be refunded fully minus $30. This amount is considered your commitment fee. Please note that you must still give us at least 2 weeks notice of cancellation, or we may retain 50%-100% of your payment.

SKU: PB02-CA-5F-PR