Bee Stings: Serum Sickness

Well Kevin and I are potentially facing a few more days of rain this week and as our colonies are building up, we may as well post a few anecdotal stories to tide us over.

Everyone knows about the associated problem with annoying bee's, and that's that they sting you, rightly so :)

In most conversations regarding stings, you find people fall into one of two discussions, they either relate how they are fairly immune, or how they are highly susceptible; suffering anaphylactic shock.

I wanted to tell a short story of my own experience which put me somewhere in between.

Whilst helping a beekeeper in the past I had chance to be stung a few times. The first time I was stung I removed the barb quickly and suffered minor effects. Initial pain lasting a few seconds, followed by stiffness and significant swelling over a few hours. My heart rate was also raised slightly in the first hour or so.

My finger (the site of the sting) became stiff and difficult to bend over the course of a week, but I had the general feeling my joints became more fluid once the stiffness subsided. The site also itched quite a bit after that.

Nothing out of the ordinary you might think until the next time I was stung.

I received another sting on my finger some weeks later and decided that I was a tough guy (I have learnt a lot since then) so I was very slow and casual in the process of removing the sting - big mistake if you ever have a sting - the bee's stinger has a ratchet mechanism which given the opportunity works its way further into your skin over time, you also receive a larger dose of venom!

To cut a long story short, the effects I felt from this second sting were the same but were marginally more pronounced, with one added bonus (and this is the point of my story) I had some ill effects a few days later.

Ever had chicken pox or some other form of illness that makes you feel terrible. Well a few days after my sting I was feeling absolutely awful, I had a pretty significant temperature, cold sweats, my joints really ached and I felt like I had a bad case of flu.

Putting two and two together I wondered if my immune system had manned a response and I did some research on the web to find that some people experience a phenomenon called 'Serum Sickness' in which your bodies immune system mans a response to foreign chemicals like venoms.

Ultimately the effects of the sickness passed fairly quickly, which was one of the reasons I attributed the effects to serum sickness, but still it was a very interesting experience.

If anyone has had a similar experience from a Bee sting I would love to hear from you, other wise you can read more about serum sickness here, http://www.answers.com/topic/serum-sickness you can also google 'serum sickness bee stings' for a bunch of information.

The moral of the story is, remove a bee sting as soon as you safely can. Leaving the sting in wont prove anything and won't win you any prizes.

Personally I keep an epinephrine pen handy now for my own use in case of a more adverse reaction the next time I am stung.

Where are the bees?

It's another beautiful day here so I wandered over to the hive to watch the activity and there was a surprise waiting for me - no bees. The entrance was empty - no bees coming no bees going... uh oh.

Then I noticed some activity around back - I look around back and there they are.

There is a small space above the Varroa Screen that the bees are now using. Now I have to figure out if they are using that entrance to avoid going through the screen or if it's because it is in back where it's shady... If shade then I'll just turn them around. And of course, I need to figure out how I'm going to close up that space.

Bee Dummy Kevin

Why bees?

I've heard this question a lot from folks - what got you interested in Beekeeping? I had never thought too much about bees (except when I was a kid and enjoyed flicking Bumblebees off of flowers with my thumb and forefinger - great fun when you are a 6 year old), until I was living in an apartment that was the second floor of an old farmhouse. My roommate and me would hear things in the wall and assumed we had a chipmonk or maybe a family of field mice. Then one day I came home to find my bedroom door closed (something I never did) - I opened the door and it was quite dark in the room - again bizarre since it was daytime - a nice bright sunny day - and I wasn't in the habit of closing the curtain. I started to walk over to the window to open the shade and realized that it wasn't the shade blocking the light - it was thousands of bees. I figured they wanted to get out (and I have to add that I wouldn't mind them being on the other side of the window as well) so I walked over and opened the window. They didn't seem to mind that at all!

So, I called the landlord, he called an exterminator (who was quite sad to kill them but the landlord wanted the cheapest way out). Apparently the bees had taken up residence in the wall of the house and had eventually opened a small hole in the ceiling of my bedroom - they came pouring in - my roommate saw this happening and closed the door to at least keep the bees isolated in that room and then couldn't get out since the window was closed. The exterminator mentioned he didn't want to be there come summertime (it was spring) because without the bees to keep the honey cool he was envisioning a big mess. I moved out shortly after so don't know what ever happened, but that's when I first started thinking about honey bees.

So I kept saying, when I get a house I'm going to get a hive. Well, my first house would have been good, but I spent 3 years renovating it (after evicting the family of Raccoons - another story) and I soon sold after the renovations were over. My second house was in a city on a 6,000 sq ft lot - I know - you can have bees anywhere, but I tend to be an introvert and hate conflict so I didn't want to deal wth neighbors complaining. So, last fall I moved into my third house - on 2 1/2 acres abutting a state park - perfect! So, about 12 years after my first "unofficial" hive I now have my first "official" one.

Bee Dummy Kevin

Finally moved

Well, unlike Richard, I was out of town on business last week when the sun finally peaked out of the clouds so I missed the chance then to move the bees from the nuc to the hive. So on Saturday, which was an absolutely beautiful day, I had my chance. Got all suited up, pant legs tucked into my boots, all set to go... oh yeah - the smoker. Got that filled and some good smoke coming out. And then... it went according to plan. Now that's something new. Didn't really run into any problems at all. Moved a frame, took a couple steps back and waited a bit to keep both myself and the bees calm, moved another, etc. Before I knew it I had moved them all and was closing up the hive. There were a couple of bees trying to get me, but not too bad. There were 5 frames in the nuc and they were all pretty full, so I'm certainly glad I finally got them moved. I'll admit that I was nervous and afterwards wish I took the time to really inspect the frames. I didn't take time to even try and find the queen (which I should have done), but considering it was my first time (and it's a little daunting when you are holding a frame with thousands of bees) I'm pretty happy.

These are going to be some happy bees in their new digs!

So not a single sting... until... about 2 hours after the move I was working on the pool which is a good 40-50 feet away and one bee was just determined to get me. Stung me under the tip of the nose. Oh well, the day wouldn't have been complete without one sting at least. and honeybee stings don't really hurt that much (except when they find a nice real sensitive area - like just under the tip of the nose).

Bee Dummy Kevin

A sticky situation

At Bee School we were taught that Bee's were inherently sticky characters i.e. they like to stick things together and fill in gaps and spaces wherever possible, to my disadvantage I found this to be quite true. Memorial Monday arrived and the weather held out well for most of the weekend with only a slight shower of rain last night.

Late on Monday afternoon there was a gentle breeze and the sun was still warming the hive. I decided it was a great time to change over the feeder I'd previously put on top the hive, and also have a take a quick inspection inside the new hive to see how the Bee's were doing in their new home. Most of all I was eager to see if the Bees had begun to draw out wax onto the new frames. I was both mildly shocked and pleasantly surprised by what I found.

I lifted off the top cover from the hive and removed the feeder. The feeder was now empty and the Bees were still mopping up the remnants of the sugar syrup.

I blew a little smoke into the entrance and also under the edge of the crown board as I decided to lift it off. The Bee's had largely stuck the crown board down with wax and it didn’t make the usually snapping sound it would if they had glued it with Propolis.

As I lifted the crown board, the board felt unusually heavy, so much so, I could not lift the board off the hive. I thought it best to approach the situation carefully and inspect what I could. I lifted the board up 1/4 inch on one side and partially inserted an entrance reducer I had laying around, I lifted the other side with a hive tool and propped it up in the same way.

Now I could clearly see what my problem was, the bees in their resilience to build comb had constructed comb between the top of the frames and the crown board. Thus every time I lifted the crown board, two or three frames would lift with it.

Surprisingly the jostling back and forth didn't bother the bee's much and with some careful placement I managed to slide a spare hive tool under the crown board to slowly prize off each of the frames.

Finally I got to inspect the new frames. The bee's had only just started drawing out wax on these, so I thought it best to leave them alone for now and let them get on with their work. I replaced the jar of sugar syrup with a nice fresh batch and I closed up shop for the night.

As a final experiment for the day (bee's are fun to experiment with) I took all the wax I scraped off and made it into a patti. I placed this at the hive entrance, I now plan to leave it for a week to see if the bee's recycle it, although within a few minutes of placing it I could see them begin to come and break it down.

One man went to mow..

The Bee's seem to be happy in their new hive and with a flurry of warm weather this week their is a reasonable amount of activity at the front of the hive. A small cloud of Bee's dances around the bottom entrance, whilst others come and go, departing and returning with nectar, pollen and other delights.

It a real pleasure to watch them going to and frow and when you imagine a hive of bee's you usually think of a swarm of activity, when in reality there are usually just a few bee's flying in and out at once and with healthy respect I was able to stand quite close to the hive in my shorts and t-shirt and not alarm the bee's.

Since the last week or so had been stormy I had been unable to cut the grass, so it was time to make the weekly mow, now well overdue. I have about .75 of an acre which is virtually all lawn and usually spend a couple of hours zipping around on my rider mower trying to tackle it. I wondered how the bee's would react. I won't go into detail, but apart from a mild flurry as I mowed close to the entrance to the hive, the bee's seemed to remain very calm.

As the weather is likely to remain hot through the memorial day weekend, I plan to check the volume of sugar syrup in the feeder and refill. There also is potential that we may have some friend visiting on Sunday, so providing the weather remains fine, this may be a good time to practice my beespeel.

Plan Bee: Gently does it

I arrived home to a beautiful sunny afternoon yesterday. I felt a little nervous at the prospect of opening up the nucleus hive and transplanting the frames. I had worked Bee's on only a few occasions before and never in my own yard. Ultimately I decided that this is was one of the many jobs a bee keeper should be comfortable with and one must get used to being engulfed in angry bee's on occasion. I was also driven by the fact that I wanted the Bee's out of that cramped box and into their comfortable new home where they have room to expand their colony.

I went into my garage, a corner of which I have now designated as my official Bee Keeping storage area. I felt quite excited as I gathered my equipment together, my smoker, hive tools, a knife and some tinder to light the smoker with. I put on my veil jacket, gloves and some stout hiking boots and prepared my tools ready for the visit to the Bee yard.

After making sure I had everything to hand I took a walk out to the Bee's with the new hive in hand. For now this consisted of a screened bottom board (apparently better for varroa mite control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa ), a deep brood chamber, top cover (crown board) and hive roof.

I felt it was useful to have some mental picture of what I wanted to do and I quickly formulated a plan as I walked out there.

I figured the Bee's were going to be very upset at times, especially since I was removing them from their current home. Being surrounded by a cloud of angry bee's was a very real prospect I decided it was a good policy to walk away from the site for a few minutes whenever I felt I needed to calm them down, this would also let the Bees take to my invasion my gradually.

Another policy I adopted was to work the Bee's very slowly and very gently using a few good puffs of smoke from my smoker, every time I intended to get hands on with a frame.

My final strategy involved removing the nuc a good distance from the spot it was in. I learnt at Bee School Bee's will always try and fly back to the spot where their hive was, not to where its been moved to; well at least initially.

Using this knowledge I believed I could move the nuc and have most of the angry Bees swarm around the location where the nuc was and not around me. This was good thinking since I could then take the time to unscrew the lid of the nuc - not so easy on a hot afternoon wearing a bee suit and handling a box that bees have firmly stuck together with Propolis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propolis).

I felt quite nervous once I got out to the site, my heart was definitely thumping and I had a good flow adrenaline going. I really felt I needed to survey the situation and take it slowly. Bee's might seem cute and cuddly, but they are not to be underestimated and it pays to get used to working them gradually.

I knelt down and got the tinder for my smoker ready and began to feel more at ease. It was nice to be practicing a cottage craft and lighting the smoker felt almost ritualistic in nature. I put in the tinder, old pine needles and dry paper, I gave the bellows a few good puffs and got the tinder alight. After the tinder had died down I added some smoker fuel (I had bought this online - really just dried paper pressed into a small tablet), gave the bellows a few more puffs and put the lid on. A rich white smoke rose from the nose cone and I gave a sigh of relief. I think relief in myself that I could actually do this and had a plan that was going to work in getting these bees into the hive. Talk about over analyzing the situation :)

I apprached the nuc carefully from one side, smoker in hand I gave a good puff of smoke at the entrance to the nuc and around its vicinity. Several guard bee's came out and zipped around me, I felt the odd ping as one or two flew into me (the usual warning). I plugged the front entrance to the nuc with the gauze provided at purchase and I re-plugged the feeder hole in the top of the box to prevent too many escapees.

You might think at this point with no new bee's escaping that this would be a piece of cake. Let me tell you these little buggers move fast, so fast in fact that in the time it took me to plug the holes in the box, I have a good size swarm of bees around me all buzzing loudly and looking for chinks in my armor - quite literally.

I decided to take my first time out at this point and I walked 15-20 feet away in a calm and steady fashion. One or two persistent Bees followed me but no more. I waited a few minutes and I could see the Bees calm down significantly. I walked back.

I puffed more smoke from the smoker on this second approach and with good speed gently took the nuc down from the stand it was on and rested the box a few feet away. I also took the new hive and put it in place of the box, the entrance facing the exact same position.

Sure enough stage one of operation new beekeeper was complete. The bees in flight did not follow me, but instead orientated around where the box originally was, landing at the entrance to the new hive.

This gave me some reprieve from the onslaught of Bees that were previously around me and I set to work unscrewing the top of the Nuc. Once I had the top unscrewed I prized it open very gently from one side and gently blew some smoke in there as I lifted the lid.

I was amazed to see hundred and hundred of Bees sitting gently across five of so frames, which were drawn out by the bee's in various states. I found this to be amazing to look at and the geometry they build in definitely bares some resemblance to something you might see copied by a sci-fi film director more than once.

Using the hive tools I teased the frame loose from the Propolis holding it tight. Then I carefully lifted the first frame out of the box. Hundreds of bees clung tightly to it in rows. Neat geometric patterns dashed across the comb holding capped brood, honey and different colored pollen.

I wish I had been comfortable enough to pay more attention to the frames and next time I will, however at this time I was particularly cautious of handling the frames to roughly or damaging the queen (wherever she may be). With a swift but firm gentle motion I transferred the first frame smoothly across without to much fuss.

As I placed the first frame very gently into the new hive the guard bee's got wind of me again and flared up a little. I was relieved at this initial success and didn't want to push my luck so I decided to back off for another break.

The remainder of my work involved repeating this process to ensure all of the frames were transferred. Ultimately I realized the advantages and disadvantages to this method of acquiring Bee's over that of a package. In a package the Bee's aren’t really guarding a hive and are probably a lot more docile, whilst in a nuc; your essentially ripping their home apart to transfer them. Also in a package you know where the queen is, she is right there in a little box you can safely transfer, good luck finding the queen when transferring a nuc! :)

My final word on this triumphant transfer concerns the contents of the nuc box when I had finished transferring all the frames. I was left with a good pound or so of bee's clinging to the sides of the box and had to figure out a way to get them into the new hive as well.

As I had been taking my time, it was getting into early evening I had to make a decision on how to transfer the remainder of the Bee's. I could see the bee's on the new hive fanning scent as if to direct missing Bee's to their new home, but given the late hour I just couldn't convince myself the remaining Bee's were going to fly home in force before nightfall.

I came up with the idea of inverting the nuc box on top the new hive and just letting the bee's crawl down into the new hive overnight. Great idea but flawed by the fact when I inverted the box a good chunk of Bee's dumped out onto the hives crown board.

I had seen bee keepers dump packages of bees into a hive so I decided that it was reasonable to give the box a gentle tap to get all the Bees in one corner and then dump these bee's on top the hive. This seemed to work much better and after a few taps and some coaxing I got the remaining Bee's on top the hive. The Bee's were now gathering around the hole in the crown board with their bottoms in the air, fanning scent indicating the way in.

What was once a mass of Bee's flying around now took the form of a fairly silent hive with an odd straggler buzzing around trying to find its way in.

Plan Bee was over, we had sustained no stings (I had my pregnant wife participate safely in part of the process as she was curious) and we had minimal Bee casualties.

All in all I felt a sense of peace, accomplishment and satisfaction as I packed up my equipment and put out my smoker at the end of the day.

Bee Confident

I guess when Bee keeping it pays to have a certain confidence in the ability of your Bees to look after themselves. Although you’re a self titled 'Bee Keeper', its important to remember, in all probability, your more of a 'Bee Manipulator', and the Bee's do what come naturally to them.

There was no doubt in my mind I was worried about the health of the Bee's when I got home on Friday night. It had still been pouring down with rain and the thunderstorms had not let up much.

I rushed home from work to follow Kevin’s example in feeding the Bee's. I took the metal plug out of the top of the nuc and put my jar of sugar syrup over the hole, I used to small wooden blocks to raise the jar about ½ inch, so the Bee's could scurry under it for a drink. The bee’s came out in a decent size handful and it looked pretty packed inside – I was pleased to see the activity. I placed an empty brood chamber around the jar to protect it from getting blown over and to provide some darkness.
I checked the jar mid-weekend and the Bee's were definitely clumping around it and feeding.
I noticed that the sun came out for a few minutes yesterday (Sunday). In the short time the sun was actually out, my wife had noticed a cloud of bee’s accumulating around the front of the hive, it was almost like they were taking a cleansing flight of some kind and were happy to get out for a few minutes. I wondered if they were doing any foraging at all. I understand we are in for some sun this week. If I can get home from work before 4pm one afternoon I will be looking to get the Bee's into the first brood chamber of the new hive.

I'd also like to add my confidence in being around them and having them in my yard has also been building since I first got them. I am almost ready to experience the number of Bee's that I imagine are going to amass around me when I do the transfer to the hive.

A Cold Wet Week

Well this is the first post thats actually up to date on the blog, we'd been backtracking to fit in all the events that have happened up to know so please join us for the continuing epic.

It really has been a cold damp week for the time of year and neither Kevin nor I have been able to get to our Nuces to tend to them since their arrival. In fact we have both been a bit worrid since activity has died down somewhat in the wet weather - perhaps the Bee's are huddling up to keep warm in there

My hive arrived and I believe Kevin got his together, but the frustrating thing is we can’t put the Bee's into their proper home until it gets sunny and the rain stops. The bee’s seem to hate the rain and might catch a chill in the cold. Waiting like this is not good for them, but we have no choice.

Kevin took a quick look into his hive to provide a mason jar with 1:1 sugar syrup for feeding. I to took some sugar syrup to my hive, but I placed mine on a couple of wooden blocks outside the entrance - that was some poor thought on my part, and I kind of knew this at the time, but the bee's won't even come out to feed from it, its that cold and wet - When I get home from work tonight I am going to go with Kevins method of opening the top hole in the Nuc and feeding from there.

By the way, Sugar Syrup is made by mixing 1 part granulated Sugar with 1 part tap water, by weight at rooom temperature and make a mildly viscous, slightly cloudy opaque liquid. I am told that a 1:1 mixture is best to give in spring since it encourages feeding, but the Bee's don't become dependant on it over nextar flow, as they might with a 2:1 Sugar/Water mixture.

Various great Bee's recipes for feeding Bee's can be found at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Beekeeping/Recipes_for_the_Bees

I particularly like the idea of feeding hard candy towards winter... Now we are up to date I am heading home to decide on how to feed these Bee's, more updates from both me and Kevin soon.

Becoming a Bee Mummy and a Bee Daddy

Well Kevin headed home with his Bee's and I stood in the dark holding my box of angry little girls.

Experiencing some mild paranoia I resigned to placing my Nucleus Hive at the far side of my house; the furthest distance from my Bedroom window I might add. For some reason I had visions of waking up with a swarm of Bees on my face, don't ask me why :)

The box was silent the next morning, unlike the night before. It lay at the side of the house where I had abandoned it.

I noticed the overcast sky so I figured I would go out and try and get the small hive on the tree stump stand we’d prepared for it, at least before the heavens opened up and the rain started to pour.

Wearing my veil and gloves, I placed the nuc where I wanted it, I pulled out the mesh screen blocking the entrance and a good handful of angry little Bees fell out onto the entrance board and amassed around me in a small cloud. I could feel a couple of immediate bumps of the tiny bees flying into me as a warning, at which point I turned and jogged lightly around the side of the house being pursued by a couple.

I was able to walk back to the nuc within a couple of minutes, the handful of bees had dispersed, I was hoping they had gone on a foraging flight, but more likely they had seen the clouds and gone back inside.

I took a couple of pictures and decided to clean up in the hope my full size hive would arrive this week and I could transfer the Bees. Well more to come on that one... wonder how Kevins been coming along...

I also found out my wife and I were going to be having our first Baby on the day the Bees arrived! So I guess we get to be a double Mummy and Daddy in some respects!

Nuc them all!

Well just before the end of Bee School Kevin had done some searching and managed to source some Nucleus Hives from Merrimack Valley Apiaries http://www.mvabeepunchers.com/index.html out in Billerica, MA.

For those who don't know, a Nucleus hive is essentially a small colony of Bee's with a queen, workers Bee's and 4 or so frames of brood contained in a makeshift wooden box.

The other choice being a package of Bee's. Packages consisting of an empty box (no frames=no brood) and a queen bee in a small cage and 3lbs or so of accompanying Bee's.

We had chosen Nucelus hives as these would give us a head start on a package of Bees, with the frames and everything drawn out we felt it would simply be a matter of transferring our frames into our new hives on arrival.

Well Kevin placed the order, with each package coming in at a wopping total of $75.00 (not really that expensive) and so we looked forward to a call to say a truck had come up from Georgia with our Bee's on the back... Bee's coming from Georgia would of course mean they would have a deep southern drawl :)

I had chosen to go with the Italian strain of Honey Bee (Apis mellifera ligustica), they are known for developing their colonies rapidly, the disadvantage being they don't usual stop this growth if there is a shortage in the nectar flow. The Bee also has a fairly light color and is know is be of a particularly docile nature. Both positive traits seemed attractive to me, my wanting to see my hive develop radiply and also not get stung.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_bee

Kevin went with the Carniolan Honey Bee (Apis mellifera carnica), known for being more conservative in colony growth with the flow of nectar. These bee's also exhibit a darker color. These Bees are also considered to be gentle and are thought to have a better sense of direction than their Italian counterparts, but are more prone to swarming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniolan_honey_bee

After waiting some weeks (read Monday the 14th May) Kevin and I drove over to Billerica to pick our Nuces.

We arrived on a cool evening at Merrimack Valley Apiaries to find a smal handful of people queued up to pick up their Bee's.

The Apiary seemed like a typical small farm and on pulling in we could see several Nuce boxes strewn around a small roughly mown field. These boxes were eagerly being attended to by 3 or 4 Mexicans? busily working away in their bee suites, whilst an American lady shouted directions at them in Spanish as she crossed off orders on her check board.

I guess Kevin and I had forgotten that Beekeeping was a form of farming and I think we were expecting the Nucleus Hives to be beautifully dovetailed boxes finely finished in a shiny lacquer - well not quite, but somewhere in between. The boxes being handled we made of thin plywood in various states and was clearly stapled and screwed together. If this was farming then fair enough we thought.

It was interesting to see people taking their Bee's with a look of delight on their faces. One man even had a few Bee's escape in the back of his car prior to pulling out - lucky we thought, so Kevin left the hatch up on the back of his Jeep; this was our failsafe procedure to eject the Bees out of the rear window if any should escape on the drive home.

Kevin was kind enough to drop me off at my house with my Nuc and I could hear the Bee's bubbling away like pop rocks and soda - they clearly don't like travelling much, but who would after being couped up with a few thousand friends in a box.

In the Bleak Midwinter, a.k.a. Attending Bee School

Kevin and I are both former colleagues who have kept in touch at regular intervals. We share the same wild entrepreneurial interests in spawning off the cuff cottage industries in our own back yards and cornering otherwise unexplored niches in those crafts.

We had often discussed Beekeeping in the past and given our own brief experiences on the subject. We decided it was time to attend this year’s annual Worcester County Beekeepers Association (WCBA) Bee School, to learn more - Yes there is such a thing as a short term school for Bee Keepers!

Back in March on one dark, windy and very frosty night Kevin and I met for dinner at the local Mexican restaurant, before embarking into the bitter cold to attend Bee School - a 6 week or so annual event held in an upper floor auditorium at the local teaching hospital.

On this particularly icy night we joined the ranks of other beginners and experienced beekeepers alike to see what knowledge club members had to pass onto us over the coming weeks.

I won't go into the details of the next six weeks; save to say we missed several classes, but otherwise got a general feel for what beekeeping was about.

Typically we learnt that no two beekeepers will tell you the same thing, and no one beekeeper will probably tell you the same version twice on one occasion :)

Ultimately we did learn that even in mid January one needs to be thinking of acquiring some bee's either through a package or a nucleus hive (more about that later). Needless to say Kevin and I were in the hustle to sourcing some bee's to make a commitment this year, before it was to late.

Having decided that several waves of hungry bee school students were about to fill the Bee School subscription for packaged Bees, so we decided nucleus hives might be the way to go...