Price
$120.00 each + courier +GST

Terms
Cash sale - payment in advance or at time of collection. Direct Credit/Visa/MasterCard accepted.

Suggestions for setting up bee colony

Care of bees
In extreme heat, spray water lightly over ventilation area. Your bees should be kept in a cool, shaded, ventilated place until late afternoon or early evening. This is the best time to transfer bees so they settle quickly in their new location.

Installing frames of bees into waiting hive equipment
Carry the nuc box to the prepared site where you have the hive equipment set up. Put on protective clothing & puff smoke gently over the bees to quieten them. Pull the plastic screen from the topside by tearing it away quickly.
Using hive tool, gently lift the frames from the nuc box & place in centre of prepared box. Fill spaces with empty frames, place inner cover & lid, then leave alone for 1-2 days. Bees will orientate to their new location & settle down to go foraging fairly quickly.
Alternatively, place rain cover over nuc, remove entrance plug & enjoy watching the bees flying around looking at their new surroundings! The frames can be transferred to new hive equipment up to one week later!

Reducing hive entrance if necessary
When all the bees are inside the hive, place a block of wood across the front to reduce the width of the entrance to 50mm - 75mm. Keep the entrance reduced until the bees have built up and occupied all the combs in the brood chamber. Depending on the strength of the colony and seasonal conditions, the entrance may be gradually widened to full size. During late autumn & winter, reducing the entrance size will help prevent wasps & robber bees entering the colony.

Sugar syrup feeding – (feeders may be purchased with nuc)
Continue feeding syrup at weekly intervals until the bees are able to gather a nectar flow from natural sources. Don't feed more syrup than the bees are able to take up and store overnight. Surplus syrup may attract robber bees, with fatal results to the bee colony. Feed in the evening and take care not to spill any syrup about the hive. When the bees are well established and there is a continual nectar flow, the feeder may be replaced with a frame or two.
Once the bees occupy all the frames, a second box of combs should be added.

Varroa Treatment
Colonies purchased from us will have been treated for Varroa mites prior to collection. You will need to monitor mite populations 5 –6 weeks after purchase and treat accordingly. There has been no AFB detected in our bees for 18 years.

Thank you for purchasing this honeybee colony.
We welcome your comments and wish you good results.

John & Judy Dobson Beeline Ltd 1st January 2012