• Folks, if you've recently upgraded or renewed your annual club membership but it's still not active, please reach out to the BOD or a moderator. The PayPal system has a slight bug which it doesn't allow it to activate the account on it's own.

Fellow beekeepers

Rwc

Rwc

Just looking to see how many other fellow beekeepers might be sharing the same hobby as me with reef keeping also.
 
Rwc

Rwc

Pete is one of the members I've known that has hives , wasn't sure how many others their might have been out there , thanks
 
Zippy69

Zippy69

Yup that me, bees had a surprisingly good winter. Of my mature hives lost one of the 7 and of the nucs I lost only 2 of the 10. Will start making my splits this April. Best time as the virgin queens emerge they mate with drones from survivor hives.
 
MatteZ

MatteZ

A friend of mine not into reefing is into bees. He keeps telling me to come over and check them out. I'm afraid to because I don't need another hobby/addiction.
 
Rwc

Rwc

Pete I just called Stan about packaged bees , I'm more or less looking to get a nuc if you have any interest in selling one since he is no longer in the nuc business
 
Zippy69

Zippy69

redfishbluefish said:
OK, for us who are bee-illiterate, what is a "nucs?"
Click to expand...

A nuc is short for nucleus. Basically it's the heart of a hive. Normal hives (Langstroth) have two boxes with 9-10 frames in each box. A frame is literally a frame of comb paralleled to adjacent frames. Now a nuc is only 5 frames that contain just the essentials,; queen, brood, pollen,honey and some workers. A hive contains only one queen but 4 times the brood,worker and food population. The benefit of a nuc is ease of transport, easy to find queen to make splits and if attempting to overwinter not near as much stored food. A nuc can be used to replace a dead hive by simply removing 5 empty frames and replacing them with the 5 frames of a nuc. With all the new space and if timed good food/forage they will fill the hive to capacity in short time.
 
MatteZ

MatteZ

How expensive is this said bee hobby? How can i twist it so it will sound good so i can present it to my wife?
 
Zippy69

Zippy69

Rwc said:
Pete I just called Stan about packaged bees , I'm more or less looking to get a nuc if you have any interest in selling one since he is no longer in the nuc business
Click to expand...

Should be able to do so. Wait till the maples are in bloom and give me a shout.
 
Zippy69

Zippy69

Rwc said:
Pete I just called Stan about packaged bees , I'm more or less looking to get a nuc if you have any interest in selling one since he is no longer in the nuc business
Click to expand...

Who is Stan? You can also check out grant stiles in fords nj, stiles apiaries. I know he sells nucs.
 
Rwc

Rwc

Stan at s and f honey farms on amwell in ringoes , just ordered a package through him had to give an answer last minute for the shipment to be here April 11th. Also just seen nwnj beekeepers is having a meeting tomorrow at the hunterdon county arboretum
 
Zippy69

Zippy69

Gotcha, go to the meeting. Was a member at raritan valley.....but too much politics for me. Do NOT get some package bees with crappy queens bred in TX or GA. To help the hobby, keep to stock that has proven to deal with our climate. If we all do this the gene pool only gets better.
 
Rwc

Rwc

Guess that might answer the reason why myself and a friend can't winter our hives to save our lives. Your sure you can set aside a nuc for me in a few weeks , and Ill cancel my order from....GA. I've got a new nuc box t swap out with you when the time comes
 
Zippy69

Zippy69

Rwc said:
Guess that might answer the reason why myself and a friend can't winter our hives to save our lives. Your sure you can set aside a nuc for me in a few weeks , and Ill cancel my order from....GA. I've got a new nuc box t swap out with you when the time comes
Click to expand...

Yup, not a problem. Used to keep 34 hives for fun. With two daughters I've scaled back and got into reefing. It's much more expensive but I'm within one floor if needed. I'll never stop though, love to watch the bees.
 
Rwc

Rwc

I hear ya I've spent hours in a lawn chair drinking beer just watching the day go by next to my hives. Unfortunelty in the last year I lost my 3 hives but now I'm in my new home and ready to start back up again. Going to have to ease into it with the recent surgery and all so one hive is it this year
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top