Packages vs Nucs - Which is Better?

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today we're going to discuss which is better, packages or nucs. So give you a little bit of a background as to what a nuc is, what a package is. I'm sure you already know. So a nucleus colony is just a colony of bees spread over a smaller number of frames. So you can get 4-frame, 5-frame, or 6-frame. 6-frame tends to be the standard in the UK. It comes with a mated queen that belongs to that colony, it comes with brood in all stages, it comes with stores, and it's brimming with bees and ready to go and turn into kind of like a full colony. A package, on the other hand, is just a box of bees with a queen. So there's no frames, There's no stores, there's no brood, the queen doesn't actually belong with those bees. The bees are taken from various different colonies and just kind of smashed into a box, and then they're transported over here. So 2 completely different ways of getting your first colony of bees or increasing the number of bees that you own, and there's some real distinct benefits and disbenefits to both. So the pros and cons, so I'll just discuss a few of them now. then we'll decide which is better. Right, so first off, nucs. And I think in the UK the majority of people use nucs. Um, the package market over here isn't anywhere near as big as it is in the rest of the world, but you can get packages. Um, so have a look, uh, if you want to get a package, there are options to get them within the UK. But like I say, predominantly the, the market in the UK is for nucs. So what's good about a nuc? Um, now you'd have seen my previous video as to what to expect when you're buying a nuc. So the first thing to say is there are good and bad nucs, and there are good and bad packages. So for the purpose of this video, we're going to assume that you've got a good package or you've got a good nuc. Right, so a good nuc— why is a nuc good, and why is it good for kind of beginner beekeepers and people increasing their colony numbers? So the reason it's good is that it's a self-contained colony that's ready to go. It's pretty much plug and play. You get a nuc, you put it in a box, and you've got bees. It's really, really that simple. They come with all of the resources required to get going, and they've got stores in there which gives them a bit of a buffer. But more importantly, they've got brood. If it's a good nuc, 3 or 4 frames of brood. Each of those frames of brood, after it goes through a full cycle, so 21 days, should in good conditions turn into 3 frames of bees. So you can kind of have 4 frames of brood. You would expect that after 3 or 4 weeks to So you've got a box full of bees, brood in all stages, and stores, and then hopefully the weather's good, you're lucky to put a super on and start getting some honey. So that's a really, really big benefit. It's plug and play, it's easy, and the chances of getting honey in your first year are greatly improved. What else is good about a nuc? If you're getting an overwintered nuc, it's proven to overwinter. It's not, there's no guesswork involved. You know that that colony has gone through a season, the queen has successfully mated, she's proven to go over winter, to manage that colony over winter, and she's proven to come out of the other end. When the seller gives it to you, that nuc will be expanding, so she's proven to expand. It would have had a health check, so it's proven to be disease-free. So that should be done by the kind of reputable seller. or the bee inspector, but you should be getting a disease-free colony. Another good thing is that, I mean, you can get them ordered through the post, so I would always recommend going and getting a local nuc just because I think it's nicer to go and meet the beekeeper, kind of take ownership of it, and then it's easier to go back if there's any issues with it. But nucs will travel and do travel quite well in the post. A number of major retailers kind of selling those now. BS Honey Nucs is one of them. I know they sell a lot of of nucs through the post. So you would have seen the video, or shortly will see the video we do where we install the packages. Installing a nuc, like I said, is one of the easiest things to do. It comes on the frames, you buy the frames in the same format as your hive, and you literally just pick them up, plonk them in. It's really, really good. So on a lot of sites they say that the big negative with nucs is that they can't be transported, and okay, you wouldn't want to ship them kind of across the world, but you can ship them in the post. As I say, like BS Honey Nucs do that, a number of retailers do that, they ship out the nucs if the postal service take care of Although the frames can be fragile and they can shake around and there is an increased risk of queen damage by doing that, it does seem to work okay, so I don't think it's as big a con as people make out. So then moving on to the cons of nucs, and the big one for me is that you can transport disease. So if you've got someone who's selling nucs and they're not doing the correct checks, you could quite easily install A diseased colony into your hive, and that's the risk that you take. I don't see it happening a lot. Obviously, we kind of do full inspections of all of our nucs before we sell them. We get the bee inspector to come in a lot of the time and inspect them as well, and we keep full details and lists of everyone that they go out to in order to kind of track disease if and when that did happen. But that's one of the big risks. And then the number one con, and I say con, is the price. Nucs are considerably more expensive than packages, and you see nucs going for kind of like a wide range of prices, and I kind of put in a little bit of justification for the cost of those. It's incredibly resource-intensive getting nucs into a position where you're going to overwinter them. You've got to pay for the frames, you've got to pay for the feed, you've got to pay for the treatment, you've got to pay for the queens. You get losses. So if you take 50 nuc boxes into winter and you get a bad year and you get 20% losses, you've lost, do you know what I mean, 10 of those colonies. And if you're selling them at £200 each, you've lost £2,000. So the profit margin needs to kind of take into account your losses that you're going to have. And that's why midsummer nucs are considerably cheaper, because a bee farmer can make up, say, 50 nucs and he knows he's going to sell 50 nucs. Whereas if he makes up 50 nucs and takes them into winter, It's a bit of an unknown as to how many is going to get through, and I find personally getting nucs through winter is probably a bit easier than getting the colonies through winter. I think they like the small format of the poly nucs, and they do tend to get through quite well, but the risk is there. So in this kind of package versus nuc debate, I think the biggest disadvantage that nucs have is the cost. They can be quite pricey. Right, so on to packages then. So We've got the video here today. We're installing 20 packages. We've ordered 60 packages to be installed this season. The main reason for me doing that is because I'm changing over to a different format frame, and this is one of the huge benefits for me, is that they don't come on frames. So whereas the pro for the Nuc was they do come on frames, there's certain situations where— and in my situation, I'm moving over to a different frame format The fact that the packages come without frames is really, really beneficial for me because I can just chuck it into whichever frame size I want and then they're on that frame now. So I'm moving over to 14x12. Getting a 14x12 nuc is considerably more expensive than getting a standard national nuc, and it's difficult to get the quantity that I would have needed early in the year to kind of satisfy my requirement. So 2 really, really big positives there. One, they don't come on frames, so you can kind of adjust it to suit the frames that you need. And then the other one is they're available really, really early in the season. So obviously they're going to be imported. We've got ours from northern Italy, hundreds of miles away from where any small hive beetle are. They've come from a really, really reputable bee farmer, biggest bee farmer in the UK, and they've come here kind of 18th or 19th of April. They came, so got them really, really nice and early in the season, big strong packages, and we can store them in our hives. So another pro of package bees is they are very, very easy to transport. So I know we said nucs, yep, you can transport them, but that does come with risks, especially if they're not going to cage the queen, which they don't tend to. I mean, the frames can move, it can damage bees, and if it kills that queen, then you're a little bit snookered. But package bees, the queen comes separately and she comes caged, and it's just a big box of bees that cluster around each other. So what that means is that you can— they ship and transport very well. And like I say, ours have come over from northern Italy, so they came on the back of a pickup truck. They had a trailer on the back and they just drove them in from northern Italy into the UK, into Wales. So I don't know how long it took them. I would imagine it's probably taken them at least 24 hours on the back of a truck banging around, and they've come here and the mortality rate is incredibly low. Like I say, there's Barely 50 dead bees at the bottom of these boxes. You can tell they're fresh, you can tell that they've handled the transport really, really well. Okay, so over to some of the cons of packages then, and the big con with packages, and I'm not saying it in like a con, like a rip-off, one of the disadvantages of packages is they are slow to take off. So it'd be really, really interesting, and I think I will do this for the purposes of another video because I've got some freshly installed nucs at the moment, is I would do a comparison of A 6-frame nuc going into a box versus a package going into a box, because the nuc has the distinct advantage that it has brood in all stages, where a package has no brood. So you need to make sure that you're introducing the package of bees into your hive, making sure they don't abscond, and then you need to introduce the queen to them, get them all to kind of make— get happy with each other, and then that queen needs to start to lay. So you're talking at least Absolute minimum 24, 25 days before you see the first young bee emerge. Whereas a nuc, it's on day one. You know what I mean? You install a nuc and the next day you've got young bees emerging, keeping up, topping up those colony numbers. And we know how long bees live. Do you know what I mean? You're talking kind of 4 to 6 weeks at the height of the season, maybe a little bit longer now. But all of my package bees there, every single bee in that package will be dead in 6 weeks. So that colony needs to work so, so hard in order to kind of build that brood up to get the colony going. So what you actually tend to see with a package is that after, say, 3 or 4 days, it looks like it's over, say, 4 or 5 frames, and then after 2 or 3 weeks, it actually contracts. And that's because all the bees are dying. and there's no young nurse bees to replace them because the brood is in such an early stage of its development. So packages do catch up, but you're very, very unlikely to get a kind of bumper crop of honey in your first year with a package, if anything. Like, I'm targeting these packages for the heather, so the heather season around here starts kind of like early— 1st of August, I think, is a good guideline around here, but in previous years it's actually gone back to kind of like 15th of July-ish. It changes each year. I don't think these bees will be ready for anything else other than the heather because they've got, they've got to kind of develop and get going, and all the bees are going to die, so they're going to kind of get bigger, get a bit smaller, and then get bigger again. Whereas a nuc, it just gets bigger. So it's really, really kind of a race against each other. The nuc is always, always, always going to win, and that's why you're paying additional money for it. So that's a huge disadvantage of packages, is that they're not as quick to get off the mark as nucs. So another disadvantage of packages, and I know I'm really selling you packages here, is that the queen doesn't come from that colony. So we discussed it before, I mean, a nuc, the queen comes with it, she's not caged, she belongs to that colony, that is the colony's queen. Whereas a package is just a box, loads of bees shaken in, and it's just got a random queen. So I've just picked them randomly out of the box. There's no connection between the box of bees and that queen, so you need to make sure they don't kill her. So if you just— I mean, look at the other videos where we introduced to it. If I just took that plastic cap off or just chucked a queen in, those bees would kill her instantly because they don't know her and they're going to reject her. So you need to be a lot more careful When introducing packages to a hive and when introducing queens to those packages. There's simple, easy methods for doing that, but it is a little bit more involved. I mean, I've got nucs at the moment, I put them in a box and I'm going to leave them for 3 weeks. I'm not going to do anything. Like, it's glorious weather, I don't need to feed them, they've got absolutely tons of space in the brood box. I'm just not going to do anything. I'm going to go back in 3 weeks and they'll probably fill the box, put a super on. Really, really easy. The packages, all right, I've had to go to service station to get them, um, but I've brought them back here. I've had to install them. I've had to do various manipulations already. I've had to make up some syrup. Even though it's nice weather, you need to feed packages. Um, they need a lot of energy because they don't come with any of it within the kind of box that you're buying. And then I'm gonna have to come back here later on this evening, check on them, make sure all the bees are actually out of the package, put the frames back on. And then I've got to do weekly inspections on them, or even kind of 3 or 4 daily inspections to make sure that they've got enough syrup, especially if the weather turns. So it's a lot more labour-intensive on my part managing the packages than it is managing the nucs. So as always, I probably missed out something, do you know what I mean? When I did my multi-purpose crown board video, I missed out the reason that I made the boards in the first place, which was to use them as clearer boards. So yeah, I would have probably missed out stuff on this video. Probably missed out some pros, probably missed out some cons. But in conclusion, and I guess you're waiting for it, which is better, packages or nucs? I'd say nucs personally. If I had to choose only one, I'd go with nucs. But my kind of generic answer is they both fit different purposes, and I will continue to use both of them. The big advantage for me, and the big reason that I will use packages, Is that I can get them early in the year. That's the big one. I can get them early in the year and you can get them in really, really good numbers, and they're cheap. If you buy them in bulk, they're really, really cheap. But if I had a preference and money wasn't an issue, I'd go with the nucleuses. Now, if I was a beginner, so I'd never had a colony of bees before, and I was going to pick or choose nucleus or package, it's an absolute no-brainer. Go with the nucleus. I personally can't see any instance where a package would be preferable. Now I get that different people are going to be in different situations, so if you're in, I don't know, somewhere in the outback in Australia or somewhere in the kind of deep south in America and you don't have anyone around you who sells nucleuses, then you're limited and you go with a package, and a package will work really, really well. But if you, I mean, if you had someone come into your door with a package or a nucleus, money was no issue, I'm not sure why anyone would ever go for the package, but I do appreciate that other people have different opinions on that. So if you genuinely think you'd always go for a package, stick a comment on and we'll have a discussion about it. I'd be really interested to know why, if you had that option where someone came to the door and said you can have a package or a nuc and they're the same price, why you would go for that package, because I can't really see any benefit over the nuc. Now one thing that I have missed on here And this is a really, really important one. So if you've got a Flow Hive, listen to this. If you've got a Flow Hive, go for a package. I have so many people come to me in the UK saying, I've just bought myself a Flow Hive, I want a nucleus of bees. And I say to them, okay, I only do nucs on national frames. And they said, yeah, yeah, that's fine. And then I have to kind of let them know a little bit that the national frames aren't going to fit in the Langstroth frames within the Flow Hive. So I've done 3 now where I've had to cut out all of the brood and bungee it into the Langstroth frame for them, and then shake in all the rest of the bees. And it's a nightmare. It really is an absolute nightmare where if they had a package, just dump it in and then they work the frames, give them a feed. And you've got a perfect kind of scenario for people with Flow Hives. So if you've got a Flow Hive and you're watching this, look for packages. It's going to make your life so much easier if you can't find a Langstroth nuc. And they do exist in the UK, you can find them. I know a few people who do Langstroth nucs, and what I do now is if people come to me saying I've got a Flow Hive, I just point them in the direction of people who do the Langstroth nucs because I do think that is preferable. But yeah, if you, if you can't find a Langstroth nuc, go with the package instead. Definitely better than bungeeing kind of cut-out brood from a national in there. So that's it for the video. I know, a little bit non-committal saying that I use both, but if I had to choose, it would be a nuc. And like I say, I think that's a really, really good video to do. So kind of having a bit of a brainstorm as we talk, I will do a comparison video of the nuc that I installed about 3 days ago Versus the package that I've installed today, and I'll give you kind of like a running commentary and a running update in terms of where those colonies are, and we'll see which one gets the super on first. And I reckon almost certainly it will be the nuc, especially with the nice weather that we've got—nice dry weather, really, really good for foraging. So that's it for today's video. I hope you've enjoyed it. Just want to say a thank you again to our sponsors. So thank you, Abello. Thank you, BB Wear, for sponsoring us. Please make sure you hit the subscribe button. Please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.