Why Black Mountain Honey Nucs?

I have had my fair share of aggressive bees. Bees that ping you as soon as you open the beehive, bees that chase you down the garden, bees that sting the neighbor's dog, and yes, bees that sting you in the face. It's natural that bees want to protect their nests, but that's why we wear our bee suits to protect ourselves from stings. But managing overly aggressive bees really is no fun whatsoever. My personal aim in our nucleus business is clear: to produce the calmest, most gentle, most placid bees that is practically possible. Managing calm bees and having calm bees in your garden and being able to go and sit by them and watch them is the most enjoyable thing in the world. And kind of conversely, having really horrible aggressive bees in your garden and watching them sting your neighbor is very stressful. And believe me, I've been there, it's not a nice place to be. So in order to get the calmest bees possible, We purchase a number of artificially inseminated breeder queens from selected contacts within Europe. These are the very best breeders of Buckfast bees in Europe, and we've taken our time not only to select the breeder but to select the best lines from each of the respective breeders as well. Our aim to them is clear: honey production. Yes, we want honey production, we want good swarm control, we want disease resistance, but if you give us all of that and the bees aren't calm, then that is no good for us. Top of our priority list is the calmest bees you can possibly breed. So once we take these artificially inseminated queens, we bring them back to the UK, we use the larvae produced by these breeder queens to create queen cells that emerge as virgins, and then they go out to mate naturally in the UK in an area that we have flooded with drones of superior temperament that are related back to these exceptional breeder queens. This is how we control the calmness. We control the maternal side, and we do our very best to control the paternal side, which is the drones that fly in the air. The result is an extremely gentle colony of bees that produces a very good honey harvest. They're resistant to swarming, but for us, the most important thing is they show very, very little aggression to humans. The perfect colony for your back garden. All of our overwintered nucs, whether it be in National or Langstroth format, are overwintered with an F1 Buckfast queen that is mated in the UK. They're either produced directly by me or through my partner Richard Stephens, who is a 3rd generation bee farmer with over 30 years of personal experience. He's been my mentor now for about 7 years, and there is literally nothing about beekeeping that he doesn't know. The queens in our nucs are accompanied by about 5,000 or 6,000 bees, and you get between 3 or 4 frames of brood in all stages, and that's just an easy way of saying eggs, larvae, and pupae, everything you need to start off your own colony of bees. Our overwintered nucs are treated in September using Apivar, which is a miticide. We found this is the best way to keep the varroa load as low as practically possible. And then in December, we use Apibioxal, which is a form of oxalic acid, and we sublimate the bees using that oxalic acid to keep that varroa load as low as it can possibly be. This means that when the bees arrive with you, there's no varroa treatment required until much later on in the season. You can collect your bees directly from us, or we offer free UK-wide special delivery through Royal Mail. which means that the bees get collected from us at about 5:30, 6:00 PM in the evening. They go directly to Royal Mail's central depot in Chester. We have dedicated transport, so this doesn't go alongside all of the other Royal Mail. We have a dedicated delivery driver that comes here every single Tuesday evening to collect our nucs straight into Chester and then straight out to people across the UK. It is quite astounding how quickly Royal Mail get these nucs out to people. You'll hear from Colin later on in this video, but Colin from Foxes Afloat We sent his bees at 5:30 in the evening on a Tuesday night, and they reached the Highlands of Scotland at 6:30 AM on the Wednesday morning, the following day. If I'd have driven them up there myself, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as quick. Royal Mail are our trusted delivery partners, and they do a spectacular job at delivering our nucs. The overwinter colony is delivered in a Paynes Poly nuc. We use the Paynes Poly nuc as it is by far and away the best poly nuc for transit through the postal system. We've never lost a single one, we've never had one come open, we've never had one be damaged. We've got a 100% record with our Payne's Poly Nucs. The reason that it's so good is that it has a side feeder and a top ventilated screen. This gives us 2 huge benefits compared to the other nucs in the market when it comes to transit through the postal system. Firstly, we can screw the ventilated screen directly into the poly hive body. This means there is absolutely no way that that roof can ever get loose. But it also gives you full airflow through the nuc, which means that they can handle anything that the postal service can throw at it in terms of warm temperatures. The Correx boxes don't do anywhere near as well as this. And what we found with the Paints Poly boxes as well is because you've got the bottom and the top ventilation as opposed to side ventilation, it's nearly impossible for the bees to overheat. The Correx boxes, we have had colonies overheat in the post. In fact, we had about 12 colonies overheat in the post last year. And obviously we had to send out full replacements to all of those customers. We are no longer sending out colonies in Correx for that very reason. Secondly, as the feeder is integrated into the side of the nuc, it means that if we send the colony to you early on in the season and you need to feed that colony because the weather's been really poor, you actually have access to a feeder to be able to feed the colony. With the top feeder style, there's no way for us to send you the top feeder whilst also keeping the ventilated screen in place. This is why the Payne's Poly Nuc is far better than any other nuc for transit through the postal system. So if you're comparing our nucs with other suppliers, the differences aren't always that clear. Most other suppliers in the UK do not use UK-mated queens, and there's no guarantee that the Buckfast queens that they're using are the first generation from a breeder queen. Could be F2, could be F3. You really don't know what you're getting. Our YouTube channel shows you everything that we do, and you can see from our collection we have a lot of breeder queens. Now, with a few exceptions, the vast majority of nuc sales through the post in the UK do come in a Correx box. I know we've sent bees out in Correx boxes before, but I learned from my own experiences we will not be sending them in Correx boxes again due to that overheating issue. But also, when you buy a nuc from us, you get a free Payne's Poly box, which is worth up to, say, £70. Factor that in when you're working out the pricing. The final differentiator is that the majority of suppliers in the UK sell their nucs on a 5-frame format. We do ours on a 6-frame format, and that means you get an additional 20% of frames and brood and bees. But most importantly, it gives you the ability for your nuc to grow to a substantial size early on in the season, which means you're much more likely to get a larger honey crop in your first year. One of our customers from 2022 took over £200 from a single colony that started the year as a 6-frame overwintered nuc. Our nucleus colonies are calm, placid, prolific, and disease resistant, but they also come with a significant support package. I personally produce a wide range of instructional videos that I post on my YouTube channel, helping you with every single stage of the beekeeping process, from introducing your colony to a beehive, to varroa treatments, to managing swarming, to how to extract your honey at the end of the season. There are over 1,300 videos currently on the channel, and I post 3 new videos every single week. I'm also contactable via phone, text, WhatsApp, email, and I do my best to get back to absolutely everyone as soon as I can. The bottom line is I don't just send you your bees and then completely abandon you. you. It's much more than that. I revel in your successes and I take personal pride in your achievements. I want to see how those bees grow. I want to see how you expand your apiary. I want to see how calm the bees are. I love interacting with people through social media to follow their journey as a beekeeper, starting off with our nucs and queens. Colin from Foxes Afloat YouTube channel took delivery of 12 nucs from us last year. Have a listen to what he thinks about the colonies Hello, I'm Colin from YouTube channel Foxes Afloat.

I've only been beekeeping for a few years, but this year I wanted to expand my apiary up here on our croft in Highland Scotland, and I chose to get the nucs from Laurence at Black Mountain Honey for a couple of reasons. One, I love his no-nonsense approach to beekeeping, but I'd also heard some great things about his queens and colonies. Now, all 12 arrived literally overnight They left Wales on the evening and arrived with us the next morning by Royal Mail, which is unheard of up here in the Highlands, so well done to Royal Mail and Laurence for that. After I transferred them to the new permanent hives, it wasn't long before the colonies started booming. They arrived on 6 frames, but within 6 to 8 weeks I think they'd filled 10 or 11 frames, and they were already bringing honey in when the heather started to appear in August and September. It's now the end of the season. All 12 hives are packed full of stores, they're packed full of bees, and they've all been treated for varroa. So I'm really excited to see what they can do next year. If you're thinking about starting beekeeping or just want to expand your apiary and get more colonies, or just need a new queen to requeen a colony, I would recommend getting it from Laurence at Black Mountain Honey. They are very calm, it's really easy to work with each one. I'll definitely be getting my future queens and colonies from Laurence of Black Mountain Honey, and I can't recommend him enough.