We pride ourselves on producing the best quality nucs possible, with every comb hand selected from healthy, thriving colonies (no junk combs). Selling “proven” nucs takes a little longer, but you can be sure that the wait is worth it!
We start by producing top-quality queen cells, grafted from only our very best selected breeder stock (see our queens page to read more about our “mite resistant” breeding program). Our queens are then open-mated in our yards, and after 19 days we check to see whether they have a good egg pattern.
That 19-day “induced brood break” allows us to then apply an oxalic treatment to eliminate the mites (since the old brood has hatched out, and the brood from the newly mated queen is not yet old enough for mites to enter). This allows you to start with a nearly mite-free hive.
We then allow our queens to prove themselves while their nucs forage on natural resources to complete a full brood cycle – letting us weed out any poorly-mated queens, or nucs exhibiting slow buildup or other problems. This culling allows us to sell only healthy, strong, established nucs with proven queens, ready to rapidly grow into full-sized colonies.
Our customers are very happy that we eliminate any nucs with “issues” before we sell them. Once they're ready, we transfer each five-frame nuc to a plastic “pro nuc” box so they're ready for pick up and taken to their new home!
After ordering, we'll send you a confirmation email. In the spring we'll send out updates on how things are going, and finally we will send out pick dates and instructions. Nucs are usually ready around the end of April, but timing is dependent on weather.
