I Order 2 Nucleus Hives for delivery at the beginning of April.

A Nucleus hive is a hive that is already Established. It has a Queen bee that is already laying eggs in the honey comb frames. The idea is you go to the breeders location swap 5 empty frames for 5 frames full of Bee's, Bee Larva and a Queen.

The cycle of a honey bee ( for workers ) is 21 days till emergence from a the honeycomb and adult maturity. After that they can live anywhere between 6 weeks and 4 months ! depending on the time of year.

Buying a nucleus of bee's means you get a 21 day head start on a Package of bee's

A package of bees is normally 3lbs of bees and 1 queen. you place them in a hive and it can take 2-3 weeks for them to produce the honey comb before the queen even starts to lay eggs and then another 21 days before bee's start to be produced. There are advantages to package bee's in that you have an awful lot of bee's (approx 30,000 - 50,000 bee's )

So hopefully in 4 months i will have 4 Bee hives !

I also ordered ( From Dadant )some screened bottom boards and Deep Hive suppers as well as some other equipment ( Gloves and a hive tool ). Decided to go Small Cell route and will be installing that foundation into the Frames