Queens and Nucs (2025)

What is a Nuc? 

A Nuc (short for Nucleus Colony) is essentially a "starter" hive. Every Nuc contains a queen and about 1/5th of a full colony of worker bees. Our Nucs are 2-3 frames with brood and one with resources (Honey/pollen). There are many reasons why a beekeeper may make or require Nucs, within our season we will often split colonies that are getting too large or seem as though they may swarm. In the spring all Nucs will be encouraged to grow into full honey producing Colonies. Some Nucs may even be kept solely to keep a Queen Bee on standby in the unfortunate cases of Queen loss in the peak season. Losing a queen can take a hive weeks to recover from as they must raise a new queen while their population drops significantly without the Queen performing her necessary reproduction role.  If you are looking to start your beekeeping journey or replace hives lost through the winter, our Nucs or Queens could be the place to start!

Our Nucs Include the following:

- Overwintered Ontario Queen (marked)

- 1-2 Frames of capped brood & bees

- 1 Frame of resources & bees

- 1 Frame of drawn comb & bees

- Transportation box included

2025 Nucs

We will be making Nucs in Mid-May and June. They will be available for pickup on Saturdays ONLY. Please give us a call in MAY to arrange a Nuc order. We are currently taking some pre-order REQUESTS (Feb-April). Please Note, this pre-order is NOT a guaranteed Nuc, unless payment is secured through Mike.  We will only be selling Nucs when it is weather appropriate for colonies to have the best chance of survival in unpredictable Ontario springtime. We recommend thinking about this as well before picking out your nucs; earlier nucs are more vulnerable to late spring cold snaps. 

We also will be making a select number of queens available. ALL these queens have been reared by us and have successfully overwintered in Ontario. We believe in trying to keep local bee populations as healthy as possible, and this can give your own hives a strong chance at Multi-year survival. 

Prices:

May Nucs......... 260.00 

June Nucs...... 250.00

ON Overwintered Queens...... 50.00

All Nuc and Queen Sales will be handled directly through Mike! Availability can change quickly, so don't be mad if our lovely retail staff can't give you an answer you're looking for! The are happy to help with general bee knowledge questions and put you in contact with Mike himself. 

LOOKING TO GET A NUC? Contact us at...  info@nithvalleyapiaries.ca