nucs for sale

[Bill]

We are beekeepers living in Aberdeenshire, near Alford. We have raised some nucs and they are ready for sale in the next week or so. We can sell them in travelling boxes ready for collection or you can bring your own nuc box or hive the day before and we'll transfer them for you. We are charging £150 for a 5 frame nuc and £25 extra for a travelling box. Please email tbb692@aol.com or phone 01975 581239. Ideally we'd like beginners to benefit in the first instance if possible,
Thanks
Bill and Rosemary Legge

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Bill and Rosemary
You haven't written anything for the SBA magazine for a while
Looks like the beekeeping's going well

[Bill]

I like the name. Yes the beekeeping is going fine. The nucs are just about all sold now. They are an awful lot of work. We tried them in a bigger way this year because they seemed less work than honey but now we're not so sure. At least with honey you just have the harvest and you can take your time selling it but with nucs it is like you have a nursery of babies in the back garden needing fed every evening. Syrup everywhere, on the kitchen floor, all over suits and gloves. Never mind it has been worth it I suppose. I think we'll just go back to honey mostly next year with only two or three nucs. We had a dozen on the go this year all at the same time.

[Trog]

They are an awful lot of work. At least with honey you just have the harvest and you can take your time selling it but with nucs it is like you have a nursery of babies in the back garden needing fed every evening. .

I know the feeling! We went into nuc production last year to increase stocks and give beginners a chance of getting local bees, and just now we have six on the go with only one left to mate. What with the existing colonies and the two swarms that turned up, it's a whole day each week checking them! Very satisfying though, seeing newly-mated queens laying their hearts out, and seeing folk getting their first bees!

[The Drone Ranger]

Bill,Rosemary and Trog you deserve medals for helping to get people started with their first bees

On the whole I think honey is easier although its not always reliable and certainly messier never mind just the floor it gets everywhere :)

[Bill]

We only sell comb honey. I gave up spinning because I just hated the mess and the cleaning up afterwards. We sell comb in 8oz containers from the garden gate. People love to get comb of any kind and ours is from a mixture of sources. I really plug the health aspects of eating comb honey by giving out little information slips with the containers that we sell. And folk just leave the money in an honesty dish. Very satisfying and much easier than spinning. You can keep the super frames and just chop out and fill 20 or so containers at a time. I do all the labels on the computer.

[Trog]

We don't mind the spinning and bottling but we do some cut comb from time to time, according to how the bees are working in any year. The heather honey that doesn't spin out (usually in the bottom super where they've had their pollen arc for most of the summer so it gets filled late) just gets scraped out and sieved and we enjoy it ourselves. Other heather honey is usually in cut comb if we've timed it right. However, they have access to much more than heather in August! We use cappings to make candles which sell very fast to the guests or at local sales.

[Hoomin_erra]

Was going to sell honey at the bottom of the road in our "Honesty" fridge. But now in two minds seeing as someone decided to help themselves to 17 jars of Jam & chutney last night. Not all of it, just 17 jars

bastards!!

[Trog]

Ooh, that's not nice :(

[The Drone Ranger]

You lucky people

Oil seed rape honey goes solid in the combs you can get as much of it as you like but you have to be able to take it off and spin it out just at the right moment.
Too early it will ferment too late its set

Chutney thieves! what the heck is going on best just put a couple of jars out at a time and get a video camera on that fridge :