Country Enterprise - buying a colony of bees; buy a nucleus of bees

<P> The second way to establish yourself with bees is certainly less dramatic as you are not involved with a capture. </P><P>On the other hand, you are faced with the sudden responsibility of owning and being responsible for some 40,000 bees. When you buy a colony of bees from a dealer you should obtain a queen, ten combs, a brood chamber, some honey and pollen. In other words, you are soon going to be in business. Whether you are going to obtain honey this year depends on the time you buy your colony. Obviously, if you buy early in the year, you may get honey that year. If you buy late in the year, you will not.</P><P> The third and final way to start is to buy a nucleus. This consists of the same range of bees but on a smaller scale (slightly less than half). This is a slower way to get going. If you are a little tentative about beekeeping then this is going in at the shallow end. </P><P><A HREF=bees10.htm>buying a colony of bees</A></P>