Where Should I Buy Honey Bees?

I would like to purchase honey bees now for delivery in the spring, but have read several complaints about bees arriving dead from a lot of these companies. Have you had any positive experiences buying bees from a particular company? I’d love to hear any suggestions.

Thank you.

Impossible to answer this without more information:

Where are you?
What do you require from your bees?
What is your beekeeping experience, and what equipment will you be using?

Shipping bees is always problematic - especially across climate zones. People routinely ship packages from the warmer southern states of the US, who thrive for a season but don't do well over winter.

Personally I would advise that you approach beekeeper local to you, and see if someone will sell you a nucleus colony - rather than a package. You can also look into getting bees from stock with a known heritage of varroa resistance.

If you simply wont the bees for pollination rather than getting into honey production consider solitary bees.   These are shipped in there dormant state when they are less apt to suffer shipping loss.
Two types are available.  Mason bees which start working in early spring before honey bees become effective pollinators and leaf cutter bees that pollinate during hot summer weather.  
Both are available from Crown Bees which is local to me here in Washington State.
They have the materials and instructions on their site and are good mentors for solitary bee pollination.
Another alternative is bumble bees that take very little maintenance.   webpage Natupol Bumblebee Hives.
For honey bees it is best to join a local group.  Search for apiarist near me.  Directory

I would check with your local producers.

Michael Cox wrote:Impossible to answer this without more information:

Where are you?
What do you require from your bees?
What is your beekeeping experience, and what equipment will you be using?

Shipping bees is always problematic - especially across climate zones. People routinely ship packages from the warmer southern states of the US, who thrive for a season but don't do well over winter.

Personally I would advise that you approach beekeeper local to you, and see if someone will sell you a nucleus colony - rather than a package. You can also look into getting bees from stock with a known heritage of varroa resistance.

I am in Zone 5A (N.W. Illinois) and am a complete novice to beekeeping. I don’t know anyone in my area who keeps bees, but what you say makes sense. Thank you.

Hans Quistorff wrote:If you simply wont the bees for pollination rather than getting into honey production consider solitary bees.   These are shipped in there dormant state when they are less apt to suffer shipping loss.
Two types are available.  Mason bees which start working in early spring before honey bees become effective pollinators and leaf cutter bees that pollinate during hot summer weather.  
Both are available from Crown Bees which is local to me here in Washington State.
They have the materials and instructions on their site and are good mentors for solitary bee pollination.
Another alternative is bumble bees that take very little maintenance.   webpage Natupol Bumblebee Hives.
For honey bees it is best to join a local group.  Search for apiarist near me.  Directory

Thank you for the information. I have plenty of pollinators on my land, including mason bees and bumblebees, but I would like to keep bees for honey and wax. Thank you for the link to the apiaries. I will check to see if there are any nearby.

I recommend that you go on the Beesource forum and ask who is local to you and buy from them.    Sometimes, a beek has to make a split to prevent swarming, and will give the bees away if you have a hive to put them in.

But local bees are often the best, as long as they are good-tempered bees.

Tony Hillel wrote:I recommend that you go on the Beesource forum and ask who is local to you and buy from them.    Sometimes, a beek has to make a split to prevent swarming, and will give the bees away if you have a hive to put them in.

But local bees are often the best, as long as they are good-tempered bees.

Thank you, Tony. I bought bees from a company in my state and should be receiving them in about 2 months.

That's good.   If possible, take the drive and go pick them up if it's a reasonable distance away.   You will have better success and very few dead bees if you can get them housed within a few hours.

Do you have nuc boxes for them?  Small colonies do better in smaller spaces.    Took me awhile to figure this out.  My splits that are housed in a nuc box with supers on top regularly outperform ones put in a full size box.   I think they like the chimney configuration, but whatever the case, the proof is in the results.

I made some of the Coates nucs out of 1/2" plywood, and they are great in the summer, but I like a full 3/4" plywood nuc wrapped in insulation in the winter and springtime when temps can still drop at night.

I hope your hives are very successful.

Tony Hillel wrote:That's good.   If possible, take the drive and go pick them up if it's a reasonable distance away.   You will have better success and very few dead bees if you can get them housed within a few hours.

Do you have nuc boxes for them?  Small colonies do better in smaller spaces.    Took me awhile to figure this out.  My splits that are housed in a nuc box with supers on top regularly outperform ones put in a full size box.   I think they like the chimney configuration, but whatever the case, the proof is in the results.

I made some of the Coates nucs out of 1/2" plywood, and they are great in the summer, but I like a full 3/4" plywood nuc wrapped in insulation in the winter and springtime when temps can still drop at night.

I hope your hives are very successful.

Thank you. 😊  No, I don’t have Nuc boxes, but will read up on them.

Here are the PDF plans for the Coates nucs made from 1/2" plywood.   VERY handy to have a few of these around!

Here is the page:  
https://www.beesource.com/threads/5-frame-nuc-d-coates-version.365737/


Here is the direct link to the PDF file:
http://www.beesource.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/5framenuc_coates.pdf

I hope the link works:

Wow! 😃  Thank you, Tony! 🙏 Yes, the link did work.

Would you mind explaining your nuc setup a little bit more? Aren’t nucs a lot thinner than supers? Are there special supers that fit over a nuc?

At what point do you move the colony into a standard deep?

Lastly, would you mind my asking what zone you’re in? How do you insulate and have you found that insulating leads to condensation?

This is my current set-up. The super is on just to house the 1:1 sugar mix I’m feeding them to get them to draw comb. I installed them on 5/18 and so far they’ve drawn out about 6 or 7 frames. It’s mostly brood and pollen at this point, with a little bit of capped honey. I don’t know if this is a normal rate of growth, but I’m anxious to get their numbers up before winter. Judging by what I’ve heard and read, it would be great to go into winter with two full deeps. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts and would appreciate any feedback.