A package is three pounds and a can.

A package is a screened box of bees, about 3 pounds, about 10,000 insects, with a syrup can for the ride. It may arrive with a queen or without one. Welcome to the Apiary is the UF/IFAS 4-H book. This page is the install chapter. nucs is the five-frame colony. Compare is the buy choice.

Since a package is not a full colony of bees, you will want to use an entrance reducer.

Wood first, then the screen

Buy and assemble the hive at least one week before the bees. Follow the supplier on how the boxes and frames go together. Outdoor latex paint on the outside only. Inside walls and frames stay raw. Let the paint dry. A wet box on install day is a mess you chose.

A package is cheaper and easier to find than a nuc. It is also more work. There is no brood, no stores, no drawn comb waiting. The bees have to draw the nest and accept the queen. An entrance reducer so the small cluster has less entrance to defend while it builds numbers. Get this. Welcome to the Apiary names that part before step one.

The kit on the lid

The book lists a spray bottle of water, a hive tool, a hive feeder, sugar water, a staple gun, string, an entrance reducer, and duct tape. The sugar mix on this page is the one Welcome to the Apiary wrote: two parts water to one part sugar by volume. Two cups water with one cup sugar is the example they printed. Other Florida papers use a thicker mix for stores. This install page stays on the 4-H formula.

Step 1. Spray the bees through the screen until they are wet. Wet bees cannot fly. That is the whole point of the bottle. A clean spray bottle. A yard sprayer that has held soap or pesticide is the wrong bottle. Get this.

Step 2. Pry the wooden lid with the hive tool. Lift out the feeder can and the queen cage. Put the lid back until the bees go in, so they stay in the package while you hang her.

Hang her, then pour the rest

Step 3. Tie wire or string to the queen cage. Tie the other end to the top bar of a frame that will sit toward the edge. Leave her in the cage on install day. Either pull the cork on the candy end so the workers eat through and release her, or come back on day four and open it. Workers need her scent first. A stranger queen gets killed.

Step 4. Two ways in. Pull the five center frames and set the open package in the hive, opening facing up, and let them crawl out. Or shake them in. Lid on. Full feeder jar on. The cluster is small. Keep feeding. A growing package burns syrup while it draws comb.

About a week later, look for her out of the cage and for eggs. Young brood counts if eggs are hard to see. If the cage is empty and there is no brood, buy a queen. Florida stock still follows queen management and 5B-54. A package that raises its own from eggs is the same African-bee problem Using Nucs in Beekeeping Operations named for nucs.

Nuc versus this box

A nuc arrives as a short colony: three to five frames, brood in all stages, honey, pollen, a laying queen. Most common layout in Welcome to the Apiary is two brood, two honey, one pollen. Slide those frames into the center of a deep and fill the sides. A package is a start. A five-frame nuc is a working colony once you already keep bees. This page is the screened box you shake.

Register either way. FDACS wants a firm number on the box. Sit it with neighbor guidelines before the neighbors meet the flyway. Paint dry, reducer in, spray bottle full. Then open the screen.

Sources

1. Welcome to the Apiary. Hammond, Vu, Parkell, Bammer, Helton, Henry, Sullivan, and Ellis. Package install, nuc transfer, entrance reducer.
2. Using Nucs in Beekeeping Operations. Five-frame operations after you already keep bees.
3. FDACS Beekeeper Registration. Firm number on the box, package or nuc.

A five-frame nuc is a working colonySit the box with neighbor guidelines before the first orientation flight.