Nucleus hives are still available for purchase. Pickup currently expected May 11 or 12.

5 deep frames of healthy bees, brood, honey, and a queen in a reusable plastic nuc box. The Olivers' nucs' queens are raised in their nuc, so you will never get an unaccepted queen in a cage. We include 1 pound of pollen supplement to be fed to the bees during poor weather. No box returns necessary. Nucleus hives must be picked up in Shoreline. We do not ship bees.

These nucleus hives come from Eric, Ian, and Randy Oliver, of Golden West Bees and scientificbeekeeping.com. The Olivers keep their bees in the foothills of northern California. While it's not Washington, the bees experience the full range of weather, and adapt well to our area. We've used the Olivers' nucs ourselves for the last 8 years, and they have done a terrific job with both survival and honey production in our cold, wet, unpredictable Puget Sound climate.

Randy Oliver is known for his honey bee research, and it shows in the bees that he and his sons raise. They are productive, gentle, and have a reasonable degree of mite resistance (NOT mite immunity). If well managed, the Olivers' nucleus hives will serve you well for many years.

• Due to multiple consecutive years of poor spring weather, and wanting to deliver the best nucs and queens possible, the Olivers' nucleus hives are expected to be ready for pickup in early May this year. Good weather around Grass Valley, CA could have the nucs ready earlier. While pickup can end up a bit later than nucs with queens from Southern California or Hawaii, we're still among the first to have top quality spring nucleus hives available in Washington. These nucs have a good chance of making a honey crop their first year if you can provide them with drawn comb for the brood boxes, and even have a chance of making a honey crop if placed on foundation, as long as you feed them heavily before the blackberry flow to help them to build their comb.
• All nucleus hive purchasers are automatically subscribed to our annual nuc purchaser list, which includes periodic emails regarding what you should be seeing/doing in your hives at a given time of year, as well as anything that we are noticing in our hives that is unique to this year. You may request to opt out via email.
• $10 discount available if you want to pay with cash or check (in person or mailed) (email Peter to set a meeting or get our mailing address).
• $10 nuc equipment buyback (equipment must be clean, complete, and in good condition).

REFUNDS

• Refunds requested before January 31 will receive a full refund
• Refunds requested February 1-March 31 will receive a 50% refund
• If you have special circumstances, we will work with you.