Description
12/1/22A special note to all of our devoted customers!We’ve decided to take a step back from selling package bees to residents of Middle Tennessee!Some background: Due to our climate zone and size of operation, it’s nearly impossible to produce early season packages of bees for all of our new beekeepers. As a result, historically _all beekeeping operations_ in Tennessee outsource packages of bees from Georgia, Florida, California, and Alabama. We believe this is a contributing factor to Tennessee bee genetics not thriving. By bringing in bees from out of state every year we are at the mercy of (in some cases) subpar bees and cannot adequately ensure our customers are getting the highest quality stocks and long term colony survival. Even if we requeen all our packages for you ahead of time, we are still allowing 6 weeks of drones from out of state mating with our Tennessee queens and negatively impacting future generations. It’s time to try and make a difference even if this negatively impacts our financials. Sometimes hard things are worth doing…we hope you will understand.Our plan for 2023: For 2023 we will only be selling nucleus beehives. We are currently overwintering nucs for sale to customers in the spring of 2023! We’ll be splitting all these nucs when the weather is right so we can produce even more quality bees for you. Our nucleus colonies may cost more than a package of bees and take longer to produce but we believe sometimes waiting is worth it for long term survival and customer success. Our biggest goal for this year is to educate all beekeepers about the value of staying local, understanding where your bees are actually coming from, and the impact that each one of us has on the overall quality of bees flying around this beautiful state.What is a nucleus colony of bees? A nucleus colony or “nuc” is kind of like a mini beehive. It contains 3 frames of brood in all life stages, 1 frame of honey, 1 frame of pollen, and 1 mated/laying queen. Nucs are super helpful because the beekeeper can immediately see the quality of queen they are getting and be up and running in no time verses having to wait on a package of bees to hopefully grow up. Our nucs are great because they are raised right here by us in Middle Tennessee! No more out of state or migratory bees that are unfamiliar with our seasons!
We respect your decision if you don’t want to wait until mid-may to get your bees (when we started in this wonderful hobby, we too were dying to get going!). We respect your decision if you don’t have it in the budget to have to spend more for your nucleus colonies of bees. If you buy packages of bees for 2023 spend the extra effort to find out just where your provider is getting their bees from. Is it Georgia, Florida, or somewhere other than Tennessee? Are those bees actually coming from migratory operations that have just visited the almond pollination in California? Can your provider vouch personally for what they are selling you? Ask those hard questions. It could mean the difference between your success and failure in the first 18 months of keeping bees. Don’t skimp on the quality of your bees or the agricultural integrity of the great state of Tennessee.As always, if you have any questions or want to talk over your options, we are here to help. Shoot us a message via the contact us link.
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