Description
Large volume orders or club buys, contact us first for discount code.
Pickup at Walnut Farm Bees outside of Carlisle, PA: Saturday, April 8, 6am-10am. (depending on timing, may also be available Friday evening)*
Pickup at Nicholson, PA, at convenient parking area in Nicholson, right along route 11: Saturday, April 8, 5pm-8pm (if you need earlier, let us know as we may be in a nearby bee yard)* For those in Northern PA, even though our farm shop is in Carlisle, we are not simply beekeepers from farther south making a one time “run” through your area. Not only do we have an apiary location on the border of Wyoming/Susquehanna counties, we also are very familiar with the area (have lived there) and have family within the area. So, we’ll be around to support your needs or any questions that you might have, including monthly equipment, queen, and queen cell pickup times in Nicholson during the beekeeping season. If you need spring feed or anything else to purchase in Nicholson, please let us know at least 2 days prior to the pickup, and we will make sure that is available.
*These are the anticipated dates, and if weather events should change this, we will post updates on our website and Facebook. You can also subscribe to updates on our website if you wish to receive email updates.
The background story: With the limited number of nucs that we are able to provide each year and the necessary price increases, we have been looking for another potential March/April option for our customers. We have considered selling package bees as a second option besides our nucs over the past few years but have not because it took us several years to find the right quality that we would be willing to sell. If you know us, you know that we are concerned about our customers and our reputation. After testing out many package bees that are sold in Pennsylvania (mostly from sources in Georgia, as are most package bees sold in our region), we finally have found the right partnership to make this an option for you. We have partnered with Woodcamp Farm in Maryland to provide 3lb Italian bee packages with 2023 mated queens in late March and early April.
We have tested these package bees, and they are the highest quality out of any that we have tried. Many of the packages that we tested from other sources were not high quality, had poorly mated queens, and were loaded with mites. These queens are guaranteed to be alive and well on delivery.
Do you prefer a local product with a Carniolan queen? Each package is eligible for a $20 replacement Carniolan queen in July or August. We highly recommend this option. You can select this during checkout or contact us later to take advantage of this offer. By fall, your colony would have our “PA Carniolan” genetics if you replaced the queen in July.
If you’re a new beekeeper starting out with all new equipment and no drawn foundation (comb), we recommend an April package (versus March when the weather can be much more variable) or a nuc to start out with (all our nucs are sold out for 2023).
Each package is 3 lbs of bees with an Italian mated queen. These are strong packages, with a low mite count, and are overall healthy bees. We guarantee a live queen in every purchased package. As with the nucs and queens we sell, we will also stand behind the quality of these packages.
Please follow our package install instructions. If possible, install the package on a frame or two of drawn comb (or more). They will need to be fed at all times until they are established. You may also want to consider a tiny piece of pollen patty on top (ask us if you need to purchase any). We also have various types of feeders in stock if you need to purchase one (Nicholson pickup, please let us know if you need us to bring any supplies that you would like to purchase). A mite treatment with in the first 2 weeks after the install is also a good idea, as there is no capped brood for the mites to hide in.
If you are not paying with card/PayPal/etc. and instead select check or cash during checkout, payment must be received within 2 weeks of order, for your order to be held. In person payments are Carlisle, PA only.
