I agree with Michael Palmer, because he is Michael Palmer, the guy that makes his living, and apparently a good one, from bees.
Ah yes... But lets shift gears a little and talk about actual value.
On average a nuc will cost 125-130.00 each VS a package that costs 95.00 average. So using the scenario above where the OP wants to expand by 17 hives by purchasing one or the other there is an approx cost difference of $600.00
What are the benefits of a nuc?
#1. hopefully an accepted queen, which frequently is not the case.
#2. Brood in all stages.
#3. about a 3-4 week head start on a package.
#4. Better chance of survival the first winter.
The down sides of a Nuc:
#1 All I have purchased have almost always been full of SHB
#2 If not caged the queens frequently get injured on the trip home and superseded.
#3 Frames and wax in nuc has an unknown treatment history.
#4 No guarantee that the queen isn't 3 years old.
Up side of Packages:
#1 Cannot be produced by an amateur.
#2 Producers usually produce 20-50 K packages per season and know what they are doing.
#3 Queens are reared by people who do 1000s per season and are always first year queens
#4 Cheaper than Nucs
#5 They are produced to mimic the Natural reproduction of a colony.... Full combs never walk out of a colony and make a home somewhere else.
#6 Bees are of the appropriate age to draw comb and rear brood.
Down side to Packages:
Insert what ever misinformation you like here
Now lets look at the cost difference in relation to what you end up with. You are paying 30.00 more for what? Okay so some package queens fail, so do some Nuc queens, There is a far smaller risk of disease with a Package because you don't have the unknown combs and brood present. A Nuc has a few week head start on a Package, but in northern areas you can buy a package a few weeks before a Nuc is even available. I have had both Packages and Nucs produce honey the first year. I will agree that a Nuc has a slightly better chance of survival the first season, but not enough to justify the 30.00 extra.
For the extra 600.00 the OP could buy an additional 6 packages and there is no way that 17 Nucs would have a better survival rate than 23 Package started hives.
Mike Palmer could verify, but I don't think he has any experience with Package bees, or not any in recent history. If the price was the same and the Nucs were coming from MP, I would buy the Nucs all day long
, But that isn't the case.
And one last thing to consider: In Europe they don't have access to package bees and they pay E 400.00 for a Nuc. Package bees keep Beekeeping semi-affordable for many hobby keepers in this country, whether they use them or not