2014 Walter T Kelley Nucs

I picked up a nuc on April 12 from Kellys. It ended up being a super strong hive, grew very rapidly and produced a medium super of honey for me that I just extracted yesterday. On the down side, that hive is MEAN!! First time I have ever had aggressive bees, I'm gonna requeen here shortly. They will flat out attack you when you pop the top off. I cant even stand there and watch them fly in and out without protection.

It seems like the mean ones are always the best producers.

We bought three packages from Kelley's this spring, two Italian and one Russian. The Russian and one Italian did fine, the other Italian, started on drawn comb from a deadout, is struggling badly. Second queen replacement, and I think some dead brood. The Russian filled a super with honey and swamed, it built up so fast my brother couldn't keep up with it.

The failing hive is at his place as well, and we have lost three or four package over the years there, need to find out what's going on. They all end up queenless somehow.

I don't think this is related to the quality of the bees, they were very nice heavy packages with very few dead bees -- we picked them up.

I've not bought a nuc from them, as I have a local source.

Peter

I picked one up April 5. They built up REAL well. Not mean. Swarmed which is weird for a new package.

We have requeened all 3 of the nucs the we picked up in April. These have been down right nasty bees. Not only at the hive, but 200 yards away for a couple of hours after inspection/manipulation.