Best wishes for your new adventure GreenWay!
You are fortunate to have all that bee working experience already. Most of us start our TBs 'green' with just book learning and youTubes or a class under our belts. TBs appeal to us old folks that don't want to Lift too.

I agree with BeeGora to have a window in at least one of your new hives as well. It's just infinitely fascinating to do easy checking on them that way.
Don't feel bad about 2 out of 5 nucs making it. Even whole insulated hives had a bad winter in some places. I go to a homesteading forum that has a bee keeping thread and Gads! People had losses and more losses this year. I only had one TB and the arctic freeze didn't hit Oregon so mine made it.

I'm getting a second package in a week for my second hive and starting Year Two as of April 9. I hope you are starting with 2 hives or more (I had just one and did OK but after-the-fact I learned two with the same measurements is Really the smarter way to start.
Congrats on striving for sustainability. I know from experience that your own bees can help your fruit trees and gardening (unless your place was full of bees anyway;mine wasn't as I'm 10 miles from another beek). It's not hard to learn canning with honey either.

Looking forward to your updates! I enjoy "stories" on this forum as much as the "information" part. :shhhh: