Purchasing a Nuc – Retail vs. Wholesale Part 5

Today is the last segment of a 5 part series on Nuc purchases. 

During this time of the year, the large commercial beekeepers offer beekeeping clubs and associations discounts on purchasing 100 nucs from them.  Normally, this is a $20 to $50 savings.  The larger commercial guys will be selling 1,000’s of nucs and make large block sales of nucs to beekeeping clubs and associations.  The key issue here is that large commercial guys cannot take phone calls from beekeepers asking questions about their nuc purchase.  They neither have the staffing or the ability to answer all the questions from hundreds of beekeepers.  With that said, the wholesale nuc’s are “as is” purchases.  These wholesalers provide a great product to experienced beekeepers. 

The retail beekeeper sells under 500 nucs and offers advice that will come up after the sale.  The retail beekeeper is invaluable to new beekeepers, in offering advice and insight, to what may be happening in your hive.  I have and others have made personal visits to customers to help them be successful beekeepers.  Please note this does cost money for gas and time. 

It is also important that you purchase your bees from state licensed retailers and wholesalers.  This will help insure you are purchasing healthy bees.    

Although everyone wants to gave a great price in purchasing their nucs, you cannot discount the follow-up advice your retail beekeeper will be able to offer you.  The price difference will be insignificant when the beginning beekeeper is faced with a hive problem.

You should also know that buying 20 plus nucs, you should receive a discount for this size of an order from your retailer.

If you missed the previous blogs on purchasing a Nuc, you can find the previous four blogs here on this blog page.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to send us your question and we will promptly reply.

Ray