Skip to content
This is where you will find the information for purchasing queens and bees from Ohio Country Bees. Click the headings for details.
We will have several different ways to sell queen bees including unhatched queen cells, virgin queens, and mated queens. We will have a couple of different sources we graft from to raise our queens. One is from our Russian queens. These queens come to us via one of the breeders of the Russian Queen Breeders Association. These queens are mated in their all Russian apiaries. The mated queens that we sell from this line will be Russian Hybrids having bred with the drones in our area. We may also be grafting from survivor stock from other hives in our apiary that are not Russian. Some of these are swarm captures with unknown lineage but with the ability to survive in northern Ohio. Queens could be available at various times from April to August depending on the weather. Keep checking the website for the latest information. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
We offer bees as nucleus colonies, commonly referred to as nucs. These are a single deep 5-frame box of bees with their laying queen. The queen will already be introduced, mated, and laying so you will have a small established hive that will hit the ground running once you install it in your apiary. The default way the nuc will be supplied is in a 5-frame cardboard nuc box for transportation to your apiary. The prices listed for the nucs represent those supplied in this cardboard nuc box. If you would like to save $10 per nuc, you can pick up your bees installed in your own woodenware. You supply the hive box and we then install the nuc in your woodenware for transport to your home apiary.
If you don’t have any spare woodenware, but would prefer to receive your nucleus hive in a wooden box, we offer those for an additional $20. This is a wooden 5-frame nuc box with lid and solid bottom board (entrance in end of box). Everyone should have at least one empty nuc around because they are very handy for a variety of purposes (splits, requeening, brood breaks, spare queen, etc.) The wooden nuc box you purchase will be yours to keep and reuse as needed.
We could have both over-wintered and summer nucs for sale. Check the site for updates or send us an email to inquire about availability.
Note: Nucs are pick up only.
Since most of the package bees come from the South or California, we are not much for selling package bees as we feel you are better off buying bees that have come from your area. That being said, there are times when the only choice is to purchase package bees. We will list any available package bees on the website starting in January. If you need to purchase package bees, please let us know as soon as you can. Packages are only available in the spring (typically late March – April) and they do sell out, so the sooner you get your order in the better. Orders for package bees require payment in full when you order.
Note: Packages are pick up only.