Where to get your bees to start: colony, nucleus, package or swarm

This is the question that comes up the moment a newcomer decides to become a beekeeper, and the one where it is easiest to hurt yourself right at the start. Because bees are not a sack of onions that you buy as cheaply as possible online and all is well. Where and what kind of bees you get decides whether the first season will be learning and fun, or a fight with an aggressive, sick colony that puts you off the whole hobby.

I will say it straight, as I see it after years: at the start it is not about being cheap, it is about being healthy, gentle and local. Healthy bees from a local, trusted beekeeper are worth every extra zloty over a mysterious bargain from a classified ad. In this text I lay out, one by one, the options you have, what it realistically costs, what to look at when buying, and why import in particular is something I would steer clear of like fire.

Five ways to your first bees

Bees can be obtained in several ways, and each has a different balance of price, risk and how much work and knowledge it demands. Let us go through them honestly.

An overwintered colony. This is a ready, full colony on a complete set of frames, with a laying queen, bees in strength, brood and stores. The greatest comfort at the start, and the only option that, in a good season, can give a little honey in the first year. It is the dearest and heaviest to transport, but for someone who wants to get into the subject for real, rather than just peering into a box, it is the strongest way in. As a rough guide, an overwintered colony is today an outlay of around five hundred zloty and up, depending on strength and race. And one more often-overlooked advantage: a strong overwintered colony lets you make two or three nuclei from it in the same season, without losing honey, and sometimes throw a first swarm. In other words, from one well-bought colony you can expand the apiary to several units in a year, and that is the best-spent zloty at the start.

A nucleus (odkład). This is a deliberately made small colony, usually on four to six frames: there is a queen, some brood, bees and a food store. My pick for the start and probably the healthiest compromise. It is cheaper and lighter than a colony, roughly two hundred and ninety to three hundred and fifty zloty, and on top of that it forces you to observe, because it grows before your eyes through the whole season. That is priceless learning: you see how the colony develops, how the queen sows frame after frame, how the bees increase. The downside is that in the first year a nucleus will not really give you honey, because it spends the whole season building the nest and strength for winter.

A package. This is roughly a kilo, a kilo and a half of bees with a queen caged in, no combs, no brood, just bees shaken into a transport box. It comes out relatively cheap and transports superbly, but for a beginner it is demanding, because you build the colony from scratch: the bees have to be installed on foundation or ready combs, fed and watched until the queen gets going. Packages have a darker side too: this is the form in which imported bees most often come to us, which I will come to in a moment.

A swarm. The cheapest, sometimes free, option, because a swarm is the part of a colony that left the old hive with a queen in search of a new nest. It sounds romantic, catch a swarm and have bees for nothing, but it is a lottery. You do not know whose queen it is, her age, whether she is healthy, or whether the colony has a swarming tendency written into its genes. A swarm from your own, known apiary is one thing, but a chance swarm from an unknown source is a pig in a poke that has to be treated as potentially sick. Prices of swarms, when bought, are roughly one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty zloty.

A queen plus making a nucleus. This is a variant for someone who has access to another beekeeper's strong colony or bees from a friend and wants to make a nucleus themselves, buying only a good queen. For a complete newcomer with no bees it is premature, but it is worth knowing that a breeding queen is a separate commodity: an unmated one costs a few dozen zloty, a naturally mated one usually around a hundred, and reproductive and artificially inseminated ones considerably more.

What to choose at the start

If I had to advise one thing, it would be a combination: one strong, overwintered colony plus one or two nuclei. The colony gives you the full life of an apiary straight away, shows you what a healthy, strong unit looks like, and possibly a bonus of honey. The nucleus teaches you patience and observation, and is at the same time a cheaper way to increase the number of colonies. Two or three colonies are also a better start than one, because you have a comparison, and if something goes wrong with one, you are not left empty-handed and discouraged.

Packages and swarms I would leave for later, once you feel the bees under your fingers. A package demands confidence in installing and feeding, and a swarm is too big a health unknown to build your first experiences on.

Where to buy, and where not

Here is the heart of the matter, more important than the choice between a nucleus and a colony. Buy bees locally, from a trusted beekeeper or a breeding operation under veterinary supervision. Best of all from someone nearby you can always call for advice, watch at work, and sometimes help with the jobs in their apiary. Such a beekeeper to hand is worth more than many a course, because you learn on a living organism and have someone to ask when something catches you out. And on top of that they have a WNI number, run the apiary openly and care about their reputation in the area, so they will not palm sick bees off on you.

Buying the cheapest bargain from an ad, from an anonymous seller who will not show you the apiary or the papers, is asking for trouble. Behind a low price there is often an old queen, a weak colony, high varroa or something worse. Remember that with sick bees you buy a problem that can spill over your whole future apiary, and even onto the neighbours.

There is one more argument for going local that newcomers do not think of: local bees are adapted to your climate and forage. A colony from a beekeeper in the next village will overwinter with you better than bees brought in from completely different conditions.

Why import is a bad idea

And here is the thing I really want to alert you to, because it tempts with a low price and availability, especially with packages. Avoid imported bees, particularly packages and queens from southern Europe. There are several reasons and all of them serious.

The first is diseases and pests that we do not yet have, or that are rare. The loudest example is the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida, a dangerous pest that can wreck an apiary and destroy honey stores. In Europe it has settled in southern Italy, in Calabria, where it was detected in 2014, and it persists in that region and in Sicily. In Poland it is not present and long may it stay that way, and the simplest route to bring it in is precisely importing bees from affected regions. It is a pest subject to mandatory notification, so its appearance is not a private problem but a matter for the whole of beekeeping.

The second reason is genetics. Imported bees are often random hybrids, which in the first generation can be bearable, but in the next can give aggressive, hard-to-handle daughters. For a beginner an aggressive colony is a straight road to discouragement and abandoning the hobby. The third reason is varroa and viruses: along with the bees you import their parasites, sometimes resistant to what we treat with here.

Put plainly: do not economise on the origin of your bees. Local, healthy, gentle bees from a neighbour are worth more than a cheaper package from the other end of Europe that can bring you a problem you cannot undo.

Which race to start with

In Poland you choose, in practice, between a few races, but for a beginner one thing counts above all: gentleness. A nervous, aggressive colony will kill all your pleasure in opening the hive.

The most popular and most often recommended for the start is the Carniolan bee, the krainka. It is gentle, holds to the comb well, develops quickly in spring and overwinters well in our climate. Its weakness is a tendency to swarm and to interrupt brood-rearing when forage is short, but for a newcomer it is the race that forgives the most.

The second popular option is the Buckfast, prized for gentleness, good work and a lesser tendency to swarm. Here, though, I will honestly warn the beginner: the Buckfast is a bee geared to commercial flows, and in a newcomer's hands it can cause a good deal of trouble. It has to be renewed with queens from a reliable breeder, because uncontrolled, further crossing produces aggressive, difficult daughters. On top of that the Buckfast is somewhat controversial in Poland: it is not a pure race but a hybrid, and there have even been calls for an outright ban on it, out of concern for the native genetics of the bee. For someone just starting out, that is an argument to begin instead with the calm krainka, and leave the Buckfast for later, once you know what you are doing.

The Central European bee, our native dark one, is tough and overwinters superbly, but tends to be more defensive, so harder for a beginner. The Caucasian is gentle and has the longest tongue, but overwinters less well and glues up the nest heavily. For someone just beginning, the safest choice is simply the gentle krainka from a trusted, local beekeeper.

What to look at when buying

Before you hand over the money, look the bees over, or ask the seller to show you the colony. Here is what to pay attention to, in order of importance.

• Queen and brood. Compact, even brood on the comb is the sign of a good, young queen. Scattered brood, full of holes, is a warning signal. Ask about the queen's age and whether she is marked, because a marked queen is proof that the beekeeper is on top of their management.

• Strength and calm. The colony should densely cover the frames and behave calmly during the inspection. Bees that at once throw themselves to sting and run nervously over the comb are the promise of a troublesome colony.

• Signs of disease. Watch for the signals: sunken, perforated cappings and an unpleasant putrid smell mean suspected foulbrood, deformed wings in young bees mean the varroa-borne virus, chalky-white mummies on the floor and in cells mean chalkbrood. The brood should smell fresh, not of rot.

• Varroa. Ask outright when and with what the colony was treated for varroa and what the infestation level was. An honest seller will answer without waffle.

• Combs. Fresh, light combs are better than black, old and maggoty ones. Buying a nucleus, you would rather have it on decent frames than on junk.

• Papers. A seller with a WNI number, who runs the apiary openly and shows you the colony without fuss, is a seller who takes the matter seriously.

Formalities when buying bees

No scare tactics here. In practice, buying bees from a local beekeeper rests above all on trust and on the fact that you can see what you are buying: a healthy, known colony from a sure source is your best safeguard. Formally, moving bees is the movement of animals, and with transport over greater distances, especially between regions or out of a disease zone, veterinary documents may come into play. With a local purchase from a neighbour you usually will not meet this, but if you are bringing bees from far away, it is worth asking the seller and your district veterinary officer what is required.

One thing is certain on the buyer's side: colonies you add change the number of colonies in your apiary, and that has to be updated in the register. I have described the whole mechanics of registration, updates and obligations separately in the post on beekeeping paperwork step by step, so here I only remind you: when you buy bees, update your data.

Catching swarms, that is romance versus risk

A separate paragraph is owed to catching swarms, because it is the dream of many beginners: free bees straight from the sky. True, a caught swarm can be excellent, hard-working material, but treat it with caution. You do not know where it flew from, how old the queen is, whether the colony is sick, or whether it has a rampant swarming tendency. A swarm from an unknown source is best hived well away from the rest of the apiary, treated for varroa and observed, and if the queen turns out weak or the bees aggressive, requeen it. A swarm from your own, known apiary is a completely different story, because you know what you are dealing with.

When to buy

The best time to buy depends on the form and on the weather. Overwintered colonies are bought in early spring, depending on the weather usually from late March and into April, once the colonies have got going and you can see they came through the winter well. Nuclei made during the season are available in late spring and summer, and such a nucleus has the whole season to build up before winter. Buying bees in late summer or autumn is riskier, because the colony has little time to prepare for winter, so if you are starting out, aim for early spring, to give the bees and yourself a full season of learning.

One practical tip: reserve your bees with a beekeeper early, in winter or early spring, because good nucleus breeders tend to be booked months ahead. A season's nuclei can be gone before the meadows even turn green.

How Beehive Hub helps

Since you are building an apiary, it is worth running it in one place from the start. That is what we made Beehive Hub for. Once you have your first bees, the app serves as an apiary journal: you record inspections, the colony's strength and mood, the queen's status, and in the treatment log you note when and with what you treated the new colony for varroa, with a reminder for the next dose. For a new nucleus you are keeping under observation, it is a handy way to track how it develops and not lose the thread of what you have already done.

Two things are especially useful to a beginner. First, voice inspections: instead of peeling off your gloves and fiddling with the phone over an open hive, you dictate what you see and the app records it into the inspection. Second, once you get to your own honey and products, you have the option of listing your own bee products for sale with no commission, so you build yourself a sales channel straight away.

Curiosities and controversies

Cheapest means dearest. With bees, economising on origin backfires the most. A cheap, sick or aggressive colony can cost you the loss of the whole apiary, discouragement and treatment costs you did not foresee. The premium for healthy, local bees is the best-spent money at the start.

A nucleus teaches more than a ready colony. Although a colony gives greater comfort, it is the nucleus, growing before your eyes, that is the best school. You see the full cycle: from a few frames to a strong colony. Many experienced beekeepers say they learned the most on nuclei.

The small hive beetle waits at the gates. Aethina tumida has sat in southern Italy since 2014 and is not letting go. Poland is free of this pest, but every ill-considered import of bees from the south is a risk that we bring it into the country. It is one of the strongest arguments for buying bees locally.

A free swarm does not exist. A caught swarm seems free, but you pay for it in risk: unknown health, an unknown queen and unknown genetics. Sometimes you win an excellent colony, sometimes you bring in varroa or a swarming tendency. Free bees can work out dearer than a bought nucleus.

The most common beginner mistakes

Buying the cheapest bargain from an ad. An anonymous seller, no papers and a suspiciously low price are a red flag. Buy from a trusted, local beekeeper whose apiary you can see.

Importing bees to save money. A package or queens from southern Europe is a risk of diseases, pests and foreign, aggressive genetics. Stick to local bees.

Starting with a single colony. One colony means no comparison and no safety net if something goes wrong. Two or three units at the start give better learning and a calmer head.

Not updating the register after buying. Colonies you add change the number of colonies in your apiary, and that has to be updated in the veterinary register. Do it after the purchase, to keep your data in order.

Buying unseen. Taking bees blind, without seeing the brood, strength and behaviour of the colony, is asking for disappointment. If you can, look at what you are buying.

Starting too late in the season. Bees bought in autumn have little time to prepare for winter. Aim for spring, to give them and yourself a full season.

Sources and further reading

• Beekeeping portals and price lists (incl. pszczelahala.pl, apiaries and nucleus breeders). Rough prices of swarms, nuclei, colonies and queens for the 2026 season.

• Lyson, materials on honey bee races in Poland. Characteristics of the Carniolan, Central European, Caucasian, Buckfast and Italian bees and their suitability for a beginner.

• Pasieka24 and beekeeping association materials. Practical accounts of nuclei, packages and setting up an apiary from scratch.

• Materials on the small hive beetle (Aethina tumida), incl. veterinary papers and those of the National Veterinary Research Institute in Pulawy, and data on the pest's detection in Italy in 2014 (Calabria, Sicily). Basis for the warning against import.

• General Veterinary Inspectorate, information on the movement and import of bees. Background to the section on formalities when buying and transporting bees over greater distances.

• The post "Beekeeping paperwork step by step" on the Beehive Hub blog. Apiary registration, updating the number of colonies and obligations when moving bees.