Prepping My First Beehive & Installing the Nuc! (Episode 1)

Hello, bee lovers! Welcome back to another “Bee Wednesday”!

If you caught my previous post, Getting Started with Bees for Beginners, you know all about the essential supplies I gathered, why I chose a Langstroth hive, and why I decided to take a unique approach by placing my hive right inside my chicken coop setup.

Well, the wait is officially over! Over the past year, I’ve been quietly filming my entire first-year journey into the amazing world of beekeeping. Today, I am finally kicking off a weekly YouTube series to share it all with you. Every single Wednesday, you can count on a brand-new video tracing the highs, the learning curves, and everything in between.

In our very first episode, today is the day! I am picking up my bees, prepping the hive components, and installing my first-ever nucleus colony (nuc).

Click here to watch the full journey in Episode 1!

Step 1: Prepping the Hive Components

Before bringing the girls home, I had to transition the wooden components from their painting setup down into the active hive layout:

• The Base & Lower Box: I stripped the stacked setup down to just the base and the deep lower body box.
• Making Room for the Nuc: As I mentioned in my beginner’s guide, I chose to start with a nuc (a mini-colony already established on frames) rather than package bees. Because the nuc comes with 5 active frames, I had to remove 5 empty frames from my 10-frame deep box to make room for them.
• Elevating the Hive: Because this hive lives inside the chicken run, my girls love to scratch around and kick up mulch. To prevent debris from getting on top of or inside the hive, I added a couple of cinder blocks under the base to raise it up a bit.
• Preventing Robbers: While waiting for the bees to arrive, I kept the main entrance taped up. This is a super important step to ensure passing “robber bees” don’t find a vacant hive and try to claim ownership before my colony gets a chance to move in!

Step 2: The Arrival & Installation

Once we got the bees home, we let the nuc box sit quietly for a little while so they could calm down from the car ride.

We decided to do the actual transfer early the next morning. If you’re a beginner beekeeper, early morning is an ideal time for a hive installation. The bees are naturally much less active, and the ambient temperatures are cooler, making the entire transfer process significantly smoother (and a lot less nerve-wracking for me!).

Step 3: Moving the Frames (Spotting the Brood!)

Transferring the frames is where the real magic happens. As we gently lifted each of the 5 frames out of the nuc box and placed them into the center of the new hive body, we got our very first look at the health of the colony:

• Capped Brood: We found beautiful frames filled with capped brood—which means plenty of baby bees are on the way!
• Fresh Eggs & Drawn Comb: One of the final frames was incredibly heavy and beautifully drawn out with thick honeycomb. Upon closer inspection, we saw fresh eggs laid directly into the cells, indicating a highly productive environment.
• The Queen Hunt: We carefully inspected the frames for the queen. While she gave us a run for our money, hiding among her thousands of workers, seeing those fresh, healthy eggs gave us all the reassurance we needed that she was in there doing her job!

What’s Next?

With all 5 frames safely nested in their new home and the rest of the empty frames pushed to the sides, the lid is on, and my first colony is officially official!

Beekeeping is a beautiful, continuous learning process, and I can’t wait to see how these ladies adapt to their new space. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and tune in next Wednesday as we open the hive back up for our very first weekly inspection to see how they are drawing out their new comb!

Are you thinking about starting your own backyard beehive, or are you a seasoned beekeeper with tips to share? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy Beekeeping,