How to put bees into your hive

I am a young newbie to beekeeping. I was wondering how do you put the bees in the hive. Nobody is very clear on this. It is probably a stupid question but I have no idea. I have a flow hive, and I’m getting Italian bees.

There are many ways… Let’s start with the easiest:

  1. Join a local bee club and express a wish to learn how to install bees from a member.
  2. Buy a nucleus (3-6 frames of bees, brood and food, with a queen) from a local beekeeper. Ask them how to install it.
  3. Buy a “package” of bees with a queen from a reputable supplier, if available in your country. Read as much as you can about installing the package before you order it.
  4. Learn how to catch swarms, and put one in your hive

If you are truly interested, the first thing you need to do is join a local bee club. Ask lots of questions there. Local knowledge is golden, and will help you enormously to succeed with your bees. Read everything you can on this forum, and read all of the pages on Michael Bush’s website http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm then get yourself a local mentor and do some beekeeping classes to learn more. Now you are almost ready for the adventure… Except, you will never really be ready until long after you start it. :wink:

Lots of posts on this site and there is even one in the video section on how to install bees… have a good look around and use the search function.


We recently put our first colony into our new hive. We’d bought the colony on six frames. Here’s a short video on how we transferred the colony into our hive: https://youtu.be/QRjS2WewC4E