Keeping Nuc

[Sherpa1]

I've read that it is a good idea to have nucs around in case a hive becomes queenless or weak. My question is how long can one keep bees in a nuc. Do they eventually outgrow the nuc and swarm like in a regular size hive? Do you split the nuc and let the queenless one raise a new queen? Are the nuc mainly for overwintering? Thanks.

[ February 06, 2006, 07:10 AM: Message edited by: NoviceBee ]

[sqkcrk]

Hey NB, I bring my nucs back north to NY, from SC, in late April. I use them to fill in dead outs or equipment that i want bees in for the summer.

I do this before pollination. I usually have 24 or 36 left over. I save these for when I go through the colonies again, after pollination, when the colonys are in their summer home.

It seems like, over the years, I loose about 10% of my queens with every move. On average anyway.

So, those nucs come in handy.

The left overs, I keep on hand for future replacement purposes.

Keeping them requires me to take out a frame of honey and/or a frame of brood, every now and then. I like to run 5 frame nucs.

I can also split these nucs with the addition of a purchased queen, if they are avaiable.

My friend Jon will often have nucs for replacments into September.

Mike Palmer, from VT, grows queens and makes wintering nucs, in the late summer. He plces these nucs into a divided deep hive body and these go on top of a strong colony for the winter. I think that he is trying to winter some on their own. Not on top.

[Michael Bush]

>I've read that it is a good idea to have nucs around in case a hive becomes queenless or weak.

I agree.

>My question is how long can one keep bees in a nuc.

Forever if you can keep them from getting too cold in the winter and keep them from swarming.

> Do they eventually outgrow the nuc and swarm like in a regular size hive?

Of course.

> Do you split the nuc and let the queenless one raise a new queen?

That's one option. Or you can keep stealing brood from the nuc and giving it to your other hives, or let it build up into a hive by moving it into a bigger box.

> Are the nuc mainly for overwintering?

Nucs don't usually overwinter well around here. I keep trying to find a way to baby them through the winter. I think I have a method now, but this mild winter has not been a very good test. Nucs are mainly for mating queens, banking queens, or starting a new hive.

The concept of a nuc:

Nucs. I recommend having at least a couple of nuc boxes for a beginner. They are so useful for starting hives and rearing queens and keeping a spare queen. Since I use mediums for everything, I’ll point out that you can buy five frame medium nucs from Brushy Mt Bee Farm. You can also buy eight frame boxes which are a nice intermediate nuc size. I don’t know of anyone else who has them in medium depth, but a deep nuc could be cut down also. You can make your own if you’re handy with wood. I find an attached bottom board and a migratory cover are adequate for a nuc. I have made them in two frame (mostly for setting aside a queen or for mating nucs) three frame, four frames and five frames. Since I’m running mediums, I suppose an eight frame box is about the equivalent to a five frame deep nuc. I also use the eight frame boxes for nucs. I tend to use them to give a minimum size to a colony starting out. Any excess space is more work for a small colony.

Technically a nuc is the nucleus of bees, a queen, some brood and some stores. But a nuc box is a useful piece of equipment.

What nuc boxes are good for:

Splits. You can put a frame of brood with eggs a frame of emerging brood a couple of frames of honey and pollen and put them in a nuc and shake another couple of frame of bees from some brood in and the bees will raise a queen and you will have a new hive. When they fill the nuc, move them to a standard box.

Artificial swarm. If the bees are trying to swarm, do as above except add the old queen to the nuc and take out all but one or two of the swarm cells in the hive.

Making queens from swarm cells. As above you can do a split to get them to make a queen, but also when they are trying to swarm you can as in the first (splits) and put a queen cell in each nuc with the brood and honey and bees and they will hatch the queen and you can use them for requeening or selling or whatever you like. Of course you can also do queen rearing to get the cells to put in. If you have multiple queen cells you can cut some off and put them in nucs.

Keeping a backup queen. When you requeen take some of those old queens and put them in nucs with a frame of brood and honey and if the new queen gets rejected you still have a spare. Also, if you just keep a nuc with a queen in it for a spare, you can requeen a hive with that queen. To keep it week, keep taking sealed brood out and giving to
other hives.

Foolproof requeening. If you do as in the first (splits) and put a caged queen in the nurse bees will quickly accept the queen. After she is laying you can kill the queen in the hive to be requeened and do a newspaper combine. Bees readily accept a laying queen.

Queen bank. I built a shim that is the size of a nuc but ¾” thick and put queen cages with the wire down to keep them for several days or weeks before introducing them. You can also build a frame that will hold queen cages and use that for the bank.

Comb building. This is especially nice with regressed bees. Since the problem with 4.9mm foundation isn’t getting the bees to use the cells, it’s getting unnatural large bees to BUILD the cells. If you start a nuc with small bees as in the first (splits) and after it’s established, put frames with 4.9mm foundation in the 1,2,4 and 5 position. Feed it well and remove some drawn frames everyday. If there are eggs, put it in another colony to let them emerge and then steal the frame. Keep 3 or 4 pounds of bees in the nuc.

Swarm catching. Nucs are nice for hiving small swarms. Bait hives. Nucs are nice for bait hives for swarms. You could use a 10 frame box and that is a nice size too, but is harder to attach in a tree and for best results they need to be 10 feet or so up a tree.

Shaken swarms. You can put a screen bottom on the nuc box and shake bees from brood frames from several hives (being careful NOT to get a queen) and you have a bunch of homeless queenless bees. These can be put in hive with some brood so they can raise one or added to a nuc with a caged queen.

Transporting honey. Nucs are nice and light even with five frames of honey, compared to a ten frame box. Nice for putting frames in as you brush off the bees to harvest and nice to carry around. This is especially helpful if you run deeps. A five frame deep full of honey is about 45 pounds or so. A ten frame deep full of honey is about 90 pounds or so.

[Robert Hawkins]

Great Job, Michael. I'm still waiting for the name of your publisher. It's gonna bee so much more up to date than the Dolittle book. tongue.gif

BTW, I'd like to see that queen banking shim sometime.

Hawk

[Robert Hawkins]

Oops. forgot to answer the question. Novicedude, I don't know how many hives you have so I'll assume two. If you're handy with wood you could start a two frame nuc this weekdend and another in two weeks. Nurse them into two strong five frame nucs by Thanksgiving and then sell one queen to whomever yells loudest on this forum and combine for your newest hive.

That is assuming you don't accidently kill a queen between now and then. And if you do, it won't bee you yelling cuz you have two extras. It's kinda like insurance. The grandkids call em baby hives.

Hawk

[Michael Bush]

And you can always combine them with the stronger hives come winter and use the young queens to requeen the other hives.

[peggjam]

I am going to putting all screen bottoms on my nucs, they seem to do really well in them. MB pretty well sumed up what a nuc is used for, but if you use your imaganation, you might find a few more. They certainly are a handy piece of equipment.

[Michael Bush]

>I am going to putting all screen bottoms on my nucs, they seem to do really well in them.

I like my nucs pretty small and tight. They usually have a handful of struggling bees at first and often they are set up in the spring or other cold weather. So I have solid bottoms on all of mine and small entrances.

[peggjam]

"small entrances."

The smaller the better. If I thought I could get away with it, I'd have them small enough that only one bee could pass at time. Darn Italians and their robbing tendicies.

[Michael Bush]

I'm thinking of moving to a 3/8" hole for the entrances and a 1" screened hole front and back for ventilation and as a decoy for the robbers. Maybe one vent at the top and the other at the bottom.

[JBird]

Michael Bush wrote:

>I think I have a method now, but this mild winter has not been a very good test.

Michael, would you care to share this method, albeit untested to your liking?

Justin

[Mabe]

This spring I'll be creating a few nucs, so this info is great...thanks!

If nesting nucs on top of other nucs/hives to share heat is a good idea, what about putting a double screen vertically in the center of an old deep to create 2 4/5-frame nucs??? Could this be used on its own or stacked on others rather than making new equipment? I have a lot of old deeps I'd like to use, so if this makes sense, I'd like to try.

I can see it working if I use bees and queen cells from the same hive for adjacent nucs..., but what if I split from several different hives? Will the different pheremones blend?

[peggjam]

"I'm thinking of moving to a 3/8" hole for the entrances and a 1" screened hole front and back for ventilation and as a decoy for the robbers. Maybe one vent at the top and the other at the bottom."

I was thinking the same on the 3/8 hole, just didn't want to be the first to publish that idea. I already use 4- 1/2" screened vent holes, front and back.

[Michael Bush]

I started with a 3/8" by 3/4" slot on my nucs for the winter and ended up screening them down to 3/8" by 3/8" square. It makes a bit of a traffic jam on a warm day, but it keeps the robbers out.

[peggjam]

I was using a 1" hole for an entrance, and ended up screening it down so just one bee could pass at a time, the screen kinda jutted out at the top and made a neat little landing board.