Top Bar Nuc?

[Shapleigh's Bees]

I'm new to this anybody ever build a top bar nuc? I'm curious about dimensions. I've built three hives on Mr. Bush's wonderfully simple KTBH design. I was thinking about enough room for 10 bars, using a backer board to shorten it depending on what I was using the nuc for.

[Tim Hall]

I just delivered six KTBH 5-bar nucs to a beekeeper this morning for her to get started for me. This is my first experience with bees, so beyond saying I've built them I can't really offer much. This will also be this particular beekeeper's first experience with TBH's so it's all kind of an experiment.

One thing I did wrong was to make the nucs only slightly larger than 5-bars wide. This made it very difficult to get any kind of tool down inside the hive with all 5 bars in place. What we finally decided was to replace the 5th bar with a frame feeder that was narrow enough to allow a tool inside the hive. The frame feeders will serve as feeder and/or a follower board when I go to transfer the bees and brood to a bigger box.

[buckbee]

My flowerpot nuc. Very cheap, very effective.

http://www.biobees.com/images/flowerpot_nuc.jpg

(why can't I put images on this forum?)

[Shapleigh's Bees]

Buckbee, that is sublime.

[Michael Bush]

It makes sense to have a nuc for your TBH. I've never gotten around to making one for the KTBH. The regular ones work for my TTBH. If I were building one for my hive I'd go somewhere between five and eight bars.

[Shapleigh's Bees]

Thanks. I think I'll go with enough room for 8 bars and a little extra per Tim's advice and plan on compacting the space if needed with a backer board.

I don't have any Lang equipment and have no plans to get any. Of course, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. It'll be another month before my bees arive...

[Tim Hall]

It'll be another month before my bees arive...

On that note I would start to building asap. Even if you're only building two or three nucs, my experience is that that month will evaporate real quick when you have a full time job and other "responsibilities" getting in the way of your more serious work ;)

The only reason I built nucs was because I needed portable equipment to hand off to another beekeeper. If were buying package bees, I probably would have just used a full-size hive with a follower board to start them. Of course the nucs could come in handy later for swarm trapping or other manipulations.

[CSbees]

A typical nuc with size restrictions on the amount of bees would take a long time to draw out the bars. Not enough workforce is avaliable.

[Shapleigh's Bees]

I'm planning to use mine as a management tool. Hope to solve or head off problems and it seems that a nuc is the kind of thing that you to have before you actually need it. Like a fire extinguisher -- after the kitchen is engulfed is not the time to go buy one.

[Shapleigh's Bees]

Pictures at http://blog.marshfieldkennel.com/2008/03/14/top-bar-nuc.aspx

I still have to borrow a table saw as the bars are about 1 1/2, paint or oil, and fashion a lid. Waiting for snow to melt so I can steal the metal roof off a dilapidated chicken coop here on the property.

[Beesilly]

After searching the web, I came upon this site...http://www.beebehavior.com/polystyrene_nucs.php
Scroll down until you see the cooler nuc boxes. Very Interesting. Just wanted to share. You could use top bars instead of frames.
Have a great day!
Beesilly

[Shapleigh's Bees]

That is cool and would work well, I think for the TTBH keepers. The biggest problem I see is that coolers fill with water when stored outside because it wicks in though the lid. You would need to put a roof on Them.

[JaiPea]

CSbees is right, if you don't use drawn comb the nucs may not work well for you.

> I'm planning to use mine [nucs] as a management tool. Hope
> to solve or head off problems and it seems that a nuc is
> the kind of thing that you to have before you actually need it.

Since portability is not an issue, build some follower boards. Bees tend not to fill out the far end of long TBHs (and if they have, harvest the honey) so a follower board can be used to close off one end to create room for a nuc.

A successful nuc is difficult to work because the bees will pack every available inch with comb, and there is no room to cut away attachments. On the nuc you built it looks as if four screws will let you pull one end off. Don't know if that was your intent, but removing one end panel will make it easy to cut away the side attachments.

[Shapleigh's Bees]

My nuc was limited in size to the amount of lumber I had. It could have been bigger, just not much bigger. I'm not planning to dump a package in there. I might use it for splits, but that's unlikely this year.

There is nothing but the four screws holding the ends on, and the rest of the box will hold up OK if I take of one end, so if I get it too bound, maybe that will be the way to go.

Wojtek has similar sized nucs that appear on his site. http://homepage.interaccess.com/~netpol/POLISH/Ule/Wojtekshives2.html

If you scroll down about half way you can see them. Polish to English translators are not so good, but it appears he installs packages into the small boxes early in the spring and takes them inside if the temperature is expected to dip. From what I can gather, his top bars are about 20" compared to my 15" so his nuc boxes are probably several frames deeper.

Lots to think about. I'm looking forward to thinking while doing soon.

[Tomas]

Here are some photos I took of my nuc/mating boxes. I made a dozen of these with materials I had on hand—scrap wood and pieces of tin from some big vegetable oil cans. These are made to hold five full combs.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...ucboxes002.jpg

All my top bars set right on top of the box. I don’t have the end pieces sticking up. This way I don’t worry about the bars not fitting because they expanded with humidity or have a bit of propolis built up on them. When I’m done working with the hive I just tighten everything together and that’s it.

The two end bars can be nailed on to hold all the bars tight together, such as when I’m transporting them. At least one is usually always kept nailed on so I can tighten all the other bars up against it. The bit of overlap the end bars have with the side pieces is what would be my “bee space”. I don’t get too specific with how much it is—somewhere between the 3/16 and 1/2 inch, depending on the thickness of the side piece. More than anything it’s there so I can get that end comb in or out without rubbing it against the side of the box.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...ucboxes005.jpg

I reduced the entrance using a bit of plastic piping and a piece of sponge. The entrance is about four inches long if I open it all the way up.

The width of the box is the same as seven top bars—two at either end that sit on top of the side piece and the five in the middle that would have the combs. The internal measurements are 17 inches at the top, 7 ½ inches at the bottom and 12 inches deep—the same as the big permanent boxes I use. The nuc box could be smaller but shouldn’t be bigger. You want the comb to fit into its permanent box. I kept it the same size so there were no problems with transferring combs between one box and the other.

I have a removable bottom board on these—just a piece of cardboard covered with plastic (so the bees don’t chew it up) and held on with two cleats. It’s something simple, inexpensive and lightweight. The idea is to be able to use the newspaper method to combine these with a queenless hive, so I want to be able to open up the bottom easily. With the Africanized bees you should have more success combing the whole nuc rather than just introducing a new queen.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s...ucboxes007.jpg

My trap hives use the same basic design except for being big enough to hold about nine combs and having a fixed bottom. Here is a link to a thread from a while back that has some photos of those. Sometimes I also use these boxes to make splits.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214228

Here’s a photo of my wife moving a split into its permanent box. This one was started back in December with three, or maybe four half-sized combs plus bees. I gave it a queen cell rather than a new laying queen. It built up real nice to the point where the box was completely full—more than ready to be moved into its permanent box.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/CoclanTrapPermanenthive14Mar08009.jpg

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/CoclanTrapPermanenthive14Mar08010.jpg

---------
Tom

[Michael Bush]

The pictures didn't open for me. It just put me in the Photobucket home page.

[Tomas]

So let’s try this again. I think I got the links fixed now so they’ll work. Don’t know exactly what happened (or maybe I should say why it happened.) Sorry about that.

----------
Tom



Here are some photos I took of my nuc/mating boxes. I made a dozen of these with materials I had on hand—scrap wood and pieces of tin from some big vegetable oil cans. These are made to hold five full combs.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/tbhnucboxes002.jpg

All my top bars set right on top of the box. I don’t have the end pieces sticking up. This way I don’t worry about the bars not fitting because they expanded with humidity or have a bit of propolis built up on them. When I’m done working with the hive I just tighten everything together and that’s it.

The two end bars can be nailed on to hold all the bars tight together, such as when I’m transporting them. At least one is usually always kept nailed on so I can tighten all the other bars up against it. The bit of overlap the end bars have with the side pieces is what would be my “bee space”. I don’t get too specific with how much it is—somewhere between the 3/16 and 1/2 inch, depending on the thickness of the side piece. More than anything it’s there so I can get that end comb in or out without rubbing it against the side of the box.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/tbhnucboxes005.jpg

I reduced the entrance using a bit of plastic piping and a piece of sponge. The entrance is about four inches long if I open it all the way up.

The width of the box is the same as seven top bars—two at either end that sit on top of the side piece and the five in the middle that would have the combs. The internal measurements are 17 inches at the top, 7 ½ inches at the bottom and 12 inches deep—the same as the big permanent boxes I use. The nuc box could be smaller but shouldn’t be bigger. You want the comb to fit into its permanent box. I kept it the same size so there were no problems with transferring combs between one box and the other.

I have a removable bottom board on these—just a piece of cardboard covered with plastic (so the bees don’t chew it up) and held on with two cleats. It’s something simple, inexpensive and lightweight. The idea is to be able to use the newspaper method to combine these with a queenless hive, so I want to be able to open up the bottom easily. With the Africanized bees you should have more success combing the whole nuc rather than just introducing a new queen.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/tbhnucboxes007.jpg

My trap hives use the same basic design except for being big enough to hold about nine combs and having a fixed bottom. Here is a link to a thread from a while back that has some photos of those. Sometimes I also use these boxes to make splits.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214228

Here’s a photo of my wife moving a split into its permanent box. This one was started back in December with three, or maybe four half-sized combs plus bees. I gave it a queen cell rather than a new laying queen. It built up real nice to the point where the box was completely full—more than ready to be moved into its permanent box.

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/CoclanTrapPermanenthive14Mar08009.jpg

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/Tomas_fotos/CoclanTrapPermanenthive14Mar08010.jpg

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Tom

[Michael Bush]

Thanks. Very nice, Tom.