View Full Version : Minimum quantity of bees to put with "extra" queen
BeeCurious
03-01-2009, 08:02 AM
I've ordered a couple of #4 packages and a couple of extra queens to replace a lost colony and to have some additional bees to regress/start in 5-frame nucs.
If I needed to keep an "extra" queen in a mating nuc or 2 frame nuc what is the minimum amount of bees that I should add with the queen?
Ben Brewcat
03-01-2009, 09:22 AM
For banking or to start a nuc? I guess I'd use frames of brood with clinging housebees, and maybe shake an extra frame's worth of house bees in. Banking is a different goal.
idav5d
03-01-2009, 10:25 AM
for a mini mating nuc... about a cupful
BeeCurious
03-01-2009, 04:45 PM
For banking or to start a nuc? I guess I'd use frames of brood with clinging housebees, and maybe shake an extra frame's worth of house bees in. Banking is a different goal.
I'll be starting nucs with any "extra" queens that I have...
My question wasn't very clear.
What is the minimum amount of (packaged) bees that I could put with a queen to get a two or three frame nuc going? I'll be using either medium frames of drawn comb (PF-120's) or HSC.
If smaller is better I have mini-frames of HSC that I can use in an 8-frame med. box divided into mating nucs. As "idav5d" said, and as I've read a cup of bees is fine for a mini mating nuc... but I could have as many as 7 mini-frames of Honey Super Cell in my "mating nucs" and I'm thinking that 2 cups of bees wouldn't be too many. My mini-frames (http://s275.photobucket.com/albums/jj305/js06807/Mini-Frames/?action=view¤t=IMG_0003-1.jpg) eventually can be mounted in medium frames to be used in regular boxes.
Is a pound of bees too little to put in a 5-frame medium nuc?
GRIMBEE
03-01-2009, 09:27 PM
You can start a full size hive from 1 deep frame covered in bees with eggs and stores. If you do go that route make sure to feed syrup. 1 pound of bees is fine, thats what you get for an observation hive.
You can start a full size hive from 1 deep frame covered in bees with eggs and stores. If you do go that route make sure to feed syrup. 1 pound of bees is fine, thats what you get for an observation hive.
Could you shake out about a pound of bees from a 4# package, add a queen then put the other 3# in a hive with the package queen?
GRIMBEE
03-04-2009, 05:13 AM
Could you shake out about a pound of bees from a 4# package, add a queen then put the other 3# in a hive with the package queen?
Yes, you should be able to split them off. It has been done before by alot of people on this forum. Maybe they will chime in and enlighten us.
tecumseh
03-04-2009, 05:33 AM
I would think at your location chilled brood would be the primary concern. so if there is little or no brood you could 'get away with' having fewer bees. if you use some kind of frame with brood then you would need enough bees to cover the brood.
in a mini nuc a cup of bees sounds about right. I man I once knew (now long dead) use to rear queens in soup cans... very small and no brood meant even a cup full of bees was a lot.