Wintering a NUC

[pokerman11]

First off I hope everybody is having a great labor day weekend, and 2nd – so many thanks for this forum. Being my first year beek – this site has proven to be most valuable – many many thanks.


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Got a new mite resistant queen from a local queen supplier to put into a colony that is queen-less. Put her and a frame of brood from another hive in there. Came back three days later to release her and during my inspection found eggs so the bees made their own queen. Going to let them do their own thing, but I really want this new queen I got, so she was still in the cage and I am going to see if I can winter her in a NUC. I don’t have a NUC box but using a spare 10 frame brood box. To start off I took two frames of bees - one honey, one brood from another hive, put in the new queen still in her install cage, a plastic baggie w/feed and three more empty frames. Will check on her in three days and release if I can.

Now here is my plan to winter this NUC. I will run this 10 frame box with 5 or 6 frames, around the sides on the inside will put some R-12 fiberglass insulation. Then will place this NUC directly on top of the inner cover over a strong colony. No bottom board, but will cover the inner cover hole with screen. For an exit will drill a cork sized exit hole in the top of the NUC box. My thoughts are heat flows upwards so the NUC should get more warmth. Need to just watch the moisture, so will put some popcicle sticks on top of the inner cover under the telescopic cover - to let more moisture out.

I know I need about 60#’s of honey for a full colony – what I don’t know is how much for a NUC. What would be good is if somebody can tell me the mix of brood / honey I need going into fall for a 5 frame NUC. I also know I can steal another full frame of honey or two from my other colonies for this NUC if needed.

How does my plan sound? Open to suggestions on improvements and tips. This is going to be my first beek winter, read about wintering my hives, but NUC’s are new to me.

[Velbert]

I am not up north like you are so don't know your limits

I would not feed a lot just enough to stimulate brood rearing to its max you want the queen to pack the frames will all the brood she can lay and for long as she will lay in the combs to get the nuc built up so if you place in more frame make sure they are of brooding quality not full of deep cells and full of honey and pollen to hinder the queens laying ability.

Then when the season winds down where the queen is not lay much because of cutting back, feed heavy with thick syrup or better yet add you a box on top add some full frames of honey directly over where the bees will be clustering put a frame that is only about half full of honey right in the center when you add your full frames of honey above the cluster they need a few empty cells the bees will move up onto the honey when they need to.

[BEES4U]

Got a new mite resistant queen from a local queen supplier
You might consider reversing your procedure.
1. try to find out who is laying eggs in the hive that you are re-queening and make sure that it's not alaying workers.
Do your experimentation on the other queen and introduce the VSH queen into the divide.
We queen breeders have gone a very long way to provide the highest quality queens to the industry.
I would think that it's a little late, in your location, to build bees for over-wintering.
The smaller the winter cluster the higher it's falure to winter.
There is more surface area on a soccur ball vs a basket ball.
Good Luck,
Ernie

[bnatural]

I like B4U's idea of putting the new queen in the main hive, if possible, and then gambling with the old queen in the nuc, especially if you have never done it before.

I successfully overwintered some 5-frame nucs last winter and am doing more this year. Keep in mind you are going to have to feed them during the winter. I used the Mountain Camp (dry sugar) method and it worked great. Point is, they are not going to put up enough stores to make it on their own.

Bill

[louborges]

I’m in a similar situation. I started a nuc for the same reason but I think I gave them too much syrup too soon. Most of the frames are full of syrup without much room for brood. How do I remedy this?

[pokerman11]

Thanks for the suggestions, as it stands it is getting late in the season and I don't want to risk my full colony trying to re-queen, they have a good queen now, she is laying in a great pattern and seems to be very productive. The commercial queen is the unknown commodity.

Going with the NUC and using bees/frames from a very strong colony. I was pulling the suppers and there is so many bees and 20 full frames of brood/honey not to mention all those bees that were in the supers. I figured two frames of bees removed would not hurt this colony and allow me to create this nuc. Also after I pulled the supers, there was a lot of bearding so I just brushed some of them into the nuc.

Anyway, I already did the Nuc - feeding it 1:1 right now and will see if I can keep it alive. Interested in hearing from others that winter nucs above full colonies how they handle moisture management.


thanks again

[bnatural]

I’m in a similar situation. I started a nuc for the same reason but I think I gave them too much syrup too soon. Most of the frames are full of syrup without much room for brood. How do I remedy this?

Pull an outer frame and feed it to a needy hive, replace with a new one. Put the new one towards the middle, so they draw it out and the queen has a better chance of laying in it.

Bill

[hilreal]

Pokerman,

Purchase a double screen to put between the strong hive and nuc. This will provide an entrance as well as keep the bees apart. Place newspaper with dry sugar on top of the nuc. This will help with moisture managment as well as provide needed feed. Check remaining sugar as often as possible during the late winter.

[Michael Bush]

I would put duct tape on each side of the screen on the inner cover hole. In my experience it's a bad idea to let that moist air into the top hive. They have to fight the condensation and that is a much bigger issue than cold. I tried that exact setup and it failed until I blocked the screen to stop the moisture from going up.

[pokerman11]

Thanks again - but this is now a mute point. The NUC died out this week, well I suspect it was robbed until the point of death. Today I checked on the NUC and while the queen was alive, only a few dozen workers were alive, everything else was dead at the bottom of the brood box.

I did put in the entrance reducer, on the smallest hole, and even put sticks to block that hole. But those sticks got removed somehow and I bet the strong hive where the donation bees came from took all the honey drank the feed attacked anybody and then went back home.

Newbeek mistake - did not block the hole well enough.