looking in the NUC

one of the hardest things in beekeeping i find is to keep from looking in the hive. i kno i need to do periodic checks and inspections, to BEEaware of what is going on and where there at. BUT today i finaly seperated some honey,necter,larva,eggs,brood and nurse bees and put them in a nuc. well all i want to do now is go outside and see how far they have come. of course it has only been 9 hours. SO should i or shouldn't i look in every couple days ? can i or cant i ? when can i expext to see a cup formed? will they do one or more? can i change frames of what ever is needed if they run low before the queen is hatched? any answers, input, or suggetions would be aprieciated.

Dont look to often ,sometimes it can make the bees leave . give them at least a week before you look in on them. as far as Qcups they will make as many as they need. Most of the time when I let a nuc make its own queen I usually get 3 or 4 cells. you can change frames out but I would just use a feeder least amount of disturbance. John Bees

Just did the same thing on Friday. Checked things out yesterday, and didn't see any signs of progress towards building a queen. I scored the comb per the methods on mdasplitter, and was disappointed to see that it appeared that they only repaired the comb. Today, there were several queen cells built. Go ahead and look. I chocked it up to the learning experience, being my first time trying it.

This is what I do and its simple to make, use some plexiglass and make you a new inner cover and look whenever you want. I use a flashlight sometimes to see down between the frames a little better. My photobucket picture--
http://s1202.photobucket.com/albums/...t=IMG_0737.jpg

well incase any one is wondering. today just 58 hours later. i couldnt stand it any more.I LOOKED . and yes i have queen cups .

Well, aptly named Curious 1, next time your in look at how well those queen cells are being fed and how large they are. Mark the top of the frame, or remember which look the biggest and best fed so that if you reduce them you leave only the best. Nucs are fun.

well i looked in today . there small, and i see no eggs or larva. ovcource it has only been 4 days. did i do something wrong? i noticed yesterday they seemed angry. today calm. should i wate? should i add another frame of eggs and larva? can i riunite them back to the hive? i even did a OTC cut under what i presumed to be larva at the right stage. and they repaired it. hhmmm ! any comments apriciated.

If you put a frame of eggs and larve in there with them, it will take 9 days or so before you have a capped queen cell. 15 days to emergence and about 30 total until you see eggs and/or larva. I ususally give them a week before I go in to check progress of the cells, then I do it quickly with as little disturbance as possible.

After the queen emerges you really need to give her about 10 days peace before checking. SHe has to crawl around and off the other queens, then orient and fly out and mate a couple of times.

Try and be patient.

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This is what I do and its simple to make, use some plexiglass and make you a new inner cover and look whenever you want. I use a flashlight sometimes to see down between the frames a little better. My photobucket picture--
http://s1202.photobucket.com/albums/...t=IMG_0737.jpg

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wow, this is really cool! How do you fasten the plexiglass? Can you tell me about your feeder? I can never get inverted bottles of liquid to 'not' leak all over the place!

Thank you, I just cut a slot in the middle of my 3/4" trim pieces with my table saw and put enough for half and the other half I use 1/4" luan. I remove the wire from over the hole when I give them syrup and for the top of my bottle I make the holes 1/16" around and use about 8-10 holes. Others use more and sometimes larger, but this is what I do and it works goods. When I turn the bottle over I do it away from the cover because it takes a couple of seconds before it stops leaking and then I place one small piece of wood on two sides of the hole and set the top on them. Whenever I feed syrup I always place an empty super on top of the inner cover and the outer cover on top of that super. If I am not feeding I keep the hole covered with 1/8" wire and then when I remove the outer cover I can just look through the plexiglass without having the bees to contend with.

well i looked again this eavning. and looked real hard and close and YES! i have a larva in a cell. i guess for now i will stay out for a few days and just sit in my chair and stair at the nuc box.Attachment 2576