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wintering nucs

3K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  Clayton 
#1 ·
clayton i have 5 hives,so can i make these wintering nuks you spoke of. do they hacth in spring ,what time do you start, detailes of when and how to do this thanks raybo1331
 
#2 ·
Hi,

clayton i have 5 hives,so can i make these wintering nuks you spoke of. do they hacth in spring ,what time do you start, detailes of when and how to do this thanks raybo1331

reply:

Yes you certainly can. You will need one screen board for each nuc. Take five frames from each colony making sure there is at least one frame of very young larvae and eggs. Either add a queen cell from grafts or let the bees rear a queen in the nucs. If you do the later make sure the nucs are well stocked with bees shaking a few extra frames of bees in, as many will return to the parent. Once the new queen is laying try to get the nucs plugged out with honey. As soon as it is cold and bees can barely fly any more, maybe end of sept./ beginning of Oct. Put a screen board on the parent hives and place the nucs on top of screen board (in deep hive body). If one was doing many nucs you use a plywood board to make two compartments to put two over every colony. But just one nuc in the whole box work too you can even fill in with foundations so in the spring you just pick it up and put it on a new stand. I must warn you there are some risks in overwintering nucs as some years they don't make it. But most years they do. One just needs to get a hands on feel for it which comes from just doing it. Also they should be feed in the spring the same as packages or bought nucs. So check them for late winter feed so they don't starve this is at the time when brood rearing begins and honey consumption increases.

When to start: now is good. If you have questions just ask.

Clay
 
#10 ·
Hi,

clayton i have 3 91/2 deeps. should i put the nuks on top of those or should iput it on the supers or forget the honey an focus on the nuks, raybo 1331

reply:

Put them on there own stand so they are out of the way and you can work production colonies as normal. In latter fall put the nuc on top of your colonies no matter your winter setup (1,2,or 3 deep) after honey has been harvested and its too cool for bee flight. Remember the double screen board. In the spring set the nuc to its own stand again.

Clay
 
#11 ·
Hi Dave,

Do you buy your nuc boxes or do you make them? If you buy them, where?

reply:

I buy them. From Betterbee in Greenwhich, NY. I should say that I use deeps too that have a follower board to divide it thus no transfer later to a deep. My 5 frame nucs I use for queen rearing as much as possible as they are easy to move. The only advantage of the nuc box is its ease of movement.

Clay
 
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