NUC sales, medium vs deep

[KevinR]

I believe that mythomane was refering to the people that asked for the medium nucs to be shaken into a package.

I'm really not sure the purpose, unless you were concerned about potential problems with the comb. But then again, maybe the people wanted to force the bees to be foundationless and didn't have the experience to shake the bees themselves.

Depending on the time of the year, location, and queen. I wouldn't expect there to be a problem with the shaken medium surviving. They probably wouldn't get much honey though.

[DigitalBishop]

I wonder how many of these hobby beeks actually have their 5-frame medium nucs survive. That is just too small IMO, especially without drawn comb, and the risks are great if you are a beginner.

I've caught swarms and had them abscond and die out on me. That's the breaks. Right now I have two five frame nucs that are booming, one of them is nearly ready to be upgraded to a regular 10 frame medium hive. I'd say they're surviving just fine.

Bishop

[mythomane]

I am talking about surviving for more than a few months. The best advice I give any new beek is to start with a deep single or larger. Many nucs make it, but many more do not.

[JohnK and Sheri]

We sold a few 5 fr medium nucs this year due to customer requests but I am not too sure we will continue. We charged $10 less this year for the mediums but if we do continue we would probably charge more for them than for our standard 5 frame deeps, due to increased management issues.
In general, any time you add variables in nuc production you increase costs. For instance, offering different queen breeds is more complicated than just offering Italians. Complications usually equate to added costs as there is just more to keep track of. Changing the size of the units is another variable added to the mix, meaning additional complications ie costs.
We run our colonies with a deep on top, medium on the bottom, so we do have brood in the medium boxes in early April to make the nucs up, but it is not as prevalent, nor as accessible as the deep frames of brood, which means more work when making them up. But the main issue we find is keeping the balance of bees, brood and food. There is much less leeway between the bees plugging out the queen, or the bees becoming too light. They take more babysitting than deep nucs. This might not be too much of an issue when dealing with only a few but additional work at a time of year when we are pushing the limits anyway isn't a good thing.
Sheri

[manfre]

I wonder how many of these hobby beeks actually have their 5-frame medium nucs survive. That is just too small IMO, especially without drawn comb, and the risks are great if you are a beginner.

I started with two 5 frame medium nucs last May. They built up to two boxes each and came out of winter strong. Both hives have been split once this year and I caught a total of 5 swarms from those two hives. I think that it doesn't matter whether the NUC is mediums or deeps. If the queen has good genetics, then they'll do well.