Provisioning new nucs?

[HVH]

Thanks. I plan on raising queens through the season and will adjust for temperature.

[Velbert]

Here is a very short youtube of a overwintered 4 frame top bar mini Nuc from www.beeworks.com

follow this link http://www.vlwbeequeens.com/

[HVH]

I just don't see how that small of a cluster can survive. If you place above a strong colony, the little nuc would still need food - how do you keep such a small colony fed? Do you place a divided super above these mini-nucs?

[KevinR]

That video is great, I'd like to see a little more detail about how you set them up prior to winter... Personally, I need a couple hundred of those little nucs to overwinter with.

*grins*

The nucs he uses appear to be self-contained. The have a closed bottom from what I know about those the Styrofoam nucs. So they survive on whatever syrup they stored up.

Either way, that's pretty cool.

[Velbert]

Its an ongoing process I feed each Mini about 4 time up til now there is an inside feeder and i would heat the hfcs and feed on a warmer day say around at least 45-50 degree day so the could get over in the feeder and get the feed.

Here about the last of October they need to have 3 or 4 of the combs filled with brood to have a nice little healthy cluster

So you don't want to feed to heavy before then but after they have got the frames full of brood then feed a couple times so they will put up the feed as the brood hatches but you will still need to keep close eye on them.

I am building some 4 frame mediums with telescoping lids and a reversible bottom board this way I can stack 2 or 3 boxes on just like supering a big hive so they can have more stores and i don't have to feed as much through the winter.

Then i will have my nuc stock come spring then all i have to do is split like a full size colonie and add my queen cell and don't have to pull resources from the full size. save them for big deep divides or for packages.