Grafting and Nucs

[garusher]

Hi all,

Well i'm a beginner, with just short of two weeks experience. I watched the Mike Palmer video of Nucs and Sustainability the other day and would like to try out his idea.

Over the weekend i built 8 plywood Nucs. Last thursday i spotted eggs, so my hive should begin increasing in size in a couple of weeks.

So, here is my concept/Plan.
I'm going to attempt to graft some cells and place in the second brood box.
between the first and second brood boxes, i will place an excluder, and hopefully the second brood box will raise queen cells?

Okay, so my hive is going good, plenty of bees, i intend to use those queen cells in my nucs, with frames from the second brood box.

I also read on the Bush farms site, about an alternative method of rearing queens, where a the queen added to the nuc is a newly mated queen, apparently increases acceptance and the nucs is productive straight after formation.

Is this idea feasible for creating overwintering nucs? from a newly created hive

Thanks
Gary

[JD's Bees]

Start with one nuc and a mated queen.
Even an experienced beekeeper with a strong double brood chamber hive and drawn comb for the nucs would find making 8 nucs from one hive ambitious. Add in the learning curve to produce your own queens as well and you may end the season with 0 hives.

[garusher]

Hi,

okay, sorry i didn't really mean i was going to use all those nucs, i was just happy to have made them for free over the weekend.

I've also been reading on the bushfarms site about the doolittle approach to queen rearing. he states a strong colony at the right time should be able to raise 5-10 nucs.

My intentions are to at least winter a single nuc, maybe two so i at least have a hive replacement.

Thanks
Gary

[PCM]

From what I understand, you just got a package of bees from the Post Office less than 2 weeks ago.
If this is correct, I'd say feed them, basically leave them alone and let them try too build up enough to make it thru the winter.
Next spring you may have a hive that survived the winter then you should be Abe to make a split or two.

Good Luck, from another Missourian
PCM

[JD's Bees]

Sorry for my misunderstanding, just had me worried you were heading for disaster.
I have nothing against your plan but seeing as you are new to this I think for this year a mated queen would be better for building your nuc for winter. Raising queens adds a lot of risk and will put you 3-4 weeks behind in egg laying.

[scdw43]

If you just place an excluder between the two brood boxes they will not draw out queen cells. You will have to isolate the cells from the box that has the queen in it for the bees to think they are queenless and draw out the grafted cells. You need to go back to Michael Bush's site and reread the part on queen rearing.

[David LaFerney]

Since you have the nucs already you should put yourself on swarm collection/bee removal lists in your area. If you could get something like that then the resources from your other hive might help you get another hive ready for winter without too much strain. Good luck.

[David LaFerney]

If you just place an excluder between the two brood boxes they will not draw out queen cells. You will have to isolate the cells from the box that has the queen in it for the bees to think they are queenless and draw out the grafted cells. You need to go back to Michael Bush's site and reread the part on queen rearing.

Actually if you put brood above an excluder they will quite often start queen cells on it. Give it a try.

[waynesgarden]

Don't be too impatient to build a nuc from a brand new hive. You will have to pull frames and bees from that hive to establish the nuc. If unable to wait until next year, I would wait at least wait until July at the earliest to steal the frames of honey, pollen and brood as well as the good amount of bees necessary to establish the nuc or nucs. Pull too soon and weaken the hive at a time when it needs to be building up,.

Your new hive needs to build itself up before you you should even think of compromising it.

If you can get some old brood frames from someone, put them in your nuc boxes with some lemongrass oil on paper towels in a loosely closed sandwich bag and put them to work as swarm traps. A better way to increase than to divide up a first year hive into nucs.

Wayne

[Capricorn]

I vote for swarm traps as well. I've caught 1 swarm in a nuc so far this year, and I'd bet dollars to doughnuts I have another in a trap I haven't checked for a while... Swarms are great fun to play with as a beginner as well!

[garusher]

Hi,

Yes, it would seem that all queen rearing methodologies require putting the bees into emergency queen rearing mode. I think that the Hopkins method seems the most easy and requires the least amount of equipment.
Gary

[garusher]

Hi,

Okay, I will give some swarm traps a try too, i have some wood across the road that might suffice.
As for making the nucs from my existing colony, WayneGarden suggestion of not attempting until july was what i had in mind. I really need this first colony to really get the second hive box full of bees first.

Gary

[garusher]

Hi,

I think i am going to jot down in a document my plan, time frame and what days i intend doing what. Then paste that document into this forum for critique.

Also those nucs i made, are capable five frames, but for this queen rearing stuff, they probably need reducing to 2-3 frame mini mating nucs?

Gary

[David LaFerney]

Not really. I've used 8 frame hives for mating nucs, and just filled the space with frames of foundation. It works great if you are making increase, because you never have to move or disrupt the hive - just let it grow.

[garusher]

Hi,

Okay, here is my plan.

1) going to remove a centre frame from my top brood box and replace with a empty comb for queen to lay eggs in. mark frame
2) leave for 3-4 days to obtain very small larvae. remove bees and prepare a surface for the Hopkins method.
3) At the same time i am also going to have to remove the frame the queen is on, plus some brood frames, food etc and put into a nuc. hopefully this will prepare my original hive as the cell builder.
4) make sure original hive is in queenless state, and place Hopkins prepared frame horizontally across frames in top brood box.
5) day 12 i need to prepare my nucs, put 1-2 frames of brood and bees into each nuc, plus an empty frame.
6) day 13-14 the cells should be sealed and ready to transfer to nucs prepared the previous day.
7) either return queen to original hive or leave one cell to hatch.
8) day 15-16 Queen should emerge
9) day 20-23 Mating flight
10) day 23-30 Queen begins egg laying.

Questions:

#3 how many frames should be moved with queen to 5 frame nuc. 2 brood, 1 food, 2 empty foundation.
#5 I'm thinking one frame of brood and bees, two empty combs?
#7 arguements for and against returning to original hive. probably leave a cell instead of returning queen.
#8 Availability of empty comb would seem important in this entire operation. hopefully the queenright nuc and nurse bees will provide some?
#9 Nucs will need feeding and monitoring hopefully avoid robbing.

[bejay]

some have suggested already to not weaken your new hive trying to make nucs and queens with the package you installed 2 weeks ago just isnt going to be strong enough.
buying a mated queen and making 1 nuc in july is probably a good option for you and not weaken the hive to much.

[garusher]

Okay,

Well thanks to all who put forward suggestions and comments.
I've decided if all things look good in 5-7 weeks to get 2 mated queens and steal a couple of frames from my colony to start the nucs.
I'll leave the queen breeding until next year. I'm going to get reputable queens with good genetics so my future colonies will have an advantage.

Thanks
Gary

[Andrew Dewey]

Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning but I think your plan to create nucs from a hive just established from a package is nuts. It is way too soon for the bees to have built up enough to have surplus population to go into the nucs without setting the donor colony back perhaps irrecoverably. Your focus your first year should be for the hive to build population and gather the food stuffs to make it through winter successfully.

[David LaFerney]

With all due respect Andrew I have to disagree. Of course you have to practice a little judgement on viable colony strength, but i've gone from 1 3 lb package to 35 colonies in 3 years on the theory that 2 queens can lay twice as many eggs as one.

If you can do a queenright split and end up with 2 good 5 frame medium nucs or more you are golden in my experience. With the caveat that I'm in the south.

[Andrew Dewey]

@ David - two things come into play: 1) location and 2) beekeeper experience. I know nothing about MO but we are talking about the OP with two weeks of experience. I like to dream as much as the next person but I like to have my colonies live through the winter too. I realize all beekeeping is local. Yesterday afternoon the temperature dropped here to 56 - too cold in my judgement for the invasive inspection I wanted to do on my 8 survivor test packages/hives. Today was warm enough and I just finished. None of those packages are at a point where I'd consider using them to make up a nuc and they were installed more than two weeks ago. And there are three queens on my kitchen table that arrived in the mail today that are waiting to be installed. They'll have to wait until tomorrow when I get to my Russian yards. (So much for guidance from queen producers - you'll get your queens in June - at least they got the month right!)