Reserves of drawn brood frames for nucs in the spring

[Adrian Quiney WI]

What proportion of brood frames do the "nucleus pioneers" like to have empty to add/exchange in the spring. In other words how many good empty drawn brood frames do you like to have available for expanding those booming colonies on to? I am thinking of having some drawn combs available in the spring for the 10-12 nucs I plan to overwinter. I am thinking of putting the spares I have on a hive I plan to kill this winter after the danger of wax moths is over, and the freeze is on.

[BEES4U]

If you are asking about a 5 frame full depth nuc being transfered into a 10 or 8 frame hive body your answer will vary between none to 5 +.
A strong over wintered nuc on a honey flow can easily draw out frames of foundation.
Can you be more specific in your management plans?

[Adrian Quiney WI]

Ernie, I plan to take brood from my nucs that are in two stories of 5 frames and replace the sealed brood and frames with drawn comb. I am able to sell the brood. If I have dead-outs from my production colonies I will expand them into standard singles. This year I found that I still had swarming issues when I replaced the taken combs with undrawn frames. I suspect that had I had drawn empty frames to replace the outcome may have been different. All of my drawn comb was in live colonies. I wonder what the veterans do? Do they plan ahead and have a stock of drawn brood combs on hand, or just take a chance with what they have?

[standman]

Adrian, did you replace the taken frames with foundation or foundationless frames? And did you have trouble with your nucs swarming, or your regular hives?

[Adrian Quiney WI]

I had trouble with both my nucs and my regular hives swarming I replaced the frames with undrawn plastic frames.

[johng]

I have heard lots of people using atleast one deep honey super on each hive at the begining of the flow just for the purpose of drawing out comb to be used later for brood frames. How many you need all depends on how many hives you have. You can almost never have enough drawn comb.

Do you make more money selling the brood or could you make more money taking those brood frames and making nucs? Just wondering?

[Adrian Quiney WI]

Hey John. That's a pretty good idea - dedicating a super for drawing brood frames.

I think in the future I could make more money by selling nucs. However, at the moment I wouldn't as I am still developing my abilities, and haven't worked out all the details of what would be necessary.

[MattDavey]

So Adrian, what happened with moving capped brood frames above the queen excluder every 12-14 days to help prevent swarming? Was it a issue getting into the hives that often, or were the emerged brood frames filled too quickly?

Thanks
Matthew Davey

[Adrian Quiney WI]

Matthew, having consulted with Roland on this I believe I was not moving enough frames up at one time. I was moving 1 or 2, whereas Roland was moving up to 5. This is another reason I think I need more drawn brood frames on hand. With the frames that are above the excluder I either dedicate them as honey frames or brood frames and don't mix them up.
The more that folks ask me thought provoking questions on this the more I realize that for every drawn brood frame I have in a colony I probably need another drawn brood frame in reserve. I am going to have to come up with a plan for this; It may involve allowing colonies I plan to cull in the winter to draw out frames before there demise - which is easier said than done for me as I even have a hard time thinning out carrots.

[MattDavey]

I'm thinking that moving the brood frames above the excluder can be used to encourage comb to be drawn. Looks like you need to use foundationless frames to do this so that there is a gap in the brood nest, as frames of foundation can be ignored. Then once the bees are happy with the amount of drone comb they make worker comb more consistently.

I've noticed comb gets drawn better in Nucs when alternated with brood frames. So I've made some Half Width Nucs (half the width of a 10 frame box) so that two fit exactly on a standard 10 frame box. They take 4 frames comfortably, (would probably take 5 if using 1 1/4" frames.) So when moving capped brood frames up, I would alternate them with foundationless (empty) frames to get more comb built.

For example:

Before:
HBBBBBBBBH

After:
EBEB|BEBE
HCCBBBBCCH

Where B is Brood, H is Honey, E is an Empty/Foundationless frame, C is Drawn Comb.


If you don't have any drawn comb available, use foundation instead.
What do you think?

Thanks
Matthew Davey

[Adrian Quiney WI]

I think it is interesting. It will be tricky to evaluate if it is better, adding two nucs above a deep versus just another deep, without some side-by-side comparisons.