I would like to know if anyone has used these with any luck or success? I was thinking about selling some nucs this spring and was wondering if these could withstand a few weeks of wear and tear while they create a queen and perhaps live there for awhile. And I would like to know if they would be O.K. in the rain? I'm doubtful, but I thought I'd ask. Thanks in advance! Here's the link:
They are great, I ordered 20 of them and have used about half of them so far. They did alot better that I thought. The only problem I have had is the lids blowing off in the wind, but a brick will solve that problem. Overall good for the money.
T152, I would be a little concerned about them chilling off due to the lack of insulation if we had a cold snap. However, it may be worth experimenting with insulation.
I sold a couple of nucs this spring and transferred the bees into the customers' boxes; That takes too long, If I do it again I will buy something like the Mann Lake (or Jester, or MDA splitter) boxes and a few days before I called the customer I would take them from my wood boxes and put them in the disposable box.
I bought one and don't have the proper stapler to put it together. I rigged it together in not a great way and I do use it but have others I like better.
I bought a similar waxed cardboard nuk from Brushy Mnt and I like that one much more. Also, the Jester plastic nuk (very reasonably priced) is a good one to have. Little tedious putting it together.
My favorite is the Brushy Mountain one.
1) Anyone like the foam nucs better than the waxed cardboard?
2) What's the best at-my-door price anyone has seen for either (cardboard and foam)?
Also, a tip, not a question - ventilate them with screen or #8. I only consider cardboard for temporary, warm weather, outgoing sales and emergency swarm catchers, not mating nucs. They seem to abscond from cardboard more, but that data is a bit immature as of yet.
I hadn't thought of the foam ones as an option, but I'll do a search for them. On the face of it foam might serve the OP's purpose well because of the insulation value. Springtime temp. swings can be quite dramatic out here. A year or so ago I saw an article in Beesource where someone was raising nucs in foam, and didn't use a feeder - he just poured syrup directly into the foam nuc.
I tried cinder block bricks for mating nucs, but very few of the special frames got drawn out into comb in time, so I used the 3x3 arrangement in my deeps with dividers and 3 narrow inner covers per box. I did not get as much absconding from the wood 3x3's as I did with the waxed cardboard nucs. I'd like to see how the foam ones work out, as a guy I bought bees from in Porterville, CA used foam baby nucs for mating his queens.
I bought the one that mannlake puts out. The bees chewed the foam up but a simple fix was covering it with packing tape and they chewed no more. I just sold sime nucs from mannlake and I will buy the ones from Brushymountain next yr. $.60 more but the screen makes all the diference in keeping the bees with plenty of circulation.
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