Beesource Beekeeping Forums banner

Loading Bees to Mini Mating Nuc

3K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  msl 
#1 ·
I have a question to the experts here on how to load nurse bees to a Mini Mating Nuc with just foundation. This is what I did yesterday and it was a disaster this morning. I dumped 2 cups of nurse bees from a hive, sprayed with a diluted sugar syrup and dumped into the Mini Mating Nuc . All good last evening. I transported them to a diff yard (in this case my backyard) last night. When I checked this morning all of the nurse bees are dead or dying in the front of the mini mating nuc. What happened is instead of they staying inside they all came out and got killed with the light rain. So my questions are two fold.

1) Did I opened the entrance too soon? Should have kept them closed for 2 days. I thought I moved them more than 3 miles I didnt have to do that?
2) Since it is just foundation only, they came out. If i had kept a temp queen substance, could have helped the bees to stay inside?
3) What is the best way to load Mini Mating nucs in general. I dont want to make the same mistake again.

Thanks for all the help
Best
Shibu Raj
 
#3 ·
#5 ·
I've had pretty good luck using MSL's method above. What works really well is if you can draw out some of the frames above another colony or in a large nuc made up of the small frames. Then put a frame with some brood in the mini. I like Mann Lake's double mini nuc as its frames are big enough to "pre-grow". All this also works much better if there's a flow (helps keep them from being robbed out. If I had to start from scratch with no drawn mini frames I think I'd go ahead and invest in some of the temp queens

Also if it's not too hot outside you can just leave the door closed for a couple of days....
 
#6 ·
no need for pre drawn.. the cup of bees are going to sit there for 2 weeks with almost nothing to do but draw comb, in fact with the 4" minis drawn comb impedes stocking them.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top