What size frames will you be using? Langstroth 9 1/8 deep? Langstroth 6 1/4 Medium? Dadant 11 1/4?

Are you planning on treating two nucs as a unit and add a single large super above them for honey production?

 

What if later you want to sell these? I would go with something standard - like 8 framers. Then if you ever get into trouble and need more supers - you can order these - don't know anyone making 6 framers. If your going to sell nucs then these boxes would do - but it seams 5 framers are the new standard - 20 years ago it was 4 framers.
And fusion has a couple of good questions as well

 

Fusion_power :

I use 9 1/8 deeps . I plan to have 3 6F nucs on a 2-way pallet and then add two QE plus supers on top of them .

After the last flow I would like to strip them of and add another 6F box to let them prepare for winter ( this will be around 1 August ) .

Sakhoney : I would want to sell them next year after making them . In first one I make some honey with them and then sell in spring as a good production hive or if not a lot of splits made in the next summer in case I can't sell in spring .
Here we do not follow standards as well as over the pond �� .

 

I like your idea. My 6F Nucs must be a different width (backyard made 10.25 in. W.) than yours, the two 10F supers hang off a bit, I wonder about 8F supers.

I could see this as a drawn comb building machine too on heavy flows. Especially if capped brood was moved into the super and fresh foundation given to the queen.

 

 

i seriously want to blow this photo up and hang it on my wall. Love it !

 

Ian is clearly a well spoken man of few words....

 

Yikes ! Nice nucs . How did you get to this stage with those nucs ? . How are you managing them .
Side by side with a single production hive how they are when comparing honey yields ? .

 

I simply split 2 brood frames and bees per nuc and dropped a queen cell in each. Made up first week June, adding thirds last week of July. Im not sure what the honey yeild comparison would be, mostly because they are totally different than how I manage the rest of my operstion. These are strictly to build hives, cheaply and the ability to box them up as such allows us to actually make nucs without honey bound nests. The honey is bonus. Big bonus this year as you can see.
Don't buy bees, buy boxes.

 

ice! Is Lewis making the 6 frame boxes? are they available through Beemaid?

 

Not sure if BeeMaid sells them , probably
Talk directly to them and they would figure a deal. Mention you were talking to me.

 

Great, Thanks!

 

6 frames is the way to go. That extra frame makes all the difference

 

I'm trying to piece together all of these. So how do you set up a 6 frame? Where do you get them? Do you put 2 together to share a medium super? Sorry, newbie here. Thanks

 

Nice! Is that a rape field your boxes are in?

 

Sections of canola, that one is ours

 

If I'm gonna do 6 - I'm just going to bump them to 8's

 

The whole point to this kinda project is to build units with minimal resources and manage the surplus honey stores by tapping into your standardized super inventory.

 

Very Nice Ian! Too bad all my equipment is 8 framers. I'm not in a good honey flow area anyway, but if I was, I'd be trying a couple or three of those set-ups. :thumbsup:

 

Ian - if that's the case why did you not flip them in a 10 when they got built up - what I see is 6 frame brood nest - that would only hold back a good laying queen. I though this was for nucs - I will add - the crop does look good - love seeing that white wax myself

 

Your not understanding what's going on. I'm not holding back the queen. The calendar comes into play, by placing unlimited space up top with a smaller nest to maintain more attention is pushed upwards. Big nests don't always equal big crops

 

I don't get it. 3 separate nucs on the bottom, ok I get that. But the deep supers overlap 2 nucs. Is there a division board in each super?

 

They share the upper space, excluders keep the queens in each individual unit. Exponential honey production when managed this way. Because of the smaller brood nest, more attention is put uptop.
I could manage them into singles but then my honey yeild would be minimal with a honey bound brood nest. I run 5 frames under a deep aswell.

 

looks like he has QE in between - thereby restricting the queen output of eggs - don't know if that would work here where I am.
IAN - I am for sure not damming you for this - this is how everybody including myself learn what you can do with bees. I just thank it would restrict egg laying on the queens. Anyway - good job

 

Ah, now I understand. Thank you sir.

 

Go into 5 hives tomorrow and tell me how many full frames of brood you have. Not including anything but brood and a bit of feed

 

It looked to me like three 6 framers side by side, with two excluders side by side on top, then two 10 frame boxes side by side on top of the excluders. Am I right?

Three queens producing brood to be stored into shared side by side 10 framers. I also wonder how you are doing this without any swarms issuing? Six frames do not seem like enough for a queen's laying cycle to me. I figure 8 would be a minimum, but seem to be doing it just fine your way. I've read you posting in the past of running nucs under shared deeps, this looks pretty good. I just figured part of the success is the way and strength they are made up, and the timing of it with flows and time of year.

 

Keep the production where you can take it, feed them like a baby after its all done

 

At work right now and cannot - but 2 weeks ago there were 4 to 5 frames. But our dearth has began. That's why I did not get the nucs built I wanted. But when my main honey flow is on - there is 7/8 frames in 2 deeps and most a medium on top of that. in 30 days they fill 3 mediums while pulling 3 frames of foundation each box and 2 deeps of plastic foundation - whole boxes.

 

ut when my main honey flow is on - there is 7/8 frames in 2 deeps .

yup
And I bet not all together. This just keeps that nest together and the surplus uptop .
WITH FRESH QUEENS

Not going to be making this up in May...

 

Just so you know, I have 1200 singles going. This method only works with fresh queens.

 

Yea - and your season is a lot shorter than ours - I understand