[mitch30]

This is the first year I am going to try over wintering nucs. I have will have around 20 of them. My understanding from watching Michael Palmer's "The Sustainable Apiary". Is that I will need to take brood and honey away from the colonies to keep them from swarming. Now is the brood suppose to mostly capped when I am taking this? Is the honey to be capped?

I want to give a large Thanks to Adrian Quiney WI who came to our club meeting and talked to us about this last fall and this spring.

Thanks for all the help.

Regards,
Mitch

 

[Adrian Quiney WI]

Mitch, thanks. If they are new colonies established with a brood break I have not found a need to take anything from them. I start them in one level of 5 frames, usually MDA style, then when the queen is laying I raise a frame of brood into the middle of the second level of undrawn frames and they draw and fill the frames with vigor. At this stage the colony and the beekeeper have the same goals - to establish the colony and store enough to get through the winter.
As I understand it the nuc set-ups Mike is taking brood from have been overwintered.

 

[squarepeg]

we have a shorter winter here in alabama so this may not apply, but the handful of five frame nucs that i made up late in the season last year and didn't remove any frames from were in good shape at the end of december. they would have likely made it to the point of swarming in early spring. some of these may have swarmed prior to winter but i didn't really mind since i'm trying to inoculate the surrounding area with their survivor genes.

since i had a few dead outs from late fall to early winter i used the drawn comb and honey from them to place a second story of alternated empty comb and honey above the five frame nucs around january 1st. a month or so later i moved them to a ten frame box and gave them a second story of alternated comb and honey. by mid april last summer's 5 frame nucs were overflowing those double deeps and i made a lot of splits from them.

going forward i think i'll let the nucs build up to and overwinter in a ten frame box and most of those will get a meduim super of empty comb to fill on the fall flow. this will also keep me from storing those supers inside over the winter, and all of my five frame boxes will be available for splits in the spring.

 

[MTN-Bees]

I guess I'm not sure what your plan is and where your going to get the brood and resources to make up 20 nucs. If your using the 4 over 4 double nuc boxes, I pull 1 full frame brood, 1 partial frame of brood, 1 frame nectar, and 1 frame of foundation. The next day I add a mated queen. After they start expanding, I add the 2nd brood chamber and move a frame of brood up into the 2nd chamber and place a frame of foundation in its place. I set up brood factories in May to pull brood from so I would not split up strong colonies that will produce a honey crop.

 

[McBee7]

welcome to beesource Mitch30.
I have also made some 5frame starts to overwinter. I started with 2 frames brood, 1 drawn comb, one foundation and a 1 frame feeder plus a bought queen...they have filled up the box in 3 weeks and I had to add a 2nd box...I'm hoping to split out a couple of frames from these before 2nd week of augest ..With these, and additional hives i have, I hope to winter 25/30 nucs....Adrian has also given me advice for wintering that I'll use to overwinter this group..
Good luck,,,

==McBee7==