To me the frames of brood should be specified ahead. I'm used to a 4 frame nuc including 3 frames of brood, 1 frame of feed/honey. But that's what is specified by my supplier. I would be shocked to find a frame of foundation in a nuc!
Luke
To me the frames of brood should be specified ahead. I'm used to a 4 frame nuc including 3 frames of brood, 1 frame of feed/honey. But that's what is specified by my supplier. I would be shocked to find a frame of foundation in a nuc!The delays on delivery pushed my nucs back to the week I am out of town. So I arranged for a local beek to pick up and install them for me which he did today. They were 4 frame nucs but he said each one had 1 empty frame with foundation but no drawn comb and one frame with honey. So each nuc was essentially 2 frames of brood and bees. Without being home to check them myself, I can't really call the supplier to complain. But has anyone else bought 4 frame nucs with only 2 actual brood frames and one indrawn frame? Should I be upset? Or is this normal? I'm not real happy based on his report.
Nuc buyers want them asap - ideally with no foundation, empty comb, or drone brood. Lots of brood (in all stages), bees, and just enough stores - not too much, that would be buying honey instead of bees. Oh, and an actively laying queen - not just a bunch of parts assembled right before sale day. And of course not quite swarmy. Not apologizing for any ones weak nucs, but pick a day a few weeks in the future, and try to have a dozon or so fantasy nucs like this ready and just right on your big day.Nucs are often made up with foundation - the plan being that over time (before the nuc is delivered to the customer) the bees will have drawn out the frame and if the queen is any good that fame should be full of brood. Sounds like you got a nuc that didn't have adequate time to grow. This is an often occurrence when people treat getting their bees as the purchase of a manufactured item rather than an agricultural product. That mindset affects sellers too.
The 2 nucs were 140$ each.Out of curiosity...what is the approximate price range for these deminucs?
Well. Time to build up is the main reason I spent money for nucs and didn't buy packages. I bought nucs because I didn't want to wait for a package to build up. So it's a HUGE difference.Honestly, what's the difference other than time to build up?