What is the closest to put mini mating next to each other to have success. Your experience is appreciated
I don't know how others may do it, but ours are spread all over the yard. Some within inches of each other.
Scott
I would space them as much as your situation allows. The further they are the better odds of them finding the right one. I don't use mini nucs, but I do end up with mine fairly dense because I don't have the room to spread them out.
How long do you keep the Queens in the mini mating nucs before they outgrow them? I am thinking of growing queens but don't have a regular schedule. I'd like to grow a batche every once in a while. Can I just put the bees back into a regular hive or will they fight?
>How long do you keep the Queens in the mini mating nucs before they outgrow them?
I use two full sized medium frames and they quickly out grow them and I often split the mating nucs.
I use 5 frame deep nucs as my mating hives and I put them just about wherever I can. You can use them as your mating hives and steal brood or queens as needed. Starting in early August I raise fresh queens for overwintering. I make note of what 2 deep hives have questionable "old" queens (over 1 year old in the Spring) and I replace them with the overwintered queens from the nucs in the Spring. It's surprisingly easy to find a marked queen in a recently overwintered hive. If a hive fails to overwinter I drop the nuc in there. I refill the nuc box with a swarm (trapped or captured) or any frames with active queen cells I run across.
I do place my matting nucs in groups of 4, facing different direction, painted in different colors.
The space between nucs can be 10 feet or so, depending on the yards.
Gilman