Nuc Size

[Bush_84]

Hello all. I wanted to get opinions on nuc size. I have some lumber and I am in building mode. I want to raise queens this year and want to increase my nuc count. I want some five frames but am wondering if I should make 2 or 3 frame Nucs as well. I plan on raising queens this year and will need some mating Nucs. I bought a couple of Mann lake mating Nucs but am wondering if I shouldn't use deep frames going forward. Same size equipment and all that. So what does everybody think I should do? 8 frame split? All five frame?  2 or 3 frame?

[Sniper338]

I juat had a thread on this.  Just built six 5 frame nucs..

A good handful of nuc box plans are posted on the thread i started

[iddee]

To pull the queens and sell, 2 or 3 frame.  To let build into hives, 5 frame.

[BeeMaster2]

It depends on where you are going to keep them. If in an apiary with strong hives, 5 frame. If you move them to an area that is away from existing hives, I have started a hive with just one frame of bees with eggs and larvae in a empty 5 frame nuc. I tried 4 mini nucs filled in one medium box with 3-1/2 frames of brood and a 1/2 frame of pollen/ honey. They were in my apiary and none survived. If I had moved them as soon as I put them together, they probably would all survive.
LJ did some testing and found the same problem. He also found if you put the nucs over a queen right hive with a double screen they have a much higher survival rate.
Jim

[jalentour]

Saw,
What do you mean by double screen?

[BeeMaster2]

A double screen is just a thin hive spacer (3/4" by 1/2") with a screen on top and bottom to prevent bee contact.
Jim

[jalentour]

Like this?

Front view:    nn
                    ssss
                    bbbb

With a shim between the n and s?
Double sided #8 screen?
Access is the hole in the inner cover, or something like that?

[iddee]

like this

http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/10-Frame-Double-Screen-Board/productinfo/694/

[jalentour]

It's all so clear now, thanks.

[BeeMaster2]

It can be #8 or window screen. You just want the pheromones to flow through with no contact.
Jim

[little john]

Hello all. I wanted to get opinions on nuc size. I have some lumber and I am in building mode. I want to raise queens this year and want to increase my nuc count. I want some five frames but am wondering if I should make 2 or 3 frame Nucs as well. I plan on raising queens this year and will need some mating Nucs. I bought a couple of Mann lake mating Nucs but am wondering if I shouldn't use deep frames going forward. Same size equipment and all that. So what does everybody think I should do? 8 frame split? All five frame?  2 or 3 frame?

I agree in general with the comment "half-sized frames for mating queens, and 5 full frames for nuc-raising".

Two other considerations:
Divided nuc boxes are a mixed blessing.  Sure, easier and cheaper to build - and there's shared heat etc - BUT - they're a pain in the backside when it comes to getting all of the bees out from just one partition.  Much better to have separate boxes, if at all possible.  Then, it's just pull the frames out, and give the bottom of the box a good thump to dislodge 'the squatters'.

Second - it's really handy to have nuc boxes which are an exact half-width of your brood boxes. Then, you can run a 'Mike Palmer' system with a pair of nucs over a divided brood-box.  Also, if you find yourself short of a feeder shell (say), then you can simply use 2x nuc boxes for that job - as I needed to do here, on top of the blue brood box:

 


You could also over-winter 2x nucs over a brood box.  Half-width nuc boxes just add that little extra flexibility.  BTW, I'm talking brood boxes with 10-frames plus - dunno if it's feasible with 8-frame,  maybe not ?
LJ

[Bush_84]

I'm torn for a couple of reasons. On one hand I have minimal bee resources to invest. I only have three production hives and don't really want to sacrifice one third of my honey harvest to get into queen rearing and Nucs. So I'm trying to get into this without sacrificing a ton. So mini mating Nucs sound favorable in that regard. On the other hand I am a forward enough thinker to know that the lack of interchangeability will be an issue.  I am not doing this to sell a ton of queens. Just to increase my own apiary. Right now I have two of the Mann lake double mating Nucs. So enough for four queens. I also have two sets of five frame Nucs with a five frame super. So a max of four more queens there. So that's a decent start. I also have plenty of 8 frame deeps and combs. It's just that five frame Nucs and 8 frame deeps take a lot of bee resources to start, but may be better long term.

I have read about Joseph Clemens style of queen rearing and it suits my needs very well. I plan on buying two packages in the spring and taking frames from my different hives and putting them over an excluder to gather nurse bees then place that in a nuc. I can then use that to raise my queens. I can stick my mini mating nuc frames in my hives to fill out and fill with brood. I can the simply just put them straight into my mini mating Nucs when the time comes to set them up.

I'm not sure if this gets me any closer to what to do with this wood. I'm thinking of maybe just doing some three frames to see how it goes as I already have some five frames. Then part of me wants to make this into five frame cause 1x12 is expensive. Maybe I should just make some medium equipment for mating Nucs.

[little john]

Coincidence - in another thread, gww also has 3 hives and wants to make increase as well as not losing the honey crop.  Similar sort of situation.

It's tough trying to achieve this. Thinking back to when I only had 3 or 4 colonies, I also faced this difficulty of just how to go about expanding.  The solution I chose was to register with the local pest control outfit and offered to collect swarms for them.  This wasn't so great as I live way out 'in the sticks', and the calls I was given were fairly long distances away - so those bees cost me quite a lot of time and money (money for petrol/gas) but beggars can't be choosers.
If memory serves I collected just four swarms in the one season, but those additions were enough to make increase possible - and once I had (say) 6 or 8 full-sized colonies up and running, the numbers exploded from then on.  It's just getting up to that 6 - 8 colony figure which is tough.

Just want to endorse the Joseph Clemens queenless starter-finisher system - it's a superb method.  Exactly the same as Laidlaw's - just scaled-down to a size appropriate for hobbyists. I can't imagine me ever wanting to use another method.
LJ

[gww]

Lj
I will have to look up the clemens method.  I really should only have one hive but I caught three swarms last year.  I will have the swarm traps out but one year I had 12 out and did not catch any.  I have not found anywhere to sign up for swarms in my area.  I am also in the boonies.  I mostly think that pulling off small splits might keep some bees alive.  I would like increase but mostly don't want all dead outs.  I am not treating and I have no real issue with treating but don't intend to start untill I have a few die and I see why.  So, Mostly I would like some honey and would wait on more swarms but the fear factor says make a few more for the crash.

If a guy just wanted to make bees, mel disselkoen method seems pretty interesting. 

I have no drawn comb and so I might have to split even if I don't want to to keep them from swarming.  Mostly I still don't know what I am doing and am just muddling along with nothing really set in granite.
Just looking at ideals and trying to learn.
Cheers
gww

[Bush_84]

I live where swarms don't live. There are beeks but I've never seen an actual swarm.  No wild hives.

So here is what I plan. Buy two packages and a queen this spring. From two hives I take enough frames of brood and honey to fill nuc. Take them empty from the hives and put them above my most populous hive. Nurse bees move up to cover brood then remove frame to nuc and install queen. Let it build up enough to split again. For split I take queen to new nuc. Queenless nuc raises queens. I put mini mating frames in main hives to be drawn and filled. Remove to mini mating Nucs with cell. Once queen mated and filled remove to nuc to fill. Then maybe find a way to remove once brood hatched. Maybe put it above an excluder or something.

Edit-by taking from all three hives I diffuse out loss evenly and shouldn't lose honey. Consider it swarm prevention. I should also state that I keep bees in a temperature regulated shed. I don't think I'd hesitate to winter mating Nucs granted I put them in a bigger box than the three frame styrofoam boxes.

[gww]

bush
I have never seen a swarm and never seen a wild hive.  If you have beeks around some of thier bees will swarm.  You might be surprized.  I pick on relitives. I put a trap with some lemon grass oil and then just ask them to call me if they ever see bees by the trap.

The brood above a queen excluder on a support hive sounds like what doolittle did at the turn of the century.  Mel covers this a bit also.  That was one thing I was thinking about too.  I built 3 double screen boards also.  I do wonder about your one part of letting the nuc build the queen.  I am new with no experiance but throw this out there for thought.  To make good queens the hive needs lots of bees and rescources.  Might be better to pull a queen from a hive and let the hive make the queen and let the queen build up the nuc.

Again, I have read a lot but did nothing.
Cheers
gww

[cao]

  Might be better to pull a queen from a hive and let the hive make the queen and let the queen build up the nuc.

That is my experience.  I haven't had very good luck with nucs building queens.  Last year I pulled a queen from a strong hive and checked on it a week later.  I lost count after 20 queen cells on at least 8 frames.  Each frame with queen cell got its own nuc.  To me that's an easy way to make splits.  The only downside is that you have to find the queen.

[Bush_84]

http://doorgarden.com/2011/11/07/simple-honey-bee-queen-rearing-for-beginners/

Joseph Clemens is somebody on beesource and that is his method of queen rearing.