My first nuke

ShaneJ · August 30, 2012, 12:59:49 AM

This is not much but I'm happy with it :)

The nuke on far right I started 14/08/2012 with 2 frames of capped brood, some eggs and a queen cell. The queen is now mated and laying well. This nuke was originally taken to a different site so the bees didn't return to the original hive.

The 2 nukes on left I started 26/08/2012 with 2 frames of capped brood, some eggs and a queen cell. These nukes were kept in the same yard as the mother hive. Some of the bees must have returned to the original hive on the second day as they didn't have as many bees as they did when I started them.

west end apiary · August 30, 2012, 01:08:25 PM

looks good, are they four frame nucs? why did you only use two frames of capped brood, what are the other two frames, honey and pollen?
Hope to do some nucs of my own in the near future.
Congrats, Nick

ShaneJ · August 30, 2012, 08:07:46 PM

The nuke with the laying queen is now 5 frames, 2 were the brood/eggs and 3 foundation.
The other 2 nukes are 2 brood/eggs and 2 foundation.

I only used to frames of brood because they had a queen cell so it shouldn't take them long to build up. Unlike just adding some eggs and having the bees produce a queen from scratch.

ShaneJ · August 31, 2012, 06:15:00 AM

Well it looks like my second nukes are not doing to well. The queens have hatched but there are not many bees left in the nukes. I assume they have returned to the mother hive.
Could I shake some more nurse bees into the nukes from my other hives? Or would this be bad? Should I just add a frame of capped brood?

Thank you

Larry Bees · August 31, 2012, 06:39:51 AM

I add a frame of capped brood when a nuc has only a few bees. I don't know if that's the correct answer, but that's what I do.

Larry

Michael Bush · August 31, 2012, 02:58:35 PM

Nuc is short for nucleus. Nuke is short for nuclear...

ShaneJ · August 31, 2012, 07:57:41 PM

Quote from: Michael Bush on August 31, 2012, 02:58:35 PM
Nuc is short for nucleus. Nuke is short for nuclear...

I've never been good with spelling :-X

Sparky · September 01, 2012, 10:15:31 PM

If you have the resources to spare you could add a frame of capped brood and its onboard bees to each nuc. It would also get them into production mode more if you had any flow going on or a feeder as a kick start.

Larry Bees · September 02, 2012, 12:19:35 AM

Quote from: Larry Bees on August 31, 2012, 06:39:51 AM
I add a frame of capped brood when a nuc has only a few bees. I don't know if that's the correct answer, but that's what I do.

Larry

I just did this again yesterday. Big red carpenter ants attacked one of my weaker nucs and killed half of the bees. After killing the ants, I took a frame of capped brood from a strong hive and put it in the nuc,

Larry

ShaneJ · September 02, 2012, 12:31:12 AM

I took a frame of capped bees and some nurse bees and added to one of the weaker hives. I only did it to one as I wasn't sure if the bees would fight :?

Lazy W · September 12, 2012, 11:43:11 AM

Very Nice. Thanks for sharing.

yelnifok · September 13, 2012, 02:43:04 AM

Generally Shane if you lightly shake a brood frame over the nuc that you want to put the brood frame- the nurse/house bees will go right down into the nuc without upsetting the other nuc residents. Any foraging bees on the frame fly back to there original colony. You can do the same thing by 'brushing' the bees off but that seems to upset them more.IMO
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