Making Nucs

mdbee · April 13, 2015, 09:33:51 AM

Ill be making 20 Nucs next month and I read on here that some of you use queen excluder by shaking the bees off the frames and putting brood above them, do you get enough bee's on them or is there a faster better way?

BeeMaster2 · April 13, 2015, 11:14:50 AM

MD,
We just made up 40 nuc's at Bud7. We went through the hives found the queen. Caged her, placed a frame of honey and pollen, a frame of eggs and a queen cell if we found them, 2 frames of brood and a foundation frame. If we had a queen we replaced the foundation frame with a drawn frame .
Jim

mdbee · April 15, 2015, 02:37:59 PM

That's the way I have been making them, I was looking for a way with out looking for the Queen, its so time consuming looking for her.

mdbee · April 15, 2015, 02:40:04 PM

I will be making them with
mated queens

jalentour · April 15, 2015, 09:16:17 PM

MD,
I will be making mine with a mated queen as well.
Plan to remove 3 frames of brood, shake and put on the top of the hive separated by an excluder. Wait a day or two.
Put in nuc with 2 frames of honey.
Add new queen.
I understand that will also help control the varroa as well.
J

Michael Bush · April 16, 2015, 08:14:18 AM

I would just look breifly for the queen (a quick scan) and make up the nucs. Shaking them off is more trouble than I want to go to...

johng · April 16, 2015, 08:39:20 PM

mdbee, yes what you are talking about will absolutely work. If your making a lot of nucs it is a fast way to go through a yard and make a bunch of splits without having to worry about looking for queens. Give each split a ripe queen cell and you will be ready to go.

sc-bee · April 16, 2015, 09:43:07 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 13, 2015, 11:14:50 AM
MD,
We just made up 40 nuc's at Bud7. We went through the hives found the queen. Caged her, placed a frame of honey and pollen, a frame of eggs and a queen cell if we found them, 2 frames of brood and a foundation frame. If we had a queen we replaced the foundation frame with a drawn frame .
Jim

And the caged queen went where? Caged her for convince just to do split and then return her. I don't follow. And to me caging her I just don't handle well. I just move her with a frame to an extra box just to get her out of the way.

BeeMaster2 · April 17, 2015, 12:39:10 AM

Md,
The queens are caged, and inspected. After the nuc's are made, the young queens are returned to one of the nuc's created from her hive. The old queens were removed.
Jim

sc-bee · April 17, 2015, 01:19:46 PM

Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 17, 2015, 12:39:10 AM
The queens are caged, and inspected. After the nuc's are made, the young queens are returned to one of the nuc's created from her hive. The old queens were removed.
Jim

Sorry Jim... may be me again, I am having a time following this post. Inspected for what? Curiosity or are you talking about removing queens from a mating nuc and inspecting before putting them in splits?

capt44 · April 17, 2015, 08:08:33 PM

When I setup my Nucs I use candled queen cells.
I usually install them the day before they are due to emerge.

BeeMaster2 · April 17, 2015, 11:44:30 PM

Quote from: sc-bee on April 17, 2015, 01:19:46 PM
Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 17, 2015, 12:39:10 AM
The queens are caged, and inspected. After the nuc's are made, the young queens are returned to one of the nuc's created from her hive. The old queens were removed.
Jim

Sorry Jim... may be me again, I am having a time following this post. Inspected for what? Curiosity or are you talking about removing queens from a mating nuc and inspecting before putting them in splits?

They were looking for young queens and removing the older queens. Young queens have a lot more hair.

Quote from: sc-bee on April 17, 2015, 01:19:46 PM
Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 17, 2015, 12:39:10 AM
The queens are caged, and inspected. After the nuc's are made, the young queens are returned to one of the nuc's created from her hive. The old queens were removed.
Jim

Sorry Jim... may be me again, I am having a time following this post. Inspected for what? Curiosity or are you talking about removing queens from a mating nuc and inspecting before putting them in splits?

Quote from: sc-bee on April 17, 2015, 01:19:46 PM
SC,
No. They did not want to put old queens back in the nuc and we made sure they did not stay in the old hive. New mated queens are fuzzy, older queens are not. Unmated queens have smaller abdomins.
Jim
Quote from: sawdstmakr on April 17, 2015, 12:39:10 AM
The queens are caged, and inspected. After the nuc's are made, the young queens are returned to one of the nuc's created from her hive. The old queens were removed.
Jim

Sorry Jim... may be me again, I am having a time following this post. Inspected for what? Curiosity or are you talking about removing queens from a mating nuc and inspecting before putting them in splits?

BeeMaster2 · April 17, 2015, 11:46:24 PM

Sorry, my iPhone is hard to type on and it kept messing up.
Jim