My Mini Mating Nuc Setup

[Bush_84]

Hello all. Thanks for reading. I'd like to first say that I understand the convenience of having everything use the same frames. I am cheap and I like to tinker. Spending time in my shop brings me as much joy as beekeeping itself. So combining the two is an addiction. As far as being cheap i repurposed a lot of this and everything was largely from plywood and 2x4 I already had laying around.

So now that is out of the way...let me introduce my system.



It all started when I saw some of Mann lakes double mini mating Nucs for a good deal in their bargain bin.  it was hard to pass up. So I bought two. I bought a few frames to go in it. Once I got them in the mail and assembled the frames I made an interesting connection. These frames were just about as big as my old (and unused for a number of years) warre hive bodies. The boxes needed a little adjustment but the end result is a box that holds eight of these mini frames. Pic of this below.



Next thought was about feeders. The Mann lake mating nuc has a built in feeder but that won't help the larger hives. I was in the process of planning out some hive top feeders for my five frame Nucs and 8 frame hives. Wasn't a difficult leap to make. On the top picture you can see it on top of the old warre box. You can also see in that picture that on the right of the feeder I have two screened off areas. These are built in top entrances. The screen will stay down when starting and can be flipped up when it's strength grows.



Pretty standard hive top feeder. Sealed with fiberglass resin. Same design is currently in use at my apiary.



I built four of these setups. Each setup has a super. Each setup has a feeder and lid. In the picture above you can also see a shim. I use these as a winter top entrance and mountain camp. I have enough of these for each hive. You can also see the robber screen. I have four of these as well.



So the plan is to first draw out my frames. I have a couple of options. I could screw a small piece of wood across the top bars of two frames or use one of those hardware cloth adapters. In the pic I have both setups. In fact I have a super full of these in one of my hives right now. Once I get enough to fill the Mann lake Nucs I should be good to go. That is unless I want to take frames of bees/brood and put them in my langs. I can still use these to do this, but I suspect the lumber across the top bars will not be used for this purpose. To putzy to line them up appropriately with bees on. However the hardware cloth should work great. I could always simply shake bees off these frames when making up Nucs as well. So there are options.

My overall plan is to fill the Mann lake mating Nucs during my first round of queen rearing. Since these frames are in my hives now they will hopefully be drawn out in a month. From there they just go into the Mann lake boxes with adherering bees/brood and a queen cell. Remember I have two of those double mating Nucs. So once the queen starts laying and they are full of capped brood they go into the old warre box. Hopefully they are able to fill both boxes by fall. I overwinter in a bee shed. So I don't hesitate to overwinter these units. If I am able to get one to overwinter I am setup nicely next year for queen rearing.  I can easily break up that hive into smaller units to fill the Mann lake units again. If things go real well (in the short time I have been overwintering in this shed I am at 100% survival rate) then I will have excess in this queen rearing system.  I can then easily use these bees as a resource to make up 5 frame Nucs.

I hope you have enjoyed the read and pictures. My biggest expenditure in this venture has been the Mann lake equipment, but I even built most of my own frames for this system. You can build quite a few frames with a few 2x4s and a table saw with a dado blade.

[paus]

I don't mind being ignorant, this is curable by knowledge. someone please explain the obvious, how do mating nucs work  I have never had any experience with queen rearing at all.  Thank you.

[Bush_84]

I don't have any hands in experience either. Just hours upon hours of reading. A mini nuc is no different than a normal hive but smaller. You can only mate one queen per hive. It would take quite a few resources to mate queens in a full hive. Some do it with their normal lang frames. Some do it with these mini frames. These frames in my setup are essentially half of a medium frame. I have read from multiple sources that it only takes a couple of cups of bees to mate a queen in one of these mini mating Nucs.

I'm going to be working on increasing my colony count this year. As a part of that I am investing in two more queens and two packages. I have three overwintered hives. So after tomorrow I will have three overwintered hives, two packages, and two Nucs. From there I am going to rear queens on a small scale. I want to do this without completely ruining my honey harvest. So for now mini mating Nucs are the answer. If I can establish five full hives, my mating nuc setup, and a few Nucs (hoping to have 4-5 by seasons end) I'll be really setup for next year. From there I can take away resources from my Nucs and mini mating setup for increase and let my production colonies produce.

Some simply use two or three frame deep Nucs to mate queens. I may certainly do this in the future, but as of now this makes sense for me. It allows me the potential to achieve my goals for this year with very little invested.

[paus]

OK so all this is, is a small hive in which brood and bees are introduced and allowed to make a queen cell.  I am almost doing this with small swarms, except my intentions are let them grow to a strong hive.

[Bush_84]

You mate queens in these hives. A small hive like this probably wouldn't be very good at making queens. You put your capped queen cell in there. They emerge and mate. Once the queen has laid up the frames and they are capped they'd get moved into the bigger box to allow room for expansion.

Unfortunately the only swarm I will see around here are the swarms from my hives. It's a blessing and a curse. On one hand I have an isolated apiary from mites and diseases. On the other hand I will never see a swarm.  Who knows. Maybe one day I will get lucky. I have seen honey bees at my parents house. I gave them a swarm trap. Otherwise the only time I have ever seen bees were the bees from my hives.