Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Mating Nuc  (Read 9283 times)

Offline Waveeater

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Mating Nuc
« on: January 07, 2018, 10:54:04 am »
A question for some of the more experienced beekeepers. I'm going to attempt to raise my own queens this year and was wondering if I would be better served to build two or three frame mating nukes or use an existing box divided up like some of the queen castles I see and read about. I have the lumber so that is not an issue. By the way these will be medium frame hives, as I currently use all 8 frame medium equipment. Any tips or advice would greatly be appreciated. I apologize if this topic has already been discussed in another forum. God Bless.

Offline iddee

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 10853
  • Gender: Male
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2018, 11:54:55 am »
Everyone will have their own opinion, but mine is individual boxes. Combined units are good for harvesting queens, but bad for growing the mating nuc into a full hive. Individual boxes work well for both.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline cao

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1678
  • Gender: Male
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2018, 12:11:20 pm »
Everyone will have their own opinion, but mine is individual boxes.

My opinion is the same.  I've tried raising nucs side by side in the same box.  I just don't like them that close.  If you have problem with one it will affect the other.

Offline Waveeater

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2018, 06:48:11 pm »
I've seen plans for two frame nucs for deeps. Should I build 3 frame boxes since I'm using medium frames?

Offline iddee

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 10853
  • Gender: Male
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2018, 07:00:07 pm »
Since you are using 8 frame mediums for hives, I would build 4 frame boxes for nucs. 2 frame boxes are only good if you are harvesting the queens and not growing the nucs into hives.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline BeeMaster2

  • Administrator
  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 13494
  • Gender: Male
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #5 on: January 07, 2018, 09:56:36 pm »
I have tried several types of queen castles. 10 frame deeps split into 3 nucs, 10 frame mediums split into 3 nucs, and the last one, a 10 frame medium split into 4 mini nucs. They all failed. They usually seem to move into one of the nucs and then move out all together.  Some of them get robbed out.
If I tried again, I would use LJ's idea. He found that new queen or queen less hives survived much better if they are placed over a queen right hive with a double screen separating them. The Queen right pheromones help protect the nucs.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline minz

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 332
  • Gender: Male
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #6 on: January 07, 2018, 11:34:49 pm »
I do the mating queen castles. Divided into two frames. As I do inspections and find a couple of queen cells I just put one frame and a partial honey frame into the QC (tape over the hole). At the end I take the castle home or to a yard and take off the tape. I have had good mating success. WHEN / IF the queen gets mated out and is laying I move her to a nuc or if the one on the other side does not I pull the divider and make it into a 4 frame. I use deeps so not the same.
Raising queens in a 4 frame is a lot of bees and comb. You are to just about a split at that point.
Poor decisions make the best stories.

Offline little john

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1537
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2018, 01:00:18 pm »
My story is the same as those who've failed with divided boxes. A few years back I made eight 6-frame boxes, to be run either as 6-frames or divided into 2x 3-frames. (full-size frames, 9" deep)
I have never once had success with both sides when in the divided format, yet two 5-frame stand-alone nuc boxes side-by-side - no problems at all.  Guess I must be doing something wrong, as many people swear by the use of divided boxes.

Still, I ain't gonna give up - this coming year I'll be trying divided boxes with half-sized frames (for queen-mating, as opposed to nuc-raising), but as Jim said - with the boxes positioned on top of queen-right colonies.  Let's see if that set-up works ...
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

Offline Waveeater

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2018, 01:35:19 pm »
First off, thank you all for the replies. My goal is to have some mated queens on hand for emergency situations or re-queening in the Fall for older queens. (if I can keep up with them). Having said that, I believe I will build some 2 frame nucs and see how it plays out. I will report back as the year goes if I'm successful or not.

Offline Michael Bush

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 19832
  • Gender: Male
    • bushfarms.com
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2018, 02:50:53 pm »
I have a lot of queen castles I bought from Brushy Mt that work well.  I bought deeps and cut them down to mediums so I could do nucs with two medium frames.  I've built my own before.  I find I need to cut the dividers into the walls or a queen will often get to the other side.  The Brushy Mt castles have this done for me already.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
-------------------
"Everything works if you let it."--James "Big Boy" Medlin

Offline texanbelchers

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 275
  • Gender: Male
    • Mark Belcher
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2018, 03:30:01 pm »
At the moment I've decided to standardize all of my equipment on 8-frame medium.  Definite trade-offs on all fronts with that decision.

I had major issues with multi-colony boxes, too.  Instead of divided boxes, I use a standard box with a follower board.  This allows me to grow the hive space as necessary.  It takes more boxes, but the intent is to use the boxes for the colony after mating anyway.

Offline little john

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1537
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #11 on: January 08, 2018, 06:54:52 pm »
First off, thank you all for the replies. My goal is to have some mated queens on hand for emergency situations or re-queening in the Fall for older queens. (if I can keep up with them). Having said that, I believe I will build some 2 frame nucs and see how it plays out. I will report back as the year goes if I'm successful or not.

It might be worth considering 3 frames instead of 2, as 3 frames will give you twice the effective brood area.  No, I haven't been smoking the magic weed (!).

In my experience bees much prefer to occupy cells on either side of the galleries formed between combs and have a tendency to ignore the outer sides of outer combs.  So 2 combs will provide one gallery or 2 comb sides, whereas 3 combs will provide two galleries, or 4 comb sides - i.e. twice as much.  Just a thought.

Yes - keep us posted as to results ...
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

Offline iddee

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 10853
  • Gender: Male
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #12 on: January 08, 2018, 09:01:07 pm »
+2 for LittleJohn. And that's with deeps. With mediums,I still like 4.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline Waveeater

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #13 on: January 09, 2018, 12:09:52 pm »
Well, maybe I should just build a 4 frame nuc and if I want to use it as a 2 or 3 frame mating nuc then I can block the dead space. If I want to use it as a 4 frame nuc then bingo. That would solve the problem of having to build different size feeders, etc. It's amazing what happens when you get a bunch of smart people talking about a particular subject. Now I know someone out there sees a down side to this idea, so let's have it.  :wink:

Offline iddee

  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 10853
  • Gender: Male
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #14 on: January 09, 2018, 12:49:17 pm »
Cut 2 pieces of styrofoam the size of a frame. Start with 2 frames and 2 sheets of foam. Remove a sheet as needed.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline awootton

  • New Bee
  • *
  • Posts: 17
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #15 on: January 19, 2018, 01:21:35 am »
I really like individual 3 frame nucs (D Coates design) for mating. I made these after trying 5 frame nucs with a divider to make 2 x 2.  Like several of the other posters here I found it difficult to keep the colonies separate and I just prefer dealing with a single colony. I also like the extra space of 3 frames which can be 1 frame brood, 1 frame honey and 1 of foundation and seems a good compromise between being too small to allow expansion and being so big it takes ages to find queens.  Although I mostly use WSP frames (similar to US mediums) I made the nucs full depth.  Most other folks use deeps and they want nucs on deep frames so I have to run both sizes (which is a pain). I don't often have problems with burr comb in the extra space below the frames as mating nucs are relatively weak.

Offline Waveeater

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #16 on: January 21, 2018, 09:34:29 am »
Thank you sir for that info. I'm currently building some 3 and 4 frame nucs. By the end of this year I should have an idea on which one I like best.

Offline Waveeater

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #17 on: April 09, 2018, 02:19:36 pm »
I made several 3 and 4 frame (medium frame) mating nucs. I have them painted several different colors and have 3/4 inch hole entrance on the front near the bottom. Should I add a hole anywhere for ventilation or leave the rest of it sealed up. The bottom board is solid and nailed on with a removable top. I know the brood needs to stay warm but I was just curious if it would overheat if I carry these over until the end of June or into July.

Offline jtcmedic

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 535
  • Gender: Male
    • Sweetest sting honey
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #18 on: April 09, 2018, 04:51:41 pm »
I am trying 5 frame nucs  with frame feeder making room for 3 frames will find out on the 19th if it worked

Offline Waveeater

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 94
Re: Mating Nuc
« Reply #19 on: April 09, 2018, 06:33:02 pm »
Good luck to you and let us know how it works out.