Mini mating nuc troubles

[Bush_84]

As my season winds down I am reflecting on the things that went wrong. My biggest failure was my mini mating Nucs. I was able to get my queens to hatch in them but after a total of 8 mini mating Nucs setup I have zero now. The queens I made in five frame Nucs seemed to have a higher percentage mated queens and did better after that. I had my biggest abscond after an assault from ants.

Now I haven't given up on the system. I'm just trying to figure out what went wrong to correct it. Many of the issues might be able to be traced back to insufficient bees at stocking. Despite my best efforts their population didn't seem to hold long enough for the first round of bees to emerge. Maybe I just need to shake more bees. I shook bees from the brood nest and locked them in for three days with their queen cell.

The other issue is with feeding. I made hive top feeders for my larger mini mating Nucs and I use the Mann lake double mini mating Nucs. With both systems my hives were overtaken by other bugs. Beetles (not hive beetles) and ants were everywhere. The issue with the hive top feeder was that it didn't sit flush and bugs could easily get in. Not sure what to do with the Mann lake Nucs. I even tried a jar feeder with my bugger Nucs and that just leaked everywhere. I moved my hives and tried different stands. Grease, petroleum jelly, ashes...I tried it all. The one thing I didn't do was put the legs in a bucket of oil. We had way to much rain this year for that. Either way my main hives didn't have issues. It was just these small hives. I'm thinking this goes back to population.

Thoughts/experiences?

[MikeyN.C.]

If my top hive feeders don't set flush.  I use duck tape all the way around , ant get in under top cover and drown.
You can also make ant bait traps.

[Bush_84]

I did end up doing that eventually. My feeders would still fill up but the bees were more secure.

[BeeMaster2]

Bush,
I'm in the same boat as you. Years ago I made a deep box into a 3 way queen castle. Never could get it to produce even one hive. This year I made up a 4 way mini Nuc. I even put queens in all 4 nucs. None made it even though I moved it away from my apiary. Pretty sure they all moved into one Nuc and then into a single medium that also had a new queen and bees.
Jim

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Jim, Bush, I never thought of using a queen castle as pre nuc colony.  Maybe some day I'll try.  I use queen castle, (4 divided in 10 frame Lang with 4 separate opening 3/4 inch)to keep my queens, healthy and laying for future use.  A queen holding system in brief, but could be used as a mating nuc for hobby breeder.  I don't do the queen banking,  no problem with queen banks, just not for me.

Have you ever tried a timing box ( 3 divided partions by queen frames in 10 frame Lang 1 opening) to age eggs for grafting.  Don't see why a person could not crank out nucs with this. The parentheses Jim, Bush,,, are for those who may be new and not know.  I realize you have the knowledge.
Blessings

[Bush_84]

https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=50092.0

That was my original topic on my mini mating Nucs. One of those old warre boxes equals about half of a five frame nuc. So outgrowing their space has not been an issue. I think one of the errors I made was taking them out of the Mann lake styrofoam nuc to fast. Once my queens start laying and lay up the nuc I'd get all excited and put them in the larger unit. The problem was that they were still going to be dwindling until the first or second round of brood emerges. The larger unit went from three combs to four. I think bees can get overwhelmed in a space to large for them.

So next year I may try populating one of the larger boxes first. I might even try putting a mated queen in there to get them started. Once they are started and built out into two boxes I think the Mann lake boxes will be more reliable.  Combs filled with brood, pollen, and honey would be a big help.

[minz]

This is depressing since I have been out in the shop building some 4 way mini mating nucss. I am trying to figure out how to use them and was turned on to Liz Huxter on VEMO. I think I am going to divide some deeps the opposite direction I have been.
I find that the queen castles work great, 5 frame nuc boxes also work really well, (as do Palmer divided deeps with 4 frames) but they draw down so much brood from the production hives that I can not make honey and bees at the same time.
Somebody weigh in with any other good links for info on Mating nucs.

[HillBilly2]

This looks interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMGMONcUWQ8

[Jim134]

      If you would like better queens.and have the time .Use 5 Standard frame nucs.. Something you might like to read .Do not bothering queens 28 days ..After mating

If you read the whole thread . You may get some insight.. on raising Queens.
I would suggest you read the whole thread.
http://www.beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=46556.

     BEE HAPPY Jim 134 

[minz]

I got my hopes up but that was all the same info I had. The Michigan bees is where I got the plans and I love his woodworking videos.  Just turns out to be another thread where you ask a question like ?how do you win a honey contest? and the replies are all ?that is stupid why try?.-for four pages.
So for a small timer: with 15-20 hives, one flow per year (mid May to mid June) and trying to raise queens when they want to swarm (end of April) and get honey.
I grafted queens, then take the cells and put them into a queen castle with one mixed frame of bees and one partial honey frame minimum. So figure steal two frames per hive, that is 8-12 queens frames minimum. The mated queens with good patterns get bumped up to a 5 frame nuc (add a frame of brood). I now have to make a decision: do I raise another batch to have replace them all and run down the hives so they do not make honey (last year?s decision) or do I see if I can get them to build fast enough to hit blackberry?  These bees will not work my flow and I have run down my production hive to get them.
Now if I can pull a deep frame with a clip between the two-with a nice brood pattern, I can make two frames go to 4 queen cells with 4 cups of bees. Feed them, when she fills them give her a second deep. I am into it under half of the resources and now my biggest issue is keeping  putting open frames in front of her so that I can (and must) steal full frames for my next round of queen cells. End of year I drop the mini 4 ways back to duplex and have new queens.