@RobboWA
"I apologise for my vagueness".....
A reflective understanding as that is Clint my question does not really warrant
any apology. But no matter, now - as you see - the possibilities gel into options.
"I have dabbled in building nuc's by adding a purchased queen to honey and
brood frames (currently 2 nuc's on the go)."
In a past life running pollination colonies I exclusively used imported queens in
requeening colonies, now running a kind of "bee rescue" operation that policy has
changed to now reflect something similar
to your plan. So I'll go with what I do do now in offering my two bobs
worth, leaving the many options to your own research.
Setting one colony aside as a resource build that queen is an import
of a known excellent line - an Italian variant known colloquially as "Red Kelpies".
The brood box has three optional entrances set for partioning
within the brood box. When used those partitions deny pheromone
leakage between the chambers set. The entrances can be set in different configs
one of which is as a queen excluder.
I have now raised several queens from that colony in manouvering
the config without any erosion of the colony's critical mass - ergo,
no expansion of the woodwork required.
(pix attached - hopefully)
The same colony is also used to raise nucleus in pairs, build and queen
if required. I use 3frame Lang (deep) polyurathane boxes mounted into
a bespoke partition as a second teir to the brood box.
Little John kinda lays out something similar in;
https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=50795.msg445954#msg445954" The 5-frame Nucleus Boxes are Half-Width, as in 'B', with two fitting exactly
over a standard Brood Box. "
Just one note with nucleus builds?
The queens I add to a nucleus are always mated away from the parent
colony. I have access to an area I know drones are of fine genetics so
I use that to know I am handing out colonies with the best chance of
success from my end of the deal.
I trust all of that gives some food for thought, and spreads the work
across the Nullabor seeing as how we cannot swap bees ;-)
Bill