Nucs

[Jen]

I have only seen bee hives that are in deeps, and stacked deeps. What is the purpose of a Nuc?

[mamapoppybee]

Nucleus (Nuke, Nuc): A small colony of bees resulting from a colony division. Also, a queen-mating hive used by queen breeders.

[LazyBkpr]

well, thats sort of a can of worms..  it depends on the SIZE of the Nuc...   three frame possibly a mating Nuc. Some sell them as three frame Nucs to start hives.      Generally its used to start a small split so they dont have too much room for few bees yet allows them to begin building up.  Some people keep a nuc so they have a spare queen, and have to remove frames of brood every so often to keep them from overpopulating..    I'm sure some of the guys that use them more than I do will pipe in and give some of the diverse uses.

[G3farms]

can of worms is right.

Nuc is short for nucleus. I would consider it to be the heart of the hive, kind of like the heart of a watermelon, it is the best part.

I sell some five frame nucs in the late spring, I make mine from splitting overwintered hives in two. Dividing up the brood and stores. Of course there will only be one queen from a split and there are several ways to address this.
1. Let them make their own queen, you must be sure there is eggs in the queenless hive. A walk away split is where you divvy everything up and make sure you have eggs in both splits hoping that the queenless hive makes a queen.
2. Introduce another queen from some you or somebody else raised.
3. Install queen cells.

The nucs I sell are five frame deep nucs and need to be transferred into a 10 frame box immediately to prevent swarming. Two frames of brood in all stages, a laying queen, two frames of honey and pollen, and a frame that is in progress.

Some sell nucs in 2, 3, 4, 5 frame configurations an deeps or mediums.

Mating nucs are a little different they, are used for virgin queens to live in, take their mating flights and return to start laying. When they are proven layers they are plucked out and sold or installed into anther hive. These can range from three frame minis to five frame deeps.

[tecumseh]

once again a good response there G3.

also beyond the question of number of frames nuc can also vary by the size of the frame used.  nuc you might buy are typically in deep frames and queen rearing nucs are often times set up to use baby nuc frames < which are essentially half sized/wide frames using either shallows or mediums end bars.  since currently there is a move by some folks to ONLY use medium depth frames now some folks are producing nucs to sell using medium depth frames < I have in the past done this myself and sometimes I use medium depth 5 frame nuc boxes also to raise queens from queen cells.

for new beekeepers who wish to produce their own nucs for replacement or expansion purpose I recommend they first start this process by purchasing queens and not try from the get to to rear their own queens.  there is just a lot of things that can and do go wrong in using cells either bought or raised yourself and there is some substantial benefit in adding a bit of genetic diversity to an apiary and this is fairly easy to do if you purchase queens.

[Jen]

Sooo, in other words, nucs are like a nursery in a hospital?

[efmesch]

While there are differently sized nucs, I tend to think of them primarily as a "half hive", five regular frames in a narrow hive box. 
In addition to the other functions already mentioned,  I find them very convenient for capturing swarms.  Most swarms will fit nicely into a nuc hiive and moving these nucs around, both before and after the capture, is much easier than it would be in a full sized hive box.
Once hived, a swarm can easily be transferred to a normal hive in its intended permanent location.

[Lburou]

Ef, did you get a new hat?   

One more reason to keep a NUC jaybird:  From time to time in your new bee yard, a hive might need some help in the form of a new queen or a frame of bee brood.  A standby NUC can provide that queen or frame of brood with no delay. 

I like deep frames in all my equipment, that way, they are interchangeable.  Was reading Brother Adam's book about keeping bees at Buckfast Abby this week and noticed he preferred an even deeper frame than our 'deep' frames.  He tested bees in different sizes of brood nests and concluded that his bees did better with a deeper frame.  Significantly better.  HTH     

[efmesch]

Ef, did you get a new hat?   

Hi Lee.  "New" with beekeepers is always relative. [My "new" smoker is about 30 years young  ] 
This hat was bought when I toured Alaska in 2010. It is inscribed: The great land ALASKA. 
I figured, a new forum deserves a "new" hat. 

[Jen]

Lburou- maybe there is something to bees liking deep logs and deep chimneys. A thought!

[Gary]

Jaybird,
The latest copy of the "American Bee Journal" has a very good article on Nucs. Also addresses how to feed throughout the winter spring cycle. Langstroth coined the term Nuclei hive and described them as a way to build colonies. Recommend both that journal and "Bee Culture" if you don't already get them. Tons of good material with deals from suppliers all over the country.

[Jen]

Gary, I wonder if I can obtain the latest American bee journal, I'll give them a call and see. Thanks for that

[Lburou]

Lburou- maybe there is something to bees liking deep logs and deep chimneys. A thought!

May be something to that 

Brother Adam reported his concluded that bees wintered better on the deeper frame, saying he thought it was something more healthy for the cluster as it moved from one frame to another.  I don't know if any scientists have broken the code and written a paper about it though -I think his reports are pretty reliable.