Need Refresher Course In Selling Nucs Please

[Jen]

Last year, with the help of Apis, I learned how to use queen cells to make up and sell nucs. I sold 7 nucs last year and to my knowledge all of them survived the winter... Thanks Apis 

I now have 6 orders for nucs this year. I'm needing confidence to remember how to do this correctly. A refresher course please ~~~

I do remember that I need 3 frames of capped brood, larvae, and eggs. A frame of honey, and an empty frame of drawn wax for queen to lay in.

What I don't remember is how to ready the nuc for travel from my house.

1) If a buyer wants to pick up the nuc the same day that I pull it, should I block the entrance until she comes for it?

2) If the buyer won't arrive for a few days, then I should take the nuc 2 miles out for 48 hours, then return the nuc to my house?

[Mikey N.C.]

Jen,
When I've purchased nucs(CBT, Beez Needz)
They wanted me to see what i was paying for.  So we closed entrance with #8 hardware cloth (wire)
and did a hands on exchange,  so i knew what i was getting. Hive staples for bottom board and rachet strap around for top.

[riverbee]

"Last year, with the help of Apis, I learned how to use queen cells to make up and sell nucs."

jen, i did a couple different searches, if you could give me a clue on the thread, topic title, etc.....i could probably find the thread, or what category it was under?

"1) If a buyer wants to pick up the nuc the same day that I pull it, should I block the entrance until she comes for it?"

depends on if the buyer is driving bees around INSIDE a vehicle......... or in the truck bed.
screen them up the night before, and if not screened, have the buyer pick them up EARLY in the morning.

#2, i don't sell nucs, but do move them, so can't really help you with your question.

[apisbees]

You want the nuc to have an established laying queen in it so they need to be made up at least a week in advance if not longer. That being said if you have strong colonies or nucs that you are pull nucs from pull the laying queen with the frames of brood, frame of honey and a empty frame. If the nuc is to be picked up that day screen the entrance and shake a extra frame of bees into the nuc and send them home with the new owner. Let the hive raise a new queen or add a cell or introduce a new queen into the now queenless hive. If the nuc is not going to be picked up for a couple of days. Move it a couple of miles, or shake 2 or 3 extra frames of bees into the nuc to compensate for the bees drifting back to the parent colony. Or you can shake no extra bees into the nuc and place it in the location of the donor colony and it will pick up the field bees. Either block the bees into the nuc before they start to fly in the morning if they are going to be picked up during the day or arrange for them to be picked up in the evening when the bees have returned home.

[Jen]

Thanks Apis, info to the point, just what I needed.

River, good info too, forgot about that, and informed my buyer for tomorrow's pick up that she needs to go straight home with her bees.

[Riverrat]

https://worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/index.php?topic=5323.40