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Author Topic: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides  (Read 15204 times)

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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #20 on: March 14, 2015, 02:18:44 am »
Well put together and understandable Pete ~ Thanks!  :)  I'm going to have to get into hot hive and see how they are doing. I'll be prepared to pull a nuc if I think it's a strong hive.

The hive on the far left is the hot hive. As of two weeks ago the first medium was where the capped brood was. And, they were just starting to go down into the deep. There was some brood, nectar, and pollen in the second med. The top med was just put on a few days ago.

I'm thinking to date, that hot hive has about 2 meds worth of brood if you could combine all the brood frames together. Would that be considered a strong hive? I don't think so. It would be different if it were like 2 deeps of brood.

I dunno, what do you think?

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Offline pistolpete

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #21 on: March 14, 2015, 03:12:01 am »
It's always quite subjective what a strong hive is, that looks like one to me.  The beauty of bees is that things are adjustable.  Provided that you are good at spotting queens, you can take a frame of brood out and give it to a weaker hive.   Or you can take three frames of brood and start a Nuc.   Later if the Nuc is struggling you just give them an extra frame of brood.  As long as you don't accidentally transfer a queen into another queen's hive it's all good.   Many bee keepers equalise hives this time of year, but I think that's a technique aimed at getting the maximum number of pollination units.  I rather like knowing which queens are doing the best. 

 a big challenge for smaller spring time Nucs is keeping warm enough during the cold nights.  I wrap mine in styrofoam to help them out.
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Offline tbonekel

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #22 on: March 14, 2015, 07:59:26 am »
I really like the thought of having some nucs around, but I came up with a scenario that I need some help on. Let's say that you have ten full sized hives. Five at your home and five at another outyard that is 10 miles away. For a part timer with a full time, "regular" job, it is difficult to get out to the other yard to check on these bees more than once a week. If you have nucs at that yard, it doesn't seem very practical to have to go out often to manage nuc hives at that yard. What if you keep all your nucs at home, go out to the yard 10 miles away and discover a hive that needs help or a new queen. Do you always take a nuc with you when you go? I know 10 miles isn't really that far, but I know some of you have yards 20 or 30 miles or more from your place.
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Offline pistolpete

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #23 on: March 14, 2015, 10:50:32 am »
I keep my Nucs right on my back deck, so that I can monitor them closely.   Not much with bees is an emergency (except maybe a swarm)  You can always wait a week to fix something. 
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #24 on: March 14, 2015, 12:43:07 pm »
I have an opportunity to put a hive 40 miles from where we live, my father in laws house. It's very intriquing because the bees would be in thick alpine surroundings, would be nice to see the difference in honey. It would be a good test for me because I wouldn't be able to check on it as much as my three in my backyard. I'm often reminded that I may mother my hives way too much. Actually, I'm much much better than I was early last spring, and I don't regret for one minute the attention I gave to my bees last year, I learned a ton of stuff, and they did just fine with my extra intrutions.

So think of your bees that are 10 miles away as an experiment of letting the bees be bees, maybe check on them once a month. I'll bet we would both be surprised as to how fine they will do.
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Offline camero7

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #25 on: March 14, 2015, 12:54:12 pm »
3 of my yards are over 10 miles from my house. I try to get to them every 3 weeks. Seems to work out ok.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #26 on: March 14, 2015, 01:04:04 pm »
I like that idea Camaro  :)

What is the purpose of moving the newly made nuc away from my three hives? robbing?

Should I feed a new nuc?
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Offline pistolpete

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #27 on: March 14, 2015, 01:17:50 pm »
When you make up a Nuc the bees in there will be nurse bees and forager bees.  The nurse bees will stay with the brood and the forager bees will return to the parent hive because that's what they're oriented to.   If you move the Nuc more than 2 miles away from the original, the forager bees will re-orient and return to the Nuc.     The way to overcome this return drift, if you don't have an outyard, is to shake the bees from a couple of brood frames into the Nuc.  There will be way too many bees for the first day, but they will thin out as the foragers leave. 

Yes, you should feed a new Nuc.  For the above mentioned reasons, they will have a lack of forager age bees for the first week or two.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #28 on: March 14, 2015, 01:23:51 pm »
Iddee- "I have moved 3 frames of brood, one frame of honey, and one frame of pollen, "AND THE QUEEN" to my waiting medium,"plus 5 empty frames" which is on a bottom board, and has a lid. I wait at least 23 days to see if new queen is mated and laying.

     Iddee, if I pull my 5 frames to make a nuc, AND add 5 empty frames... to me it's not a nuc anymore, it's a hive.

     My thinking is that I pull a nuc, hold it for a month while the original hive is making a new queen, when new queen is laying, kill the old queen in the nuc, and recombine the bees back into the original hive...

   If I put the nuc bees back into the original hive with the new queen, keeping the army of foragers together, won't that make a better chance of more honey for me?
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Offline iddee

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #29 on: March 14, 2015, 02:33:38 pm »
That will work fine if you have a 5 frame box.  NEVER, NEVER, NEVER put bees and 5 frames in a 10 frame box.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #30 on: March 14, 2015, 02:47:05 pm »
Yes I learned that the hard way with 5 in a 10 box, wonky comb all over the place.

If I have hubby throw together a med swarm box, and I put in 3 frames of brood, one honey, and one pollen... what's to prevent the queen from swarming? there is no where for her to do her thing for about 30 days.

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Offline iddee

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #31 on: March 14, 2015, 02:57:25 pm »
So pull one frame open brood, one frame capped brood, one frame honey, one frame pollen and one frame empty, OR build a 5 frame deep and put medium frames in it. They will draw drone comb under the frames, straight, and it can be cut off when combined, or they can be used as is in a deep. I have a few medium frames in deep boxes. They draw straight comb down, but do not attach it to bottom or sides. They work just fine.
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“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.”
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #32 on: March 14, 2015, 04:11:57 pm »
This is a Great thread!  :nice:  It's just what I had in mind for newbees.

I like this last bit of advice Iddee, what I see is the succession of eggs to larvae to capped brood... which will keep the bees busy for those 23ish days that I'm harbouring them. Then, the empty frame will help keep queen content as well.
 
BRILLIANT!!!   :eusa_clap:

I don't have a nuc box of either size, hubs said he could throw one together for me, think I'll go a med  :)

Just went over to DIY and got some 5 frames nuc plans from Robo, and also went to LzyBkpr's website. FYI
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Offline pistolpete

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #33 on: March 14, 2015, 05:53:59 pm »
You don't need anything as fancy as a Nuc box.  Cut a piece of rigid foam insulation or a piece of plywood that fits snugly into a medium box.   You now have a follower board  that allows you to have from one to 9 frames in the box and you can use a standard bottom board and top cover.  Also allows for gradual expansion of the Nuc.    The bees might wander into the empty 1/2 of the box, but with the follower board in place they will not build comb over there.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #34 on: March 14, 2015, 06:58:47 pm »
Hey ya know what? we built a couple of those last year, winged it. I really like this idea of the follower board. I do know that LzyBkpr has how to make them on his website.

Just talked to hubby, he says he has a plan in mind. And I wouldn't mind having a couple of follower board on hand any how. If I'm just going to hold the bees for 30 days only, seems so easy.
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Offline pistolpete

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #35 on: March 14, 2015, 09:13:50 pm »
Don't be scared of selling Nucs Jen.  With 3 healthy hives, you should be able to pull 2 nice Nucs and hang on to them for 3 weeks till you know your new queens came back from mating flights.  Then sell them for $150 each.  It's a really easy way to make the hobby pay for itself even if it's a poor honey year.    Last year I had 3 strong hives coming out of winter.  I made 6 Nucs and still averaged about 80 pounds of honey from each hive.   Mind you our major honey flows are July and August, so they had time to recover and bring in a harvest.
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #36 on: March 14, 2015, 10:21:23 pm »
Toying with this idea. I think I'm being over cautious. Took 4 years to get one decent hive let alone three. All's I want to do is Not take any bees out of the hives. I know I could get another nuc out of my mother hive, but I want that hive to be a honey producer.

By the way, can I leave this nuc from the hot hive in my yard of I keep a robbing screen on?
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Offline iddee

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #37 on: March 14, 2015, 10:33:55 pm »
Yes. I set a nuc a few feet away from the mother hive. The foragers go back to gather honey. The house bees stay with the brood and queen.
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“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.”
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Offline Jen

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #38 on: March 15, 2015, 12:34:15 am »
Great!  :)   That can be managed easily managed in my yard.

Now, about selling a nuc... shouldn't a standard nuc be deep frames? my nuc is going to be med frames...
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Offline camero7

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Re: Let's Talk Nucs Splits or Divides
« Reply #39 on: March 15, 2015, 07:14:26 am »
Lots of people want medium nucs. They seem to get a premium for them up here.
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