5-Frame Nuc Starters

[Chip Euliss]

This spring I made 5-frame nucs using 1 frame of brood with my old queens that were just too good to pinch.  I put them in 5-frame boxes and put cells in after a while.  Got busy and didn't check as soon as I should have but when I did, they were plugged.  A friend of mine is making a box assembly jig for me; I'll pick up on my way back from a fishing trip in a few weeks so I haven't nailed any deeps together since early January--I'm out of assembled deeps!  I just keep adding a 5-frame nuc boxes to the top and now they are mostly 4 boxes high.  When I get some new boxes put together and painted, I plan to make doubles out of them.  I make nucs each year to rejuvenate stalled hives or ones with failing queens.  I always put the "extras" in a single deep but they've never grown the way the ones this summer in nuc boxes.  Maybe advantages in starting small and growing in increments less than 10-frame boxes?

[Perry]

Hey Chip, I wonder if there isn't something to it.
I have a bunch of nucs that I started late, too late to sell. I am amazed at how quickly they have mushroomed. I am scrambling and have just built 15 second story five frame boxes, primed and painted them and they are all on already. I need to build another 10 or so and that should see me head into winter with around 30 double deep 5 frame nucs. The bees seem to really thrive when not overwhelmed with too much space.

[Chip Euliss]

I think you're right Perry.  Probably much easier to regulate temperature and humidity when there's less dead space.  I had a bunch of 5-frame nucs I wasn't using so I took the bottom board off (I screwed mine in so they are stand alone units) and I had those handy to add a second box till I could get some deeps put together.

Just saw a post on BS where a fellow in MB was using 3, 6-frame nucs for honey production using a 1.5 queen system (3, 6-frame nucs with 2 queen excluders up top and regular 10-frame supers above that--looked pretty interesting.

[Knucs]

Of my 31 hives, only 4 are standard deeps.  I'm barely keeping ahead of the bees with equipment!  I've heard Nuc sized hives do seem to grow faster.  Some beeks have likened it to them being in nature in a hollow tree which is perhaps more Nuc size.