# Semantics of the Nuc



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

You're not wrong. Truly overwintered nucs have a tested queen.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

Overwintered to me, means just that. The nuc was made the previous year and overwintered. Putting a new queen in early spring is not an overwintered nuc.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I agree that an overwintered nuc should have a queen who overwintered. It's always a good idea to ask specific questions of the supplier to clarify everything. Even what a "nuc" is seems to be open to some people's interpretation varying everywhere from a recently installed package to a well established small colony.


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## Dave Burrup (Jul 22, 2008)

Michael Bush said:


> I agree that an overwintered nuc should have a queen who overwintered. It's always a good idea to ask specific questions of the supplier to clarify everything. Even what a "nuc" is seems to be open to some people's interpretation varying everywhere from a recently installed package to a well established small colony.


I agree with the above comments.


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## Gumpy (Mar 30, 2016)

You're not wrong. It's buyer beware. Unfortunately, newbies don't know enough to ask the right questions. I bought local nucs my first year. Didn't know enough to know what I didn't know. Turned out, the guy had purchased full hives off the CA almonds and brought them to MN. Then he bought queens from LA and shipped them to MN. Broke up the hives into nucs and added a queen and a week later sold me two nucs! Like I said, I didn't know any better then.


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## Hillbillybees (Mar 3, 2016)

Personally we make up our nucs from overwintered colonies. We take the queen and her brood and bees for the nuc and let the larger portion of whats left of the colony make a new queen. This gives us a brrod break, controls swarming, more honey is produced during the queenless period, nucs are earlier to market helping the new beekeeper catch more of his spring flow. Plus we get a young queen going into the summer. We start making up our own queens in late May and replace any substandard queens in July. Nucs we keep for our own increase are treated no different than what we sell. They generally come on real strong and make a small to medium crop and have a good population to go thru the next winter. We usually leave them with plenty to go thru the winter which are mild compared to you Northern beeks. We have replaced some queens for free and a couple of nucs that under performed that the new beekeeper did not let us know about in time for a new queen to help them much. I don't want to sell what I would not be willing to buy myself. It works for us.


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## BowersBees (Oct 4, 2017)

I'm pretty sure i've been sold a "nuc" that started out life 3 weeks earlier as a package dumped on some old comb. He made an easy $50 off me. Fool me once....


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## cbay (Mar 27, 2017)

The local Bee guy here got a load of nucs last year and the ones we got turned out pretty good. As i learned more about this stuff i eventually asked him if they came off almonds and he said yes. Evidently the supplier runs a good operation which includes queen rearing and busts up the hives after the almonds and gives them a queen or cell. By the time they make it out of his operation they are decent nucs ready to go.
Was hoping he worked out a deal for this coming season - so as to not have to take chances with another operation. Just found out yesterday he worked it out. This should be the last time i need bees so looking forward to getting nucs similar to last years.
Having no other experiences i could be totally unaware of how good it could be elsewhere, but it could also go the other way i bet.


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## JConnolly (Feb 21, 2015)

I don't see a problem with a new queen that is the progeny of overwintered stock. Because at some point a queen must be replaced, so eventually you want descendants of known winter hardy stock.


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## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

all new queens in spring are the progeny of overwintered stock by default
problem, no, thats more or less the standard for a nuc, a fresh queen. But an overwintered nuc/queen its not, and theres reasons an overwintered one demands a preimun price


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

JConnolly said:


> I don't see a problem with a new queen that is the progeny of overwintered stock. Because at some point a queen must be replaced, so eventually you want descendants of known winter hardy stock.


Well, not all queens are created the same. Not every daughter of a breeder is the same. Some are duds...even from the best. An over wintered nuc has a proven queen. "A queen is most prolific in the year after her birth". Brother Adam


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Around here you can get a nuc pretty early in the spring, overwintered bees but a new queen from Hawaii. Not the same thing at all. Overwintered queen daughter nucs would not be available until much later in the Spring. Still not the same thing, but closer.


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## Clayton Huestis (Jan 6, 2013)

I agree with the original post. They are different and you should get what you pay for. With that said I have bought great spring nucs before with CA queens that over wintered as well as my own bees. NWC from Strachan are good bees. I've had some CA bees I have wondered if the queens were caged after almond pollination= crap.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Here, many nucs are pieced together in the spring with plenty of bees, a few frames of brood, and a laying "purchased" queen from another region. They are more costly but usually a much better option than starting out with a "package".

The best nuc is an overwintered nuc. For new beekeepers, that is the question they should be asking... Is it an "overwintered" nuc?. Big difference.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

I will throw a new wrinkle in the conversation. If you buy an overwintered nuc do you expect to get the nuc that overwintered with its queen in a nuc box? Or would it still be an overwintered nuc if they made up a nuc with frames from different full sized hives and queens that overwintered, but not with those bees? Just curious if it would matter. J


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Uh, where would these overwintered queens have come from if not their own nuc? How do you get the older bees to accept a foreign queen?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

JWPalmer said:


> Uh, where would these overwintered queens have come from if not their own nuc? How do you get the older bees to accept a foreign queen?


That's easy. I winter a bunch of colonies that were used for honey production last year. In early May I carve out 3 frames of bees and brood with the queen into a nuc along with a feed frame, then put a ripe cell or caged queen into the original colony. Now I have a 'wintered nuc' where the queen is with her own bees.

So, is this 'wintered nuc' a 'special one' worth more than a typical nuc cuz it's a queen that wintered with her own proginy ? Or is it just 'old stock' kinda like 'day old bread' ?

There is a lot more to it over just 'did she winter with the bees'. How old is that queen, how long has she been laying ? Huge difference between a fresh queen produced in the middle or late part of the queen season last year, vs one that's headed a colony thru the buildup and honey season already.


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

Everything you say is true. Fivej asked about an overwintered queen that was being mixed with random bees from different hives. I don't think there would be a reason for doing so. Good point on the age of the queen. My opinion is that she should be a summer queen for a winter nuc. Not last year's spring queen or worse.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

I sell overwintered nucs made up in the late summer of the year before wintered as 5/5 which I break down to sell a 5 frame nuc. Available mid April.
I sell spring nucs with new queens open mated in yards full of northern hives relocated down south for the winter. Available late April to mid May.
I sell spring nucs made up here in the North with new open mated queens. Available late May
All the queens descend from my stock.
What kind of premium should a overwintered nuc command over the 2 types of spring nucs? Are the 2 spring nucs equal in value?


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

BowersBees said:


> I'm pretty sure i've been sold a "nuc" that started out life 3 weeks earlier as a package dumped on some old comb. He made an easy $50 off me. Fool me once....


Yeah, you could have done that too if only you had some old comb to start them out on. 
The drawn comb MUST be worth something, right?


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

I would say that the premium is based on what others are willing to pay. Start off $30 higher. If no one buys them, lower the price. If you sell them all, increase the price another $10 next year. I paid $165 for my nuc with a new queen last year. 3 frames of bees, 2 honey and pollen.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

I'm asking what premium a buyer of nucs will pay for these 'special' overwintered nucs over 'rip off' spring made nucs.
Are they worth 20% more, 30%, 50% more?
The general consensus I think is that local overwintered nucs are highly desirable, so how much more are people willing to shell out for them?

If the premium for them is low, it's not worth making them up for sale but rather use them for in-house purposes and sell run of the mill spring made nucs
later in the spring.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

If a queen right nuc overWintered does that mean it is more likely to overWinter again, compared to a nuc that was made up in the Spring in which you bought it?


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## Vectorjet (Feb 20, 2015)

clyderoad said:


> Yeah, you could have done that too if only you had some old comb to start them out on.
> The drawn comb MUST be worth something, right?


The one and only nuc I ever bought had the oldest, nastiest comb you can imagine. Couldn't get that stuff out of the hive fast enough, so for me it wasn't worth much except maybe for swarm traps. This was also billed as a overwintered nuc that I was supposed to get in april, that I finally got in June and was made with a new queen and some frames from other hives. I didn't make a fuss, just chocked it up to experience and moved on in life.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Vectorjet said:


> The one and only nuc I ever bought had the oldest, nastiest comb you can imagine. Couldn't get that stuff out of the hive fast enough, so for me it wasn't worth much except maybe for swarm traps. This was also billed as a overwintered nuc that I was supposed to get in april, that I finally got in June and was made with a new queen and some frames from other hives. I didn't make a fuss, just chocked it up to experience and moved on in life.


Any pictures of the comb you can post?


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Vectorjet said:


> The one and only nuc I ever bought had the oldest, nastiest comb you can imagine. Couldn't get that stuff out of the hive fast enough, so for me it wasn't worth much except maybe for swarm traps. This was also billed as a overwintered nuc that I was supposed to get in april, that I finally got in June and was made with a new queen and some frames from other hives. I didn't make a fuss, just chocked it up to experience and moved on in life.


I guess you wanted bees worse than you wanted new comb, eh? If you didn't like what you bought, why did you buy it?


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

Clyderoad: Betterbee's 2018 price for a spring nuc is $185 and an overwintered nuc is $246. Of course their spring nucs are not rip offs. They always sell out, so people are willing to pay the premium for overwintered nucs.


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

JWPalmer said:


> Uh, where would these overwintered queens have come from if not their own nuc? How do you get the older bees to accept a foreign queen?


I met someone who said that they do this, but I have no idea how. Maybe I misunderstood what he was saying, but he clearly said that he breaks down big hives into nucs and sells them as overwintered nucs. If I see him again, I will ask.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> If a queen right nuc overWintered does that mean it is more likely to overWinter again, compared to a nuc that was made up in the Spring in which you bought it?


My expectation would be, they winter ok, but, you will have a failing queen after that second winter. It's not terribly difficult to figure out why if you do a little math on bee biology.

I saw a presentation on youtube the other day by Jamie Ellis, talking to a Florida beekeeper group. In that talk he mentioned an interesting detail, honeybee queen will lay about half a million eggs in her lifespan. I thought that was an intriguing number, wondering if it was a quote from literature, or, just an off the cuff number meant to mean 'a lot of eggs', so I emailed him to ask. His response, it's from literature and is a correct number.

So now do some arithmetic. Start a nuc mid season with two frames of brood and a cell. By the time they settle in for winter, that queen will have laid on the order of 120,000 eggs, a bit less if your season ends earlier. The following season she heads a full size colony, and thru the year will put between 250 and 300 thousand eggs into cells, depending on the length of your season. These are not difficult numbers to figure out, good queen lays 1500 eggs a day on average. So now this queen coming out of the second winter has already used up 400 thousand or so of here lifetime egg supply. At 1500 a day, it means there is an expectation she will approach failing around 60 days into the spring buildup. This would translate into two good brood cycles, then somewhere into the 3rd or 4th brood cycle she is essentially 'used up'.

ofc, this math assumes a well managed colony throughout, varroa kept under control and the colony is fed when they need food. Lots of other factors with respect to the 'overwinter' part, but, assuming a successful overwinter of that colony originally procured as a wintered nuc in the spring, then in the second season there is an expectation of queen failure part way into the second season if she is not replaced by either the bees, or the beekeeper.

Hence my earlier post on defining a 'wintered nuc'. To me, it's all about the queen and her history. If we make a nuc to winter, but use the queen from a successful summer colony and introduce the new queen to that colony at the time we make up the nuc, then, what you have in the nuc is essentially a 'used up' queen, not a fresh vigorous queen.

It's like everything else in beekeeping, the correct answer always boils down to 'it depends on a lot of factors' and there is no 'one size fits all' right answer.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Fivej said:


> Clyderoad: Betterbee's 2018 price for a spring nuc is $185 and an overwintered nuc is $246. Of course their spring nucs are not rip offs. They always sell out, so people are willing to pay the premium for overwintered nucs.


Thanks 5j. Looks like a bit better than a 30% premium. About the minimum it takes to make it worth ones (my) while.

I wonder the ratio of sales between the two there? My ratio is 1:4 spring to overwinter. Nearly all sales, and it makes perfect sense, to new hobbyists.
Those in the game with resources opt for packages. 

I've found that most nuc buyers have champagne taste on a beer budget after either laying out the money for equipment to get started or for replacing
a couple of winter dead outs (once again) and quickly opt for 'budget' nuc. 

Thanks again.


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## beehapiary (Jan 13, 2017)

Nearly all sales, and it makes perfect sense, to new hobbyists.

Yes it does

Those in the game with resources opt for packages. 

I’m not sure I agree. If I have resources and don’t want a Georgia Queen then there is little choice, packages start at $120, then replace the package queen with a northern queen for $40 I mite as well buy the overwintering nuc with proven queen.

I've found that most nuc buyers have champagne taste on a beer budget after either laying out the money for equipment to get started or for replacing
a couple of winter dead outs (once again) and quickly opt for 'budget' nuc

Maybe I’m in the minority, but if your drinking French water I’d much rather have Belgian or Canadian water myself. 

It’s like everything I purchase, new or used, I reasearch it till I’m sick of it. There are many interpretations of ‘the overwintered nuc’ which I didn’t realize. 

Thanks again.[/QUOTE]


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

> I’m not sure I agree. If I have resources and don’t want a Georgia Queen then there is little choice, packages start at $120, then replace the package queen with a northern queen for $40 I mite as well buy the overwintering nuc with proven queen.


In your case, if your looking to expand a little before northern queens are available, have you considered growing the package on your resources (drawn comb) until requeening with cells from your overwintered bees is possible? The package could be managed so that it does not contribute to the drone population as well. Buy one package, grow it out removing drone brood until your swarm season, split it into 3 nucs destroying the original queen and place cells from your overwintered bees. My view is that resources are actually utilized this way, both bee resources and comb resources.



> I've found that most nuc buyers have champagne taste on a beer budget after either laying out the money for equipment to get started or for replacing
> a couple of winter dead outs (once again) and quickly opt for 'budget' nuc.


Bees are not cheap, especially after start up expenses for hive ware and gear. It's also not cheap replacing them every year.
I drink water from the faucet, no idea about French, Belgian or Canadian.



> It’s like everything I purchase, new or used, I reasearch it till I’m sick of it. There are many interpretations of ‘the overwintered nuc’ which I didn’t realize.


Have fun researching. Lots will depend upon what you do with your purchase after you make it.


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## Dan the bee guy (Jun 18, 2015)

clyderoad said:


> Lots will depend upon what you do with your purchase after you make it.


Sometimes I think that is the only thing that matters.


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## Vectorjet (Feb 20, 2015)

sqkcrk said:


> I guess you wanted bees worse than you wanted new comb, eh? If you didn't like what you bought, why did you buy it?


 Yes, I wanted the bees more than the comb. My real problem with the nuc, was it was promised in April and I didn't get it till June. The fact that it was not a real overwintered nuc would not have bothered me, but I had already paid and every time I called it was just another week or two. I could have gotten my money back, but without traveling a long distance,I couldn't find any bees available to buy. Had only been keeping bees for a year at the time and was inexperienced. Thats why I bought it, didn't know any better. As a side note, I captured my first two swarms on the same day a couple of days after picking up the nuc. For cylderoad, sorry no pictures, not much of a picture taking kind of guy.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

beehapiary said:


> It’s like everything I purchase, new or used, I reasearch it till I’m sick of it. There are many interpretations of ‘the overwintered nuc’ which I didn’t realize.


The thing about researching the idea of buying nucs when one is new to bees, is truely understanding what a nuc really is. To the newcomer who doesn't really understand the 'bits' that make up a bee colony, they tend to look at a nuc as a single item, which it is not. When you break it down into the components that make up a nuc, things start to make more sense, or, get more fuzzy, depending on how you look at it.

What is a nuc? In some areas, they are 5 frame things, in others, 4 frames, and I have seen them sold as 3 framers. In our area, nucs tend to be 4 frame units. In the box you _should_ get 3 frames of brood in all stages, with bees and a laying queen, on 4 frames of comb, the 4th frame should have stores to hold the bees over while they are in the transport box and then while they get established in the new location. So now look at each individual component, and the purpose it serves.

Bees - The bees that come in the nuc are there to incubate the brood and feed the queen. 6 weeks after installation in the new location, all of these bees will be expired due to age.
Brood - This brood is the next generation of bees to support the queen while she lays eggs to create subsequent generations. In 3 weeks it will all be hatched out and represents the next generation of bees for this colony.
Queen -The queen is your egg machine, and the source of ALL the genetics present in the colony after it has been established in the new location and the original bees / brood have died off from age. This happens in 6 weeks if the queen laid the eggs that are the brood in the nuc, 9 weeks if the brood is from a different queen. 9 weeks after the install, the queen that came with the nuc will essentially be the ONLY bee left from the original nuc colony, and all of the bees in that colony will be her offspring.
Comb - Bees need comb to raise brood and hold stores. The comb that comes in the nuc is the comb they will use to continue expanding the colony as they build more new comb.

I think a lot of newcomers dont understand the various components of a nuc, hence they are not really clear on which components bring value. This depends also on what your goals are. A commercial honey producer buying spring nucs has a defined goal, they want a honey crop off that nuc that will exceed the value of the nuc cost, including inputs they added after purchase. A backyard hobby type may have a less lofty goal, they just want a healthy bee colony that will prepare itself properly by end of season to survive the oncoming winter, and are not measuring inputs and outputs with respect to cashflow.

So now look at the individual components in more detail. 

The brood: A deep frame has roughly 7000 cells, and a good brood frame will have brood in 5000 of those cells. Three frames of brood implies then you should get roughly 15,000 brood in all stages ranging from egg to emerging. This brood is the critical and main difference between a nuc and a package, the nuc colony has a big head start compared to a package started on the same day. A package started on comb will take a couple weeks to get that much brood on the go, so it's a month behind the nuc. A package started without comb will take substantially longer. this is where you start to see the difference between experienced and inexperienced beekeepers. The inexperience beekeeper looks at the bees to decide if the colony is 'big and healthy', the experienced beekeeper looks at the brood.

The bees: If we assume the bees in the nuc are an even spread over the age groups, as long as there are enough to incubate the brood in the box, a bee is a bee is a bee, and the lineage is not that important, they wont be around for the long haul anyways. How many bees are needed ? Depends on where you are and when you get the box. Early nucs in a northern climate need more bees to incubate a given amount of brood due to colder overnight temperatures. If there are to many bees in the box, they will be headed into swarm prep mode shortly after install due to lack of comb, and this will happen quicker if there is a flow on and the bees start backfilling brood comb with incoming nectar due to lack of storage space. More bees is not always better, if the nuc is busting at the seams with bees, and a flow is on, they need more comb for storage space if you want to keep them out of the trees. Not realistic for a new beekeeper with no inventory of drawn comb. The bees / brood populations need to be in balance, which doesn't always mean 'busting at the seams with bees'.

The comb: Things vary widely in this area. Some sellers use nuc sales as an opportunity to flog off old comb. Others are selling nucs with comb built the prior season. Reality is, age of the comb is NOT a really big thing, what matters is the quality of the comb. If you have old brood frames, but they are clean and all cells available for raising brood, that is good comb. If the comb is littered with pollen mummies and other bits such that only 1/2 to 2/3 of the cells are useable, that's bad comb. Particularly in a 'wintered' nuc, I would NOT expect clean white comb, it would be a bit of a red flag for me. If they wintered on that comb, then it's had multiple brood rounds already, expect it to be a bit dark from cocoons . That does NOT make it bad comb.

The queen: When you get your box, the queen is but one bee of many. She may or may not be the mother of all the bees in the box, and it's not an important point if she is or is not. Her history is very important. If you have a queen that was raised mid to late season the prior summer, she is a queen in her prime. If she is a queen raised this spring, you have a young queen, probably a vigorous young queen, but how vigorous she is wont show for a few weeks. Another way folks make up nucs, they wait for swarm cells to show in production colonies, then harvest 3 frames of brood with the queen to become a nuc, allowing the larger colony to raise a fresh new queen from the cells. In a case like this, you are getting an old queen that may well be on her way to failure. Easy to tell, if the bees start supercedure cells a couple weeks after install, then she was an old queen on her way to failing.

We dont buy nucs, but will have a few surplus most years which I will make available for sale. With that said, if I was going to purchase nucs for some reason, here is how I would look at them and manage the purchase.

A - I want to know the lineage and history of the queen. If it's a swarm queen, I will requeen with my own stock as soon as I have fresh queens. If it's an import or wintered queen, we would let her build up the colony and evaluate. In my own case, the history of the queen would not be a reason to reject (or pay extra) for a nuc, it would just be used to adjust our planning for the season. That works for me because we have a surplus of queens available once the mating nucs are all populated, wont work for somebody just starting out. With that said, my advice to new folks is to NOT 'pay up' for some kind of 'special' queen. It's better cash management to keep that extra cash in inventory, and use it to buy a new queen if, and only if, there is a reason to do so. There are never guarantees, and that 'special' queen from fancy stock can be a dud just as easily as the run of the mill queen from run of the mill stock.
B - I will look thru the screen on the transport box to see if there are enough bees.
C - I will ask the seller how much brood is on the combs.

When picking up nucs, I absolutely will NOT open them to inspect. Opening a nuc that's confined will immediately lose about 1/4 or more of the bees, which can leave them short for overnight brood incubation. We will look at them when transferring later.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

> What is a nuc?


Your definition and reasoning's should be qualified with "to me" or "in my opinion". 



> A commercial honey producer buying spring nucs has a defined goal, they want a honey crop off that nuc that will exceed the value of the nuc cost, including inputs they added after purchase.


I haven't met or heard of any commercials who buy nucs to stock their hives. Make them, yes. 
In my experience, Commercials buy packages when they have to.

Do many commercial honey producers in your area buy nucs?


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## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

With exceptions you noted, I thought grozzie2's post was very well stated.


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## beehapiary (Jan 13, 2017)

I'm not sure what 'new beekeepers' have to do with other people selling misleading products. While I appreciate all input, I fully understand the components of a nuc and what resources they have and can become. Try to remember when all you had was foundation to start with, would you still think packages are the way to go? I don't, for $30 more I can get those resources I don't have or want to use, without hurting my existing hives. Once I have more established resources I can handle expansion differently. I presently have 3 hives and 2 nucs that I am overwintering, those nucs will be my resources for multiple options, but I'd like more. I suppose I could wait until the northern queens are ready and make up my own nucs but that doesn't get me where my goals are for this year.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

> I'm not sure what 'new beekeepers' have to do with other people selling misleading products.


The buyer should receive the product as it was described, and not be mislead.



> Try to remember when all you had was foundation to start with, would you still think packages are the way to go?


I don't recall anyone advising that. Maybe I missed it.
FWIW nearly everyone puts some foundation frames in their hives every year for one reason or another. No need to try and remember. 



> I suppose I could wait until the northern queens are ready and make up my own nucs but that doesn't get me where my goals are for this year.


The goal you expressed was to "expand a little", I guess there is more to it. Good luck.


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## [email protected] (Aug 1, 2004)

I sell about 100 five-frame nucs every year. About 50/50 overwintered and made up in the spring. (we run about 200 hives.)
To me, what grozzie2 said makes a lot of sense. At least 75% of my annual customers have bought from me before, which makes me feel good. If our nucs are not booming...we don't sell them. 100% of the brood in any nuc comes from the queen in the nuc, and I encourage buyers to look at the brood frames. 3+ frames of brood, one frame pollen/honey and one more fully drawn frame.
With all the new beekeepers there are suddenly lots of nuc suppliers and in this area a very large percentage of the nucs are made up in Florida or the Carolina's and the quality varies a great deal. Unfortunately, newer beekeepers have difficulty judging both what they want and what is offered.
A properly prepared overwintered nuc is always better than a spring nuc. At least $50 better. In case of doubt, ask another local beekeeper in your area who he/she would recommend.


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