# Overall most successful size mating nuc that you use



## kilocharlie

Pretty clearly, I do not idealize this, but I do it, to an extent, by time of year. 

Early Spring queens get 3 deep frames - my deep standard boxes are easily divisible into 3 compartments with 3 frames each. While the nectar flow is screaming, they do well enough on fairly low numbers of bees (a 32 0z drink cup of young bees + some returning field bees) in each mating / increase nuc'. If I had more bees on my first 1 or 2 batches of queens, I'd give them 4 frames and more bees, but I do not yet have a large apiary.

Late Spring, I make fewer queens, fewer nuc's, give them 4 frames each, and more bees (one 32 oz cup of young bees and one of field bees) in order to jump what's left of the nectar / pollen flow. The other frame is mostly capped brood, unless they need pollen and the donor colony was long on it. These often out-perform my early queens. Lesson? Probably make fewer but stronger early-Spring nucleus colonies...

Early Summer, I may, depending on the nectar flow, split a colony threatening swarming into 2, each getting 5 frames and an entire 10-frame box usually with some foundation, but drawn combs is better if the flow is ending early. If the flow is closing soon (= is the ground brown yet?) I'll more likely distribute a swarming colony to other weaker colonies, using the queen in the best possible place the situation allows.

Forget late-Summer queens. In my area, there has been essentially zero chance for them making it over Winter the last several drought years. Instead, focus on building strong colonies. The early queen nuc's are coming up well. The addition of a nuc' to a treated colony really seems to boost morale. In my area, by Summer, a few strong colonies is FAR better than a bunch of weak colonies.

The first few batches of queens that stay in increaser nucleus boxes are mostly earmarked for re-queening my production colonies right after mid-August mite treatment. I use formic acid, and it is hard on queens, but it leaves very, very few varroa, often zero. 

The nuc's are treated with some gentler IPM mite treatment, depending on mite load. The nuc's are combined with the treated colonies via newspaper combine method. The nuc's rarely have any drone brood, if they do, I remove it and put it in the solar wax melter.

My mid-Spring produced queens' nucleii are sometimes numerous and populous enough to sell a few nucleus colonies. I'm not yet big enough to sell good numbers of queens, certainly not late years in the drought cycle. In SoCal, I have no ambition in drought years other than to somehow stay a beekeeper. Bees need flowers. No rain, very little nectar, very little pollen, you'd dang well better have robbing screens, a few buckets of BeeSweet, and some patties.

As you might see, I design the timing around mid-August, when I deliver the meanest IPM treatment (formic acid), then need to re-queen a bunch of production colonies (by combining with increasing nuc's). Late-season queens do little except thin down my yard. It seems I quit making queens earlier every year, trying to make *exactly* the right number of queens for the size of my apiary at any one time. Seems they have to have a month of Spring nectar flow left in order to make it over Winter, so I should probably buy Hawai'ian queens in January / February, and raise queens in March, April, and early May if it allows.

This may change this year (2017), as we appear to be having our second wet year in the last 13 years, the first since 2010. It will depend on how late we get rains, and how much drops. 

Generally, the later in the year, the bigger I build the nuc's. I have the bees to spare, they need the population to jump what's left of the nectar flow, they have to build up for Winter and they need the troops to do it in less time.

I shoot for exactly the right number of nuc's for re-queening and slight expansion of my apiary (could have perhaps gone more aggressive this year). If everything goes better than expected with the queen rearing, I may sell some nuc's. I cut off entirely when the hills start turning brown. Gotta have re-queening nuc's for the production colonies after mid-August mite treatments. Better to distribute bees from queenless colonies to other strong colonies than to make too many weak nuc's.


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## Matt903

For years I have used two frame deep queen castles from Brushy Mountain. These have really worked well for me, I liked them because everything is standard, all the frames are interchangeable with all my other equipment. BUT... as the business has grown, I have decided to switch to mini mating nucs, for the simple fact that it takes far less resources to run a mini mating nuc over the season, than standard deep frames in the queen castles. I have no intention of wintering mating nucs, just use them for breeding queens. I have experimented with mini mating nucs the last couple of years, and settled on Fat Bee Man Baby Nucs, I had 50 built this month.


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## mathesonequip

i asked this question to a long time queen breeder last year. he told me deep nuc boxes work the best. BUT he uses the small mateing styrofoam boxes, he has a lower sucess rate, the reason he does this is less bees and much lower labor time tied up finding queens. i am not sure there is a best answer for you.


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## tech.35058

I dunno if I am included in the targeted poll respondents ... I have only been working with bees a very few seasons. I am sure that what poor results I have had were my own fault. that said
I am all medium frames, except for a box or two which I hope to fill with bees and sell.
I had tried some methods of cell production, but discovered that when swarming time comes, I have plenty, so no effort is required.
When I tried the divided box method, usually, all of the bees migrated to one compartment, and abandoned the others. perhaps the recipient compartment had a stronger smelling qc, or the abandoned qc was damaged or a dud. This result was from both deep & medium split boxes.
I decided to solve this by using 4 or 5 frame nuc boxes, with 3 frames bees/resources & the rest foundation-less frames. This did better, but some of these were also abandoned. In one case , the "last years marked queen" I had saved out in a nuc actually swapped from one box to another.http://www.beesource.com/forums/images/smilies/scratch_head.gif
This year I will put my mating nucs much further apart. Figure out & learn from my experiences. Good Luck! ... CE


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## Juhani Lunden

Brad Bee said:


> For those of you who raise queens, what is the overall most reliable and most successful mating nucs that you use?
> 
> I've built some 3 frame nucs, or more specifically divided a 10 frame deep into 3, 3 frame deep compartments. I haven't used them enough to know how well they are going to work for me.
> 
> I want to work to get to the point that I overwinter bees in mating nucs, most likely double or triple stacked. I want to work my way into making and selling queens and bees. I will have to ramp up my current hive amount and will likely move my mating yard and drone production hives to our other farm, about 10 miles away.
> 
> With our intense and relatively short flow, I need to make up nucs with mated queens by late March in order for new beeks in our area to be able to take advantage of the remaining flow. Either that or sale only overwintered nucs. Either way I'm going to need queens, and I'd love to have a reserve of hives myself.
> 
> I know a lot of people use mini nucs, with just a cup or two of bees, but I read on here where they sometimes abandon those mini nucs. With my 3 frame nucs, with full length frame and a small amount of bees, the bees heat is spread out over a long area and not as efficient as the mini nucs would be.
> 
> Is there a perfect set up?



With thorough and well done work, and reasonabl mating weather it is not hard to get 90%, or even higher, success in Apidea mating nucs (2,5 dl bees).

(To avoid bees abandoning they need to held in a totally dark and fairly cool place over 2 nights. )


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## Ian

It's basically taking the good with the bad which ever method or set up you choose. That's my answer to an unanswerable question. Different methods , different set ups, all depending on cash investments.
My favourite is mating in a full size nuc, I love the small size strategy of minis. I've converted the 3 mini frames into 5 which has improved their maintenance and space issues .


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## mathesonequip

Ian said:


> It's basically taking the good with the bad which ever method or set up you choose. That's my answer to an unanswerable question. Different methods , different set ups, all depending on cash investments.
> My favourite is mating in a full size nuc, I love the small size strategy of minis. I've converted the 3 mini frames into 5 which has improved their maintenance and space issues .


:thumbsup:


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## AstroBee

Ian said:


> I've converted the 3 mini frames into 5 which has improved their maintenance and space issues .


Can you share the details on you extended them to fit 5?

Thx


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## Ian

To be honest I found the feeders very cumbersome. It's terrible for filling with honey comb and impossible to get Queens out of If they sneak over. It's the first place ants will dig into and render the space useless.
So on a slow fall late season day I set my employee up with a razor knife and she cut all the feeders out so the unit fits 5 frames. 
That extra space had made our maintenance work easier,


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## WesternWilson

There are some great video resources on this topic, but before I list them, a couple of beekeepers in my local club (on the Canada/USA border in the PacNW) are trying out the EPS nuc setups from Finland this year. We are hoping the good insulation value of the boxes and the rain resistant design are of value not only in our winters but in our cool, wet summers...and give us a bit of a jump in the spring so we can aspire to build up a good forager force by the blackberry bloom in May/June if not the maple in March/April. So you might want to try one of those out too. Blue Sky Supply ships them (alas the shipping is exorbitant) and charges a reasonable price for the components.

Mini mating nucs (the double mating nucs in styrofoam may be a good compromise??)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL3HRd1n53g

also doubles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuzNT-66R9M

Setting up double colonies 
part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zy2JeBj_i0
part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9Hn1wvKb54

I have bred my own queens for a few years now and whatever you put them in, vigilance seems to be a key factor in success. The smaller their quarters the more vigilance needed as nucs of any size swarm in a heartbeat! The mini's are really meant for mating only, with the queens going into larger quarters once back and mated.

I feed them all at first as that tells me any low performing queen is probably a dud, not just at the mercy of a small forager force.

The issue with mating nuc populations leaving the mating nuc before or just after a queen cell is introduced is mentioned in the U of Guelph videos. You can put a 1/2 stick of TempQueen into the mating nuc, and shut it up for the first day after q. cell introduction to prevent all the bees leaving. Haven't tried this myself as I don't usually move queen cells around, but this year I plan to and will try those tricks.


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## Michael Bush

The most practical I have found is two medium frames. But if I had the resources I would like to set up five frame mating nucs...


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## AstroBee

Ian said:


> To be honest I found the feeders very cumbersome. It's terrible for filling with honey comb and impossible to get Queens out of If they sneak over. It's the first place ants will dig into and render the space useless.
> So on a slow fall late season day I set my employee up with a razor knife and she cut all the feeders out so the unit fits 5 frames.
> That extra space had made our maintenance work easier,


Nice! Thanks for posting. So, how do you feed these nucs without the internal feeder?


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## Ian

I've drilled a hole through lid, 1 1/4" plug, and feed through 1lbs inverted honey tins but I think I'll feed them from now on by pressing creamed honey into an outside frame


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## frogpondwarrior

There is a sheet of plywood beside my table saw???? Now that this has come up I wonder if I should scrap my plans. Currently have a two sided styrofoam mini and a nuke size box full of half frames. Thought there would be room to put a couple of dividers and make those half size frames into 3 of the 3 frame mating nukes. Tried to get them to draw the frames out last year. Even put elastics around some comb they built in the feeders but they just walked over it. So zero luck and all these different size frames. Now that plywood. Thinking of building and 8 foot long langstroth divided out to hold 3 deep frames. Could fit 16 or 17 of these 3's frame mating nukes in there depending on the width of my dividers. Would have alternate high low entrances with different colors matching each 3 frame width. This allows me to use same frames that's in my 8 and 10 frame deeps. All supers are medium so still two sizes of frames. Lord knows I don't have enough hives to fill this half way right now...but... So am I Crazy or just plain crazy??


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## fatshark

It all depends how you measure 'success'. 
For ease of setup, convenience, space for stores and to check a good laying pattern - 2-5 full frames, usually 3 for me in a full size nuc box, dummied down. Very robust, good mating success, little maintenance.
For using minimum resources, Kielers or similar mininucs, polystyrene, using a cupful of bees and fondant in a frame feeder - queen gets out and mates quicker (weather dependent), high maintenance, needs frequent checking in poor weather. Must bee shaded or they'll likely abscond. Can be used repeatedly - get one mated, remove the queen, add another cell etc. - perhaps 3 times in a row.


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## Michael Palmer

I use a 4-way setup. 10 frame box is divided in half the short way with 5/4", which has a frame rest cut in on both sided. The two chambers created are further divided by a movable division board feeder. Ala Webster. The feeders can be moved to the sidewall, creating a two way with 8 combs each. 

I also built 10 mating frame nuc box to place on top of the 2-way setup for wintering. Winter well and I have all the bees band brood I need to re-establish my mating nucs in May without requiring the bulk bee/spam can business.


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## Ian

Having more comb space like the example above allows for excellent Queen assessments. Where as with those little minis the initial assessments are limited.


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## Michael Palmer

Yep, and in the spring it's pretty obvious which queens I wan't to keep. How valuable are tested queens. &#55357;&#56440; "Good queens don't cost, they pay."


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## Ian

Michael Palmer said:


> Yep, and in the spring it's pretty obvious which queens I wan't to keep. How valuable are tested queens. &#55357;&#56440; "Good queens don't cost, they pay."


Absolutely, this queen rearing nuc strategy is extremely exciting. 
Now in that fairy tale world I will breed in mite suppression... 
Albert's presentation on his Saskatraz project and his work observing effects of all kinds of treatments to the bees susceptibility to viral infections was quite interesting


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## Queen excluder

Michael Palmer did you build those short feeders? Are they just plywood or did you line the inside with something?

Thanks for you talk in Winnipeg.


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## grozzie2

University of Guelph Honey Bee Research Center has some interesting videos on this subject that I stumbled on last night.

A fairly detailed description of how they make up and use the mini's
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL3HRd1n53g

A load of mini's in use on an island for isolated mating
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUpApdL49Rc


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## aunt betty

Bored holes into the covers later for feeder jars. 3x3x3 deep.
This works well for me. The key to success imo is in the drones and how many there are available in the area.


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## WesternWilson

Mr. Palmer, very clever setup, that convertible 4 way. I need to have another chat with my carpenter!

Ian, can you expand on that talk from the SaskTraz team? Is it available on video?

Regards,
Janet


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## Brad Bee

Thanks for all the replies. I really like your set up Michael. I think that's the direction I'm going to head. A couple of questions. Is that a deep that you have divided? It appears to be, but I thought I'd ask. Also, is the division board feeder divided internally and if so, by what? Also, do you put the boxes on top of strong hives to draw out the small combs?


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## Ian

WesternWilson said:


> Ian, can you expand on that talk from the SaskTraz team? Is it available on video?
> 
> Regards,
> Janet


First off, I don't pretend to understand their processes and explications. 
Their work has shown that mite treatments Chem or organic negatively act on the "mite tolerant" genes they use to help identify mite tolerant characteristics.


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## Michael Palmer

Ian said:


> Albert's presentation on his Saskatraz project and his work observing effects of all kinds of treatments to the bees susceptibility to viral infections was quite interesting


Agreed. I hope to get a dozen or so, winter them in nucs, and see what they have going for them over the next few years.


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## Ian

Michael Palmer said:


> Agreed. I hope to get a dozen or so, winter them in nucs, and see what they have going for them over the next few years.


That's my plan aswell. I'm buying in 50 which will fit into a separate nuc yard which I'll be selecting a breeder or two from next year. 
Add them to the mix


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## lharder

I will be bringing in a few more to my micro apiary. The daughters I raised from them showed overall excellent hygienic behaviour. They were tested for a bunch of other things as well (nosema, viruses, mite biting behaviour, genetics), but those samples are still being processed in academia.


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## Ian

That mite biting interests me. Does that trait necessarily follow VHS or is it uniquely it's own? Does aggressiveness follow it ?


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## Clayton Huestis

Mite biting is it's own trait as far as I'm aware. It is now broke into two camps: ankle biters and mite maulers. Ankle biters bite legs and male manhood off. Mite maulers can bite mites in half. Probably same trait one just has more powerful mandibles.


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## Ian

Clayton have you had mite biters ?


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## Clayton Huestis

Not yet, the trait may be in my hives already but I have not yet tried to identify it. With that said I have been doing my homework to source non Italian stock with the trait. Mite biting will deal with mites phoretically. VSH will deal with mites in the brood. With both traits combined possibly with others we may make some serious headway against mites.


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## Ian

Are those bees angry


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## Bob Anderson

I have bees from the Purdue Mite (ankle) biters and they are not particularly aggressive.


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## Clayton Huestis

From what I understand mite biting is not related to stinging aggression.


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## MTN-Bees

I've decided to go with 5 frame medium nucs. I plan to overwinter them.


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## Lauri

I like 4 or 5 half sized deep frames best. Quads, divided standard nuc boxes or custom singles.

















I ether overwinter them, usually after combining together in late summer or get them filled on top large boomer hives early spring. I'll feed those hives, let the bees start to fill the drawn frames, then confine the queen to that box with an excluder until she lays it up well. Once the majority of them are capped, they are ready to distribute to newly made mating nucs. I'll add 1 or 2 brood, 2 feed and one empty drawn frame + ripe queen cell. I confine until the cell has emerged. 

If Nucs are too small, they are hard to manage and queen has to be removed early to avoid being suppressed with no room to lay.

Mating nucs too big on standard frames and if your like me, go the them last for collection because you know they'll hold, then they get big and you'll want to just let them continue to grow/not want to risk a good colony just to get another queen mated. 

I want my mating nucs to be small enough to be able to find and catch the queen quickly, and strong enough she's well cared for, large enough once she starts laying she has enough open cells available I can get some capped brood before collection. I get that with 4 or 5 half sized deep frames.

Now how about your mating nuc stands? Here's what I am building this year to save my back. Most of it made with scraps and salvaged materials.

I have a new yard with some fir & cedar trees. Woodland ants would be an issue with nucs on the ground. The ground is also uneven with rolling hills. 

















I feed a quart of syrup with each new round of cells except during flow periods. Inverted mason jar through screened inner covers. With four frames in a quad, they have a little extra room and can get fat, but generally only on the top of the frame. It's nice to have that room for removal. I rarely have burr comb issues with the extra space.


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## Lauri

I do a lot of these early spring, but they usually get turned into sale nucs. The queen gets mated in them, but I don't call them mating nucs.









This winter I made up some boxes for growing or transport of nucs. Room for interior feeder and five frames. I look forward to using these. My weather here is too cool and too wet to grow or hold very long in cardboard transport boxes.

















Made up a few singles too, just to use up some scrap wood









New design interior feeders use a foodsaver bag as a bladder to hold liquid without leaks


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## WesternWilson

Lauri I am curious...you must have a compelling reason to split the box the short way as this means you must custom manufacture the smaller frames, rather than the usual method of dividing the box lengthways and using standard deep frames which sit parallel to the divider.

Can you expand on why you prefer this custom setup?

Janet


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## lharder

Ian said:


> That mite biting interests me. Does that trait necessarily follow VHS or is it uniquely it's own? Does aggressiveness follow it ?


The Saskatraz queens are very gentle. Pieces of leather were waved over the brood nests and they weren't excitable at all. 1 sting from 12 colonies. My local strain are a bit more prone to stinging.


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## WesternWilson

lharder, were you able to get Sasktraz queens? And if so, how were they?


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## Lauri

WesternWilson said:


> Lauri I am curious...you must have a compelling reason to split the box the short way as this means you must custom manufacture the smaller frames, rather than the usual method of dividing the box lengthways and using standard deep frames which sit parallel to the divider.
> 
> Can you expand on why you prefer this custom setup?
> 
> Janet



More_ interior_ frame space. I think they are laid up better especially since my spring weather is quite cool. 

They are easy to handle and take less resources to get going in spring.

View attachment 31276


Outside frame









inside frames from the same nuc









A closer look at that outside frame. A prolific newly mated queen desperate for space to lay will use it, but it is not preferred.


















Part of that outside area being avoided is largely cooler temps, but also part could be what I call the 'mirror image' effect.

Bees like to copy the image from one frame to the next if they can. It's their construction blueprint. Same cell size, same brood pattern, same feed storage. The outside faces of the last frames in the box have no image to project the layout, since facing image is the box, and it is bare.. 

Here is a few pics to show what I mean:

Here is a frame with a half sheet of foundation in the center only, laid up and capped.










Here is the adjacent frame, a full sheet of foundation, but with the same brood pattern as the partial that was next to it.

View attachment 31281



Below is another frame that was housed next to a half sheet of foundation that reared brood in the center on the foundation like the one shown above.

But if you look closely, this frame has the mirror image of cell size and reared brood as if it had foundation in the center, but it is totally foundation less. (I left this frame out and it got mauled by robbers, but you can still see the previous usage patterns. 

View attachment 31283


I see this often with those half sheet frames. It's more noticeable because you have specific shapes that will catch your eye.
If your interested I can round up more photos as examples.


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## tpope

Lauri,

Do you see a difference in sucessful queen mating between the split nucs with two sets of half frames and the smaller nucs with half frames?

Love the pictures. Thanks for sharing.


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## Brad Bee

Thanks for all the replies. They are greatly appreciated. For those of you using mini frames, are you getting them drawn out on top of a strong hive or are you having bees in mini nucs draw them out? I'm guessing you're getting a big hive to draw them out. If so, how do you arrange them in a standard hive body or do you put a divided nuc on with the frames in it? I've seen or read where some people connect two mini frames together and put them in a standard langsroth hive to get them drawn. If any of you do that, would you mind posting a picture of how you attach the two mini frames together to get them to fit into standard equipment?


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## Ian

A cup full of bees a queen cell and a bit of syrup draws out mini frames quick


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## Michael Palmer

Brad Bee said:


> Thanks for all the replies. They are greatly appreciated. For those of you using mini frames, are you getting them drawn out on top of a strong hive or are you having bees in mini nucs draw them out? I'm guessing you're getting a big hive to draw them out.


First time, I cut up brood comb with my table saw, into pieces that fit into my mating nuc frames. Then I put 20 of those frames into a 10 frame deep, end to end, and the colonies filled the frames with brood. Once the mating nucs were established, I added frames with foundation, and over several years built into 500+ mating nucs. I now winter them over and start each queen rearing season with more mating nucs full of brood and bees than I need. 

Bad drought in 2011. Similar to 2016. Reduced brood rearing in August. Mites overwhelmed what little brood there was. 99% loss that winter. Used overwintered standard nucs to repopulate the mating nuc combs by confining queens with excluder, to box containing 8 mating nuc combs. Took about 160 nucs to fix the problem. 

Another use for my overwintered nucs.


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## Saltybee

Brad Bee said:


> If any of you do that, would you mind posting a picture of how you attach the two mini frames together to get them to fit into standard equipment?


Deleted my photo but the idea I stole from here; 5/8 sheet metal bent into a saddle. Two ears land on full frames with a drop down saddle to hold the the half frame centers. Works well for a few frames, quick and easy.


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## Brad Bee

Michael Palmer said:


> First time, I cut up brood comb with my table saw, into pieces that fit into my mating nuc frames. Then I put 20 of those frames into a 10 frame deep, end to end, and the colonies filled the frames with brood. Once the mating nucs were established, I added frames with foundation, and over several years built into 500+ mating nucs. I now winter them over and start each queen rearing season with more mating nucs full of brood and bees than I need.
> 
> Bad drought in 2011. Similar to 2016. Reduced brood rearing in August. Mites overwhelmed what little brood there was. 99% loss that winter. Used overwintered standard nucs to repopulate the mating nuc combs by confining queens with excluder, to box containing 8 mating nuc combs. Took about 160 nucs to fix the problem.
> 
> Another use for my overwintered nucs.


Thanks for the information.


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## Brad Bee

Saltybee said:


> Deleted my photo but the idea I stole from here; 5/8 sheet metal bent into a saddle. Two ears land on full frames with a drop down saddle to hold the the half frame centers. Works well for a few frames, quick and easy.


I'm not following what you're talking about.


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## MTN-Bees

I use the Mann Lake Double Mating Nucs when I have extra cells. As Ian said a cup of bees and some syrup and they have it drawn out in no time. Great for extra cells, but I move the queens to something else pretty quick if they take.

I overwintered mating nucs this year and it's really nice not having the resources pretty much ready to go with some manipulation.


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## WesternWilson

Thanks for that series of photos and text Lauri...we'll get our local woodworker to put a few of these together. I think we will use Michael Palmer's idea of using a movable small frame feeder as a divider as well.


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## texanbelchers

Brad Bee said:


> I'm not following what you're talking about.


i use something similar to get top bars drawn. I use stiff coat hanger wire. Think of a "U" with wings. It is supported on full frames on each side. I could go 3 wide before issues, but that depends on material strength. There may be some excess comb to trim as required.
-- bar --
..|___|

. For spac retention only


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## Saltybee

Brad Bee said:


> I'm not following what you're talking about.


Sorry I did not keep the photo. It is so simple it is hard to describe, though texanbelchers did well. A lot like a square tube saddle clamp, the wings rest on whole frames and the half frames land in the drop.

https://goo.gl/images/kR5ItE


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## Brad Bee

Saltybee said:


> Sorry I did not keep the photo. It is so simple it is hard to describe, though texanbelchers did well. A lot like a square tube saddle clamp, the wings rest on whole frames and the half frames land in the drop.
> 
> https://goo.gl/images/kR5ItE


I think I've got it now.....

See if this describes what you're talking about. You're using both standard and mini frames in the same hive body. The clamp you posted a picture of sits across the top bar of the long frames and serves for a frame rest for the mini frames? That about it? If so, what are you using for the shelf on the box end of where the minis sit?


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## Brad Bee

Mr Palmer, are you using your characteristic feed sacks for inner covers on these nucs too, to keep bees from migrating from one mini nuc to the other?


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## Saltybee

Brad Bee said:


> If so, what are you using for the shelf on the box end of where the minis sit?


Just the regular hive body rest. Took me a little adjusting of the saddle width to have the total of the two half frames plus the saddle to equal the length of a full frame. I was matching a foam nuc frame which is not an even half frame in my case.

A smart man would have tried an empty before opening a live hive, a stubborn man does it my way.


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## Michael Palmer

Brad Bee said:


> Mr Palmer, are you using your characteristic feed sacks for inner covers on these nucs too, to keep bees from migrating from one mini nuc to the other?


Yes


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## Brad Bee

Michael Palmer said:


> Yes


For some reason, I was pretty certain that you were using them.


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