# How Many Bees



## chas10 (Oct 26, 2010)

How many bees approx are there in a standard deep 5 frame Nuc. I see 3lb packages are around 10,000. I am going with Nucs this year and was just woundering
Thanks


----------



## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Nucs are better; there are 10,417 bees in a five frame nuc!


----------



## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

I haven't counted mine as precisely as Fish-Stix has. Every time I get up to around 9,000 or so someone asks me what is the square root of 82 million (9,055.38513813....) or what is the ZIP Code of Whiskeytown, California, (96095) and I instanty lose count and have to start over.

I do know that in my nucs there are some old codger bees but a lot of larvae ready to emerge, newly emerged nurse bees and lots of fresh eggs about to hatch. In a package, every bee in there but (hopefully) the queen is just some weeks away from dying so even if there are a lot more in the package, the potential energy of those in the nuc far exceeds any greater number in a package. 

Good luck with your nuc and happy counting!

Wayne


----------



## USCBeeMan (Feb 7, 2009)

A lot.


----------



## scdw43 (Aug 14, 2008)

Four frames completely covered, in a good one.


----------



## Riley (Dec 12, 2009)

One problem is there is no "standard" five frame nuc. Population will vary depending on how strong the supplier made them up, how long they've been established before sale, and so on. But according to Connor's book "Increase Essentials," a nuc created with three frames of brood and accompanying nurse bees and laying queen would have a population of about 5,000 bees at start and about 18,000 at one month (population increase from emerged brood) plus should have three frames of brood in various stages from the queen's laying. He estimates each full frame of brood will produce about 4,800 emerging workers.


----------

