# making a nuc queenless



## Walliebee (Nov 17, 2006)

To make a queen: 3 day old larva is built into a queen cell that is capped on day 7or 8. She will hatch on day 15 to 16. You should see new eggs from her by day 28 to 30.

Go ahead and get the frame of eggs in there. We already have lot of mature drones looking for new young queens!


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## ashb82 (Apr 22, 2010)

Walliebee said:


> To make a queen: 3 day old larva is built into a queen cell that is capped on day 7or 8. She will hatch on day 15 to 16. You should see new eggs from her by day 28 to 30.
> 
> Go ahead and get the frame of eggs in there. We already have lot of mature drones looking for new young queens!


I got a new frame of eggs from my favorite hive and took out the nuc queen this even keeping my fingers crossed


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

Did you mark that frame and are you going to destroy any queen cells built on the other frames?


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## ashb82 (Apr 22, 2010)

I was thinking of cutting each queen cell out and putting them in mini nucs. try to get the queens to breed. May not work but going to give it a try. once i get the mini nucs made up i am going to take them near a friends bee yard. i know which frame has the fresh eggs on it.


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## ashb82 (Apr 22, 2010)

*I got queen cells*


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## MDS (Jan 9, 2011)

Nice! I might have been able to save a hive last year if I had a nuc with a queen in it. One of my hives went into winter queenless and I hoped it would make it when I should have combined it with another hive.

We are going to give the nuc queen raising thing a try this year just as soon as one of my hives make supercedure or swarm cells we are moving some frames to a nuc. Or we might try your way of moving some eggs, maybe one frame of capped brood and enough nurse bees to take care of it. Figure the frame of capped brood would give it a boost while waiting for the queen to mate.

Another thing we might do is keep the queen and bees in the nuc and attempt to winter it over. Here in my part of Missouri winters are not that bad. Then next year use the nuc to build out comb or brood or queens for our full size hives.

Congrads on the queen cells!


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## franktrujillo (Jan 22, 2009)

yes this is what i did three days ago selected my 3 hives that i want queens from got nuc place two frames eggs/larva/with bees ....two frames honey with bees and one empty all frames contain bees....check today 3 days later cells 9 capped..as far as i know they will use up to 3 day old larva to make queen cells so in 3 more days i will cut out all but 1 queen cell in each nuc and place other queen cells in to separate nucs....with no eggs just Queen cell i will place into queen less nucs after 6 hours so i hear that queenless nurse bees will accept any queen or queen cell i will use 3 honey frames with bees for each nuc..


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## A'sPOPPY (Oct 13, 2010)

retracted


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## Foleybees (Apr 4, 2010)

I took three queen cells and place each in their own nuc with a frame of bees and honey. I now have three strong nucs which were just placed in their own hives last week. It does work with queen cells.


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## ashb82 (Apr 22, 2010)

I have canceled my orders for package bees this works to well for me to buy packages. One of my friends did this also, i have read alot of great success all over the net with doing this. What i am thinking of doing this every time my hives get over crowded i will take out a 1 frame of fresh eggs,1 brood and 1 honey/pollen. I bought a nuc last spring that had only 2 frames of brood and a queen, no pollen or honey. i gave them some pollen patties and sugar water the made it just fine.


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## enchplant (Apr 10, 2011)

How soon after the queen cells were capped did you cut them out and put them in their own nuc? Was it successful?


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## Foleybees (Apr 4, 2010)

Not sure who you are asking this question but I will bite. 

We were inspecting the hives a while back and found 10 queen cells with loads of bees. We knew we needed to do something so we just took frames of brew, honey and a closed queen cell (or two...do not remember) and placed them each in a 3 frame nuc. To be honest, I would prefer 5 frame nucs for growth purpose. Anyways, a few weeks later, I open them up and find fresh brew and a queen. Was surprised and happy! Today, each have their own hive in the middle of a clover patch.


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## toad (Jun 18, 2009)

Foleybees, 
Try grafting and then you can do as many nucs as you want or have bees for. One queenless strong colony can easily raise 40 queens. And graftting is so much fun when you graft 20 and 18 or 19 make it very rewarding.


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