# When to make nucs?



## Hoxbar (Mar 1, 2010)

I want to make a few nucs to either sell in the spring or use for myself. Can I start these nucs now? When is the best time to starts nucs for spring?


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

I did not know there is a bad time to make NUC's. Just more challenging at times.


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## Hoxbar (Mar 1, 2010)

EastSideBuzz said:


> I did not know there is a bad time to make NUC's. Just more challenging at times.


thanks, they generally winter okay?


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## Hoxbar (Mar 1, 2010)

When I start a nuc, how far do I need to move it from the origional hive to keep the bees from leaving?


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## Dave Burrup (Jul 22, 2008)

Hoxbar, when I make nucs I did not move them out of the same yard. If you make the split before the foragers go out in the morning, you will move the foraging bees on the frames. Then put a stick or something strange on the landing board just in front of the entrance. I use a piece of a 1/2-3/4 inch branch cut to wedge between the sides of the bottom board. Leave just enough room for the bees to crawl out. This will cause the bees to re-orient as they go out to forage.


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

I have 2 yards 5 miles apart. So I split and move to the other one and still do the stick thing.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

I make my nucs up in the same yard. I make the nuc up heavy with bees (shake another frame or so of bees into the nuc) and capped brood. The capped brood makes the fastest increase in a nuc, but I also give them some open brood, honey and pollen. I leave the nuc next to the parent hives until evening. The foraging bees will go home.

Now you have a nuc with nurse bees, queen, honey, pollen, capped brood. At dark, or when the foragers have left, I move the nuc to it's new location. The foragers won't remember where that honey was (robbing season around here).

At this time of year I always add a mated queen since if a new queen from eggs fails it is too late to fix anything by the time I find out.


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## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

Hoxbar said:


> thanks, they generally winter okay?


Check with beekeepers in your area. Perhaps in a mild climate, anytime is a good time but, at least here in Maine, nucs made later in August are pretty much doomed to failure. What's challenging about setting up bees to fail?

Again, see what your local beeks say. Make sure your bees have time to build up into a solid healthy unit, with ample stores and winter bees.

Wayne


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## snl (Nov 20, 2009)

Besides early cut down splits. I like to make nucs just about a month before the flow is over. Reason, I'm pulling brood from the honey producing hives. The brood that I'm pulling will not contribute at all to this year's honey crop because by the time that brood will hatch & become nectar gatherers, the flow is over! Pulling brood at that time releases a lot of bees from brood tending to become foragers.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Building the nucleus boxes is usually a Winter activity, and the frames are rotated in to the yard for drawing out comb early in the Spring (extra 10-frame boxes will do, or you can make 5-frame adapter boards to go on top of a 10-frame box). Place the frame to be drawn in a strong colony between 2 open brood frames if possible - it will get done right quick. Rotate it out after it is drawn to an outside corner of an upper box where it won't get filled with honey right away. 

Queen rearing is a timing trick, part of the art of beekeeping. YOU must know your area, its bloom sequence, where the blooms occur, and annual variation by rainfall in order to take full advantage of it. 

The sequence is as follows:

The boxes are built, the frames are built, the frames are drawn out to combs, the bees' populations are increasing in the Spring and approaching swarming conditions, the beekeeper does an inventory of frames to determine how many nuc's can be built, the beekeeper sets up a cell builder colony or a starter and a finisher colony (depending on his operation's scope), 10 days later, he rearranges the colonies and grafts, 9 days after grafting, the beekeeper peeks into the cell builder colony and counts the number of cells and makes up that number of queenless mating nuc's, the MORNING of next day the beekeeper cuts and plants the queen cells and inch below top of the brood patch in the middle frame of the brood in the nuc' box, the beekeeper immediately moves them to a yard several miles away and very near to a DCA=Drone Congregating Area (ideally, at least) or an isolated mating yard with well-chosen drone colonies right near by, the beekeeper adds robbing screens (that the queens can get out of) and feed jars to the nuc's once they are on site. 

The beekeeper then leaves the mating nuc's alone for about 15 days before returning to check inside the boxes for brood laying pattern. Unsatisfactory patterns after 3 weeks get combined with strong colonies.


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