# Mating nucs indoors



## Daddy'sBees (Jul 1, 2010)

Sounds good to me. I don't foresee any problems and it gives you some control over the weather conditions, both heat and cold.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Don't know if this barn has them, but closed interior windows can be a hazard to bees. I personally don't see a need for the shelter, as weather is rarely a significant problem for us in VA. Perhaps SHB could be a bigger problem in the shade of the barn. SHB are always a challenge for mating nucs and you may be making it more favorable for the SHB (perhaps varroa too) with the shade.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

AstroBee said:


> I personally don't see a need for the shelter, as weather is rarely a significant problem for us in VA.


Try catching queens in the rain...and you have queen cells ready tomorrow.


----------



## LT (Aug 17, 2006)

A friend of mine and I had some in a barn near Groundhog Mtn. overlook. Our adivce would be to keep them with the entrances almost out from under the roof and make sure windows are not closed. They really need to see the light. Bears will climb into barns so you might still need a hot wire. Good Luck


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Michael Palmer said:


> Try catching queens in the rain...and you have queen cells ready tomorrow.


I use a beach umbrella over the mating nuc - cheap portable solution that works great.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Yep, I've used umbrellas, tents, canopies, screened rooms. Having a roof would be nice...and a place to keep dry would be nice, too. 

I visited JP Chapleau in Quebec once. His cell builders were under a roof with free flying access to the outside.


----------



## canoemaker (Feb 19, 2011)

There is no glass in this barn. The long open side is 12 feet high. I plan to block it off with plywood to a height of six feet to keep out cattle/bears, etc. It will also force the bees to get above my head level as they come and go. Along an exterior wall of the main barn is a shed roof that makes a 10'x28' enclosure. It has siding all the way around and should make a good place to put a few dozen mating nucs. The main barn also has a closed off area (10'x12') where they must have kept feed or other supplies. It has a raised wooden floor. I plan to use that room for storing woodenware and as a grafting room. The rest of the barn has about 8 to 12 inches of dried manure which I am in the process of removing. I got one pickup load yesterday and vowed to bring a dust mask for my next load!


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I think I would do as LT suggests. Have the mating nucs lined up along the open shed. I wouldn't put multiple mating nucs inside and expect the virgins to find their way to the correct hole with a high % of success. You could add the 6' wall, and make the entrances through the plywood. Mark each entrance differently. Ever see a bee house?


----------



## canoemaker (Feb 19, 2011)

Michael, Yes I've seen bee houses and I could easily provide entrances through the wall for the mating nucs that line the exterior walls of the barn. That wouldn't help for the ones along the interior walls. However, I plan to paint distinctive graphic designs on each mating nuc. Will that be enough to help the virgin queens find the right entrance?
LT, I'm up the Blue Ridge Parkway about 12 miles from Groundhog Mt. Do you still keep bees there?


----------



## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

If the mating nucs are clustered together in a very small space, you will have problems with queens returning to the wrong place. The way to avoid this is to have a landing board and a bright bee-visible color to identify the correct area and entrance. Remember that bees detect only 4 colors and that black and white are NOT colors though a bee can detect black and what passes for white to a bee. Bees do NOT detect red, to them it appears as black. Bees detect part of the ultraviolet spectrum.

My suggestion would be to locate the mating nucs on the inside of the 6 ft high wall you will be constructing and drill a hole through to the outside so they can fly. Use spray paint to color an area around each hole so the queen will have a clear color marker to return home.

DarJones


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

canoemaker said:


> Will that be enough to help the virgin queens find the right entrance?


Some will, some won't. As Dar said, it's going to effect the % of success. My mating yard has 500 nucs, separated into 4 groups. I try to arrange them so they will have landmarks and different patterns of nuc placement. Even so, I have some issues with returning virgins entering the wrong hole. Returning virgins have a clear view of the setup from all directions, and still I have some % of loss...easy to tell when a virgin got lost...no queen, no emergency cells. When I started mating queens, I had my nucs in a production yard with the production hives and the mating nucs close together. The % of success was low...50% or less sometimes. I expect the nucs within the interior of your nuc room would be similar.


----------



## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

Michael why do you think having the nucs in a production yard lowered your percentage?

frazz


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Yes, because everything was packed too tightly together. I guess if the mating nucs had been separated from the production colonies by 50 yards, and spread far enough apart in their group...with enough landmarks, the % would have been better.


----------



## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

thanks for the reply Michael, that makes sense


----------



## canoemaker (Feb 19, 2011)

My production yard is about 1/4 mile away from the queen rearing barn. However, there will be some starting, finishing, and support hives in the large open area of the barn. I seem to remember on another thread that someone was having trouble with bees leaving a virgin in a mating nuc to go to a hive that had a mated queen. I am concerned about that, but am hoping that by separating the mating nucs from the other hives in the barn via walls/baffles, the absconding will be less likely to happen. I know that by having a lot of nucs inside I will lose some queens, but I'll have to weigh those losses against the convenience of being able to pull ripe cells from the finisher and immediately being able to place them into nearby nucs without regard to weather. Last year I had a hive opened up with frames scattered about as I was looking for the perfect sized larvae to graft when a *sudden* downpour caught me off guard. I had to stay there and deal with it as I closed up the hive, and it was a mess. I'll accept some losses to avoid that scenario again. If the losses are too great I'll have to rethink how to arrange my setup.


----------



## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

It will be really interesting to see how this all works out, I feel like having the nucs inside is not such a good idea but having never tried it and not knowing anyone who has I'm only guessing. The only experience I have of anything similar is hives placed into pollination on apple orchards that have a mesh roof over the top, they dont do so well, but then thats over a much larger area than a barn.

I hate diddling around doing cell work in the rain it sucks!


----------



## canoemaker (Feb 19, 2011)

frazzledfozzle said:


> It will be really interesting to see how this all works out, I feel like having the nucs inside is not such a good idea but having never tried it and not knowing anyone who has I'm only guessing.


I'm eager to see how this works as well! I won't be putting all my eggs (or cells) in one basket, though. I will have mating yards set up on my farm where I can easily tend them. Here I have two small sheds that I can use strictly for cell builders and finishers. My hope is to have some flexibility in supplying the mating nucs. When the weather is nice at a time that I must remove cells from the finishers, I can place them in the outdoor nucs. I'll reserve the indoor nucs for times when the cells have to come out of the finishers, but its pouring outside. I know in practice it won't work smoothly all the time, but that's what I'm shooting for. If my losses are too great in the barn, I will move the nucs out, but keep the main hives there. I can always put cell protectors on and keep the virgins in banks until the weather permits putting them outside.


----------

