# Making up Mating Nucs



## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

Michael B said:


> Over the past few seasons I have successfully raised my own queens. I have done a bunch of trial and error methods. I set up cell builder colonies and set up cell finisher colonies. I have very good luck with starter and finisher colonies. I still am not satisfied with my mating nucs. I have the best success with 5 frame deeps with lots of young nurse bees shaken in and usually I add a frame of capped brood, frame of honey, and two drawn comb frames, and one frame of foundation. My struggles is keeping the bee populations high enough. The mating nucs seem to dwindle in population and the queens mate but never really get going due to such small numbers. I have used two frame castles but have very little success with that set up. I am thinking about building 3 frame deep nucs to cut down on the resources I need to raise queens.
> 
> What are all you secrets and methods in setting up mating nucs? I like to keep all my equipment standard. Not interested in mini's and bringing in specialized equipment. My goal is the raise enough queens for my use, around 20-30 per season and have enough for sale to my local club....another 10-20 queens.


I haven't used it yet, so just take this as info, not as a suggestion. 

I will be trying a homemade queen this spring. It is a deep hive body divided into 3 sections that each hold 3 frames. The bottom board is permanently attached. The top boards are ripped decking with a 1" hole drilled to insert a 12 oz. soda bottle for a feeder. It is based on a device used by Bryon Fisher over several years with success.


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## Specialkayme (Sep 4, 2005)

I've had the same issues you've had.

I find that taking a 5 frame nuc, giving them a frame of brood and a frame of food and a few shakes of bees just isn't enough. Like you said, the queen usually doesn't take off. 

I've had better success adding two, or even three frames of brood with a honey/pollen frame and a frame of foundation (along with a shake of one or two extra frames). The added population gives them some stability. As the queen hatches, mates, and matures to begin laying the population will dwindle. This amount of bees ensures that after they dwindle, there is still plenty there for the colony to continue. Downsides - it requires much more resources, and you need to make sure you don't give the new queen _too_ much time to lay, or they'll swarm.

I've used 4 frame nucs before (deep, split in a deep box, 4 on each side). They work well, but still the best success I have is with two frames of brood and a honey frame.

I've also used mini frames. Tried 4 mini frames and 8 mini frames to a box. The 4's work well in spring time, but you have to be ready to get in there the week the queen is ready and pluck her, then equalize the populations. Otherwise the strong one's swarm (and eventually abscond) and the weak ones dwindle and die (or abscond). 8 frame mini's are better for later in the year around here, when the flow isn't on. 

Try a few different configurations and see what works best for you.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I don't have enough resources to do five frame nucs. I do two frame mating nucs with my standard brood frames (mediums in my case) and a frame of brood, a frame of honey and another frame shaken in. It's pretty foolproof to set up. They don't leave because of the brood.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#matingnucs


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## thebeemanuk (Oct 16, 2014)

I have had the same problems as you for many years give this thread a read
http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-for-feeding-when-nights-are-cold-spring-fall
I have made up a hundred to try next season


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

It may be a fluke but I've had the best luck by starting as early as possible - as soon as I see purple eye drone brood. March for me. 

When those queens start laying the nucs get strong really fast and are prime for the next round of cells - they generally require brood removal to prevent swarming.

The first round of queens may not be prime - although they also might be depending on weather - but they get the nucs going real good. Prime or not, there's always people desperate for queens at that time. Full disclosure and good judgement needed there.

Bigger is better than smaller for me as far as nuc size goes. 4 frame mediums being a fair compromise. Just a hobbyist though.


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## Michael B (Feb 6, 2010)

Michael Bush said:


> I don't have enough resources to do five frame nucs. I do two frame mating nucs with my standard brood frames (mediums in my case) and a frame of brood, a frame of honey and another frame shaken in. It's pretty foolproof to set up. They don't leave because of the brood.
> 
> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#matingnucs


I assume you are moving open brood?


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

Heres what I do to keep even the smallest mating nucs strong.

# 1 rule, I _*never *allow them to have a queenless period_.

When removing the young mated queen, I _immediatly_ ether place a capped cell or caged virgin queen. A queenless period will do two things that can have negative effects. It can quickly demoralize the smaller nucs. It also gives them time to start thier own cells, which are easy to miss even if you look carefully. They will continue to develop and hatch right about the time your installed newly mated queen is laying. Of course that virgin queen kills your newly mated queen immediiatly.

That 'self' as I call them, usually is not as well fed as your grafted specimens and should be culled. That extended delay in brood rearing will seriously set the nuc back unless more young bees and perhaps a frame of brood is added. It's a waste of a mating nuc for another 2-3 weeks. If you've ever installed a marked virgin, then come back in about 3 weeks to find an unmarked queen not yet laying, that's what happened. When your season is short and you only get 3-4 rounds of queens form your mating nucs, every round counts. There are some new queen failures that are unavoidable. This it not one of them if you are careful about your procedure.

#2. Keep them well fed. They won't take up protein patties until the new queen is laying. So a small patty at specific times during each round of queens can work wonders in aiding the smaller colonies to flourish. (A protein patty on all the time will dry out.) Offer them syrup at intervals. With limited comb to both rear brood and store feed, they can only take up so much at one time. I probably feed my five frame half sized deep colonies about a quart for each queen batch (Except during the flow if they are strong enough to be self sufficient.)











#3 timing of mated queen removal. This is something I've worked with quite a bit to get the best results. Basically, if you take the queen out as soon as she starts laying, the bees may remove or cannibalize the unhatched eggs( Especially of you give them ANY queenless period at all) . Why do they do that? My best guess is they are preparing to rear their own queen and those eggs are a quick and complete form of protein for the production of royal jelly. Leaving your queen in the nuc until you have capped brood & larva not only tells you her laying quality, but avoids the self-reduction of the pending brood crop. That's right around 3 weeks from capped cell or virgin to removal.
Now saying that, if you leave your queen in a small nuc much over 4 weeks, she'll run out of room to lay and get quickly suppressed. It's amazing how quickly those big queens can get smaller in size if they have no room to lay. They'll be endlessly searching here and there for an empty cell or two. That's probably the most difficult thing about half sized nucs.

Heres a nuc that is almost ready to have the queen removed. In about 2-3 days as soon as most of the eggs have hatched, you can make the change. 










BUT, if you use a full size 5 frame standard nucs that are going gang busters from the first round of queens, you'll be more reluctant to pull that queen and risk a good strong nuc to get the new queen crop mated. 
I have several sizes of mating nucs going during the season...When I pull queens I always go to my smaller mating nucs first. I know the larger ones have time to hold-so I end up not getting as many rounds through them..I end up letting many of them grow to overwinter. 

So you have to balance your nucs..not so good you are unwilling to continue to use them for mating nucs, not so small they dwindle or have a hard time sustaining. 

Using a mid sized nuc allows you to have enough room for growth & to take advantage of your main flow, if you want to get a few frames drawn.



















Although inverted mason jars works well in most situations, but there are times when an interior feeder is more efficient. In cooler weather or during periods of robbing pressure, mating nucs will take up _more_ syrup from an interior feeder than a mason jar, no matter where you place it. Especially in the fall when you are tyring to get some weight on the nucs.


Nucs that are small, take less resources to start, but you quickly run out of room if you are not Johnny on the spot with your queen removal.
This triple divided deep looks good, but the queens are about to be suppressed for lack of room to lay, the sections need more feed and they are prime for a population explosion which would make the sections difficult to work without overflow.



















Personally, this design works best for me, considering all my different needs of the changing seasons. In my climate, they are large enough to overwinter with a fortified sugar block on top the frames.










And for standard frames, 8 frame deeps give me room for growth and an interior feeder which stays in all season. I just use a follower board early spring with three frames to start. It's up to me if these are allowed to grow into doubles or they are kept as mating nucs. 










It's a lot easier to manipulate those frames when you have an empty one you can remove first. The last thing you want to do is roll your fat young queen.










I could make up far more nucs each season, but I know they have to be fed late summer (to stimulate a good crop of fall bees )and likely fall to put on some weight. Especially when I've asked them to draw out new frames. That feeding is a LOT of work and that restricts my numbers to a workload I can handle on my own. 

Thank goodness the large established colonies are so self sufficient & well behaved


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## thebeemanuk (Oct 16, 2014)

Hi Lauri how long do you leave the virgin caged before releasing her?


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## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

thebeemanuk said:


> Hi Lauri how long do you leave the virgin caged before releasing her?


I can usually get away with just a couple hours. Overnight if I am unsure about her acceptance. I just take them from the incubator in the roller cage and let her sit on top the frames if it is warm enough. I like a roller cage better than a shipping cage for direct release. They are easier to open and have better control over a crawler/runner/wanna be flier 



















I ALWAYS mark the nuc with a bright piece of orange duct tape for a queen that is caged. That way they are never overlooked for release.


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## thebeemanuk (Oct 16, 2014)

Cheers im switching totally to the Lauri Miller method next year. As every season i would have to buy in early packages to stock all my mini mating nucs at a cost of around at a cost of around $1000 so i could have queens ready to go with the packages i made up to sell.

I have had to invest in another 100 brood boxes, 100 internal feeders and a pile of frames but to overwinter the mating nucs its money well spent


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I also winter my mating nucs and break them up un the spring. Sure is easier than trying to set them up new every spring. The queen that wintered in the nuc is a bonus....tested queen for re-queening production colonies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA3yiNoAh4o


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## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

I am going to try 3 way deep frame mating nucs this season. I'm going to try to overwinter the mating nucs by adding an addtional 3 way deep on top, so 6 frames total with a shim for emergency/ supplemental feeding. I have some of the Mann Lake Double Mini Mating Nucs as a backup for additional cells. Most of the cells will go direct into the hives or double nucs.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I assume you are moving open brood?

There is generally some open brood. I don't worry too much if it's open or capped, just so there is a frame of brood and a frame of honey. The extra shake of bees is also from a frame of brood.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

I agree with Lauri - don't let them be queenless for more than the 2 days it takes the cell to hatch. I use a full 10-frame deep Langstroth box with 3 vertical slots down the insides of the 16 1/4" ends. In the outer 2 slots are placed hive partitions made of 1/4 inch Lauan mahogany doorskin. The partitions divide the box into 3 three-frame mating nuc's. This year I only used the outside two chambers.

The bottom is a double screen board with slotted ribs to seal the bottoms of the hive partitions. No exits on the double screen board, the bees enter and exit through cork holes in the sides of the boxes.

The tops are 3 narrow inner covers that rest over the ends of the hive body, but fit "almost snug" between the top edges of the hive partitions. These keep the chambers separate. The inner covers have mason jar lids installed. Over the top is a telescoping cover with holes for 3 mason jar feeders. These are aligned with the lids in the inner covers

The 3 x 3-frame nuc boxes are made up with capped brood, honey, and pollen (tip from Michael Palmer - shake bee pollen from traps or freezer into empty combs. Presto! You have super-fresh pollen frames!) right on the trailer, ready to be moved 10 miles to the mating yard as soon as I finish planting the queen cells in them. I did not have many bees this year, so I only made 2 colonies in each in the outer two chambers. Each was set upon a strong colony to enjoy free heat from the colony below. They sat there for 2 weeks, when I opened the middle compartment and added a partition, a frame feeder on both sides, another frame of capped brood. I then remove one outer partition and put a half-inner cover over that side. I then do the same to the other side. The nuc's just became 2 x 4-frame nuc's with feeders. 

If one of the original brood frames is hatched out and has no brood in it yet, I try to decide if they need another frame of brood because she's starting to lay eggs in the honey frame, or if she has just started using it today? If she has, it stays. Usually there is a brood pattern developing. I usually judge brood pattern between 41 and 54 days after grafting. 

If they are good and it's early in the season, they now go into a 10-frame box. They'll need the space very soon, the main nectar/pollen flow is on. Have another box of foundation ready in 7 to 10 days. 

If it's later in the season, they'll take longer. Pull the feeder out and give them a foundation if the pollen is coming in, a comb if it isn't. They can go to their own 10 frame box and the excess space is taken up with hive dummies and a feeder if they are not growing rapidly. These bees should be fed patties and syrup (they missed a good part of the main nectar and pollen flow), and the hive dummies replaced with foundation in frames or foundationless frames, the beekeeper managing the space as they grow. 

I run a lot fewer queens when the season gets late. They are mostly for re-queening after mite treatments in mid-August. Weigh each colony after mite treatments and record these figures in a book. I always hope for 7 frames of brood with bees some time August, but on dry years, I might find them well below that. I may divide some up to boost others at that point. The large colonies are trying to make it to 130 lbs before winter or are being divided up for increasers.


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## RichardsonTX (Jul 3, 2011)

Has anyone on here had any experience banking queens to mate in a hive that already has a laying queen? Gilbert Doolittle says in Chapter 13 of his book "Scientific Queen Rearing" that he used that method after discovering that it would work. If so, what were the results for you?


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## Sunday Farmer (Nov 13, 2013)

Michael B,
I made about 80 nucs in your area last summer. The flow never really stopped and happily we got almost ideal weather. I felt like I got away with a bit I normally couldn't, but- 
I use Webster-Palmer style 4 frame nuc boxes. I try to get 2 frames of capped brood, 2 foundation, and a cell. This works fine if weather is great and flow is on. Otherwise some feed definitely. If I got short on capped brood, well lets just say one frame isn't enough. By June I was harvesting frames from my May nucs, and in July harvesting at least a frame from them again. The only issues I had were from late nucs where the queens were in an unfed cell builder when the flow shut down. I don't think you have to use mating nucs on mini frames- because my goal was to grow overwinter nuc colonies. But if I sold a queen then I essentially used a lot of resources to make $30 bucks. I would take the extra bees and brood (now queenless) and plop them into another nuc that needed a little boost. So it was a constant check and react. But they would take off nicely. Some even made honey. 
I think Lauri's response is great. I really appreciated that post by the way. I think successfully used minis are awseome and that was nicely detailed. I saw Palmer's too and impressed how what is normally considered a small waste to take care of a new queen can become a major resource in an apiary.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Gilbert Doolittle says in Chapter 13 of his book "Scientific Queen Rearing" that he used that method after discovering that it would work. 

He also revised that assessment some in a later edition of his book in the appendix:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesdoolittle.htm#APPENDIX


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## Ben Little (Apr 9, 2012)

I don't know if you want to know but I thought I would chime in here, I am going to run 200 nucs this year, they will be double nucs 4 frame with supers like Michael Palmer. I will be using half of them to mate queens and use in my apiaries , that way I don't have to build anything special for mating queens, no small frames or different boxes, I want to run nucs anyways and why not let the nucs do the work of holding a virgin to be mated, That way if I need extra brood for a mating nuc, I find another nuc to donate it. then at the end of the cycle and I'm done raising queens, I let them build up and winter them, no moving them away.
I will also be trying different strengths by using frame feeders 1 gal or 2 gal as a following board and it will help with my resource issue and keep the inside small for them to regulate temp easier while they are starting off earlier in the season.

This is just my plan, right or wrong I'm going to do this.


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## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

We use a 3 or 4 frame western mating nuc usually started with one or two frames of brood and some stores plus feed. Avoiding fly back or drift is critical to having the bees stay where you put them. Contrary to Laurie's rule number one, I like a queenless period before placing a cell. For us this ranges from as little as a few hours up to sometimes 3 days. It is very important that they are in the mood for a new queen before the cell is placed. Many times I have seen cells placed too soon get chewed down by the recipient. If we are catching and placing cells in the same visit we use a spritz with some EO's in it to mask the old/caught queens smell. A big yard will usually take a few days to catch anyways, and as long as the base population is sufficient, a few days queenless does not matter and can be beneficial as long as the base population is sufficient. Nothing worse than having them chew down your big beautiful highly selected cell and then try and rear their own. I feel a queenless period is even more important if the cell is immediately hatching. The same rules usually apply for introducing mated queens. Take rates will be the highest when they are in the mood for a new queen. Forcing them too fast can have huge drawbacks.


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