# Wintering Nucs



## George Fergusson

Thanks loads Mike! This is not the first time your nuc production methods have been discussed here on Beesource, but it's the first time it's been presented by you










Last spring after you gave that great presentation about making summer nucs at the Maine State Beekeeper's Association meeting (that I MISSED...) I decided to look into it. To that end, I obtained one of your handouts from a friend of mine (that's online too someplace, isn't it?) that DID attend the meeting, and based on that information set about trying my hand at some nucs last summer. I built 2 bottoms and 2 feeders per your directions and put up four 4-frame nucs in 2 deeps at the beginning of August (I was going to build 3 of them but found myself queencell-challenged). Anyways, I gave them each a queen cell; 3 of them turned into mated queens- the 4th I introduced a homemade queen to in mid August. They're currently sitting on full sized hives, wrapped, and all four are still alive









The only thing I did wrong was making the division board feeder a tad bit too wide- the nucs are a little tight for room. Next time I'll make them 3/8" or maybe 5/16" narrower so I have a little more room to move frames. I was also a bit concerned about them having enough ventilation but so far they seem to be doing fine.

The only question I've got now is "will they make it to spring?" but I don't suppose you can answer that one! In any case, I'm optimistic


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## Focus on Bees

Very interesting thankyou Michael Palmer. I want to try to do nucs this year. It will be fun to see what comes of it. Do you only have them in one box, or two nuc supers stacked ? What size makes a weak hive in your mind ? Some of us (myself) aren't familiar with how many frames would be a weak hive.


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## Fusion_power

I use nucs in North Alabama but with a few modifications. Each nuc is 3 frames and one brood chamber will hold 3 nucs. I built divided bottom boards to hold the nucs. The wood dividers between the nucs are cut to the dimensions of the brood chamber and in the approximate shape of a standard frame. The biggest difference is that I winter 3 nucs on their own stand. They make it just fine.

Another difference is in feeding. Our winters are so mild that nucs will starve before spring. I want them to come through in top condition so I put feed on them usually in February. This year, I had some nucs that had less feed than needed so I started feeding the end of December.

Darrel Jones


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## Joel

I'll add my thanks as well. As George indicated this has been a topic here we have discussed in great detail. A post from someone who is doing it large scale really helps.

a couple of questions:

1) What type of nuc boxes have you tried and what is your standard? Any special modifications?

2) What types of commercially availabe bees have you had success with? 

3) How are you stopping/preventing the swarming with the prolific queens.

4) Why do you think you see more chalkbrood?

Thanks again Mike, great post! Thanks too to MB for suggesting it, there has been a void of inside information on this subject.

[ January 08, 2007, 07:06 PM: Message edited by: Joel ]


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## Chef Isaac

if you need to do emergency feeding with the nucs, what is the best way?


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## Michael Bush

My first year trying to overwinter nucs it was ten frame medium nucs on an inner cover with a double screen over the hole. The notch in the inner cover made the entrance for the nuc. The humidity from the strong colony below did several of them in. The next year I made eight frame medium nucs and stacked them up with a solid bottom (1/4" luan, no screen) and I just had them wrapped on all sided in insulation:

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/ApartmentNucsWintering.JPG
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/ApartmentNucsWrappedInFoam.jpg

Again, the biggest problem I had was all the humidity. Wrapping didn't seem to allow it to escape at all. The second problem was that it was an extreme winter and the nucs died out from the bottom up with the ones that got more rising heat lasting the longest. Still half of them made it through.

Last year I did this:
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/OverwinteringNucs1.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/OverwinteringNucs2.jpg

With a space heater set at 70 F inside. They did fine until some of the jars leaked and drowned some of them. But then the winter wasn't much of a winter. I fed pollen patties and some of them swarmed in March. My theory was my observation hive always seems to get through at 70 F and even raise a few patches of brood. Also that the dry heat from the space heater would drive out some of the moisture instead of feeding in more (as a hive below seems to do).

This winter I'm doing a similar setup, but I removed the feeder jars when the cold set in, left off the one by eight spacer and turned the heater all the way down to about 45 F.

But again we haven't really had a winter.

Usually we get a week of -10 F or so and that seems to kill a lot of the nucs.

I like your solid board. I got a copy of some info about your overwintering nucs that shows a nice frame feeder. I'm not entirely clear how you keep the populations separate in it. Maybe you could clarify that.

I've been trying to figure out what the optimum size is to overwinter for a nuc. It seems that I had as many five frame medium nucs survive last year as eight frame medium nucs. So this year I just did five frame nucs.

It would be simple enough to do eight frame medium nucs on top of my eight frame medium hives with a solid 1/4" laun board between them. Maybe I'll try that this next year. The other advantage would be that I can do it in my outyards, where I need electricity and the ability to keep an eye on them with a space heater.









I did a queen bank last winter with a terrarium heater under it (and it was in the space heated area). Without the terrarium heater the bees would cluster and abandon the queens. With the heater they spread out and cared for most of them. Some were abandoned, but some made it through the winter. If I had any queens left over this year I would have tried it again, but I sold them all.

My nucs are mostly combined mating nucs from queen rearing.


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## Michael Palmer

>George saysI was also a bit concerned about them having enough ventilation but so far they seem to be doing fine.

Yeah, warm winter so far, without much condensation. I drilled 3/4" holes in my nucs, on the opposite end from the entrance. I open it for winter, and close it with Duct Tape the rest of the year. I think it helps with moisture problems that some of the nucs have.


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## George Fergusson

>shows a nice frame feeder. I'm not entirely clear how you keep the populations separate in it. Maybe you could clarify that.

It's got a solid wooden divider in the middle, running from the bottom to top bar which splits it into two compartments. There is a slot on either side on opposite ends near the top bar so the bees in each nuc can access their own compartment.

I've got, or had, a photograph of one of the ones I built. I'll see if I can find it.


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## Michael Palmer

>Do you only have them in one box, or two nuc supers stacked ? What size makes a weak hive in your mind ? Some of us (myself) aren't familiar with how many frames would be a weak hive.

I have my nuc boxes so that each hive body holds two 4 frame nucs. Some are divided by a solid divider, but most by a movable division board feeder.

Weak hive...oh, you mean for splitting up? The one not making any honey when the others are. For whatever reason...I don't care...except, of course, AFB! Since the colony isn't making more than a super or two, while the rest of the yard has 4 or 5 or 6 or more supers, I split that one. The nucs you make from that (those) colonies are more valuable to your apiary than a super or two of honey.


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## Michael Palmer

>I use nucs in North Alabama but with a few modifications. The biggest difference is that I winter 3 nucs on their own stand. They make it just fine.

I'm sure you do it differently. That's exactly my post. It's up to the beekeeper to experiment for their location. Good to know you are having success in the south! Now, since I know beekeepers in all parts of the country...Northeast, South, West, and even Alaska...I feel even more confident about suggesting this process of wintering nucs. I believe it to be the salvation of our apiaries. The nucs winter better than the production colonies that are challenged by Tracheal and or Varroa. With a good supply of free replacement bees on hand, the beekeeper is open to Varroa control using other methods, than Fluvalinate and other junk. If the method doesn't work well, there are your replacement bees to restock your hives, free in the spring!


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## Michael Palmer

>a couple of questions:

1) What type of nuc boxes have you tried and what is your standard? Any special modifications?

As I said, a couple styles. But, I don't think it is the style of box that matters. I would think that even 5 frame nuc boxes shoved together on the inner cover, with a cover on top, would work. Even the styrofoam ones would work. The boxes can be adapted...the bees too


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## Chef Isaac

if you need to do emergency feeding with the nucs, what is the best way?


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## Michael Palmer

Oops, hit reply too soon. Too many darts tonight, too much jet lag from Oregon.

joel asks:
2) What types of commercially availabe bees have you had success with?

None, really. You had to say I would say 
that.  Well, that's not fair, what I said. It's just that I think you can raise better queens that you can buy. Raise cells from your best, and use them to start your nucs. If you start your nucs early enough, you can...in NY...get three rounds of queens, the last wintering with the nuc...2 birds with one stone.

3) How are you stopping/preventing the swarming with the prolific queens.

By removing full frames from the nucs, and adding empty combs or foundation. Frames of bees and brood can be removed and used to start other nucs...if early enough in the season. Of course, if there are cups with eggs, or cells, you must remove all first. I have placed an excluder on top of the two nucs, with a super on the excluder. Make sure there is no gap under the excluder above the divider...that the queens can pass through. Some excluders need a little shim, and feeders need to be taped, so the queens can't pass under excluder. This does work well to stop swarming. The bees from each nuc work happily together. They don't attack either queen. When time to remove super, use triangular bee escape bvoard on top of the excluder, and under the super. Bees go down into whichever nuc they want. But...since they have a place to put their incomming honey, there will be only brood below the excluder. You'll have to feed lots!

>4) Why do you think you see more chalkbrood?

I wasn't clear on that. I see more chalk, besause I'm splitting up non-productive colonies in the firts place. Some of these are non-productive colonies because of chalkbrood. Now, if you are using hygienic queens, or queens raised from colonies that have never showed chalk, then once the new queen has an established brood nest with her bees, the bees will clean it up. Once the nucs are well established, I'm not seeing more chalk...I'm seeing less. This was one of the main reasons for raising my own queens. It took about 5 years, but chalk is almost non-existant in my apiary...even in a cold rainy year like this one.


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## Michael Palmer

>if you need to do emergency feeding with the nucs, what is the best way? 

Any way that fits. If your nucs have division board feeders, fill them. If they have little inner covers, then through the inner cover holes. If you have grain bag inners, fold back one corner, and use a can or jar contact feeder. Surround with empty hive body.


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## Michael Palmer

>Again, the biggest problem I had was all the humidity.

Nice photos of your setup. Yes, moisture can be a problem. Have you tried to winter any on production colonies...solid divider in between. I wonder if that would help your %? You use a space heater...maybe you don't even need one. We usually have much longer, colder winters than you. Temps to -20 and more. Doesnt seem to require a heater upo here.

>I like your solid board. I got a copy of some info about your overwintering nucs that shows a nice frame feeder. I'm not entirely clear how you keep the populations separate in it. Maybe you could clarify that.

The feeder has two chambers. separated by a verticle board. Each nuc has an entrance into their chamber of the feeder from the side. The feeder sits on a cleat attached to the bottom, so the bees can't cross under. I have some photos I could post, if I had a place to do it. Is there a free place I could use, and then just give the url? 

>I've been trying to figure out what the optimum size is to overwinter for a nuc. It seems that I had as many five frame medium nucs survive last year as eight frame medium nucs. So this year I just did five frame nucs.

Yeah, I think there's a huge leeway here, as you have seen. I have 8 and 9 deep frame nucs, 4 and 5 deep frame nucs. I also have mini-nucs that i winter. These are deep half length frames. There are only 4 of these little combe in some of them, although most have 8. They all winter well, as lins as the population is good enough. They're little chamber has to be full of bees in the fall.

>My nucs are mostly combined mating nucs from queen rearing.

So, why do you think they are dying in the winter? Starvation? Cluster too small? Just a moisture problem? If you took one less round of queens, do you think that would help? The nucs would be stronger with young bees...which helps everything.


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## Fusion_power

The biggest single problem with overwintering nucs is moisture. I solved that problem by placing an empty brood chamber on top of the brood chamber that contains the 3 nucs. The top brood chamber has dividers just like the bottom one. The top cover is loosely fitted so air can seep in around the entire upper edge. It sounds extreme but I can assure you it works! Bees don't freeze so long as they can cluster. They will starve if they run out of feed. They will die fastest of all from excess moisture.

Chef Isaac, The one big problem to watch for when feeding nucs is the use of jar or can feeders inverted over the nuc. Any time the temperature changes by 35 degrees or more from night to day, the feed will contract at the cool temp then expand in the heat. This forces the liquid out and can drown out the nuc. If you use jar feeders anyway, set them up so you can upend them at night then put them back on to feed during the day. This is a lot of work. 

A better feeding option is to mix 2:1 syrup and build a simple sprinkler to sprinkle it into the combs. You can fill a comb in a minute or so and it will get the nuc through a week or more depending on how much brood they have. A simple but effective sprinkler can be cobbled together from a 3 gallon sprayer and a fine spray nozzle such as is used for plant watering. This is effective for a few dozen combs. Bigger operations would need a tank and pump type sprayer.

Darrel Jones


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## George Fergusson

>Is there a free place I could use, and then just give the url?

If you email them to me I'll post them on my site:

gsferg @ sweettimeapiary.com

George-


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## Michael Bush

>>My nucs are mostly combined mating nucs from queen rearing.

>So, why do you think they are dying in the winter? 

The first year , it was moisture. The second year it seemed to be the extreme cold that got the bottom ones in the stack while the top ones continued to do fine. The third year, my losses were mostly from drowning from leaky feeders.

>Starvation?

No.

> Cluster too small?

Possibly. On those -10 to -20 F nights. But we haven't had any of those the last two winters.

>Just a moisture problem?

That certainly seemed to be a big problem.

>If you took one less round of queens, do you think that would help?

It might. They might get more opportunity to rear a good batch of brood before winter.

>The nucs would be stronger with young bees...which helps everything.

I'm sure.


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## BerkeyDavid

Thanks for this discussion. I made up 5 nucs in early August this year from Q cells, I chickened out and did combines into full hive bodies with 3 of them because they built up so strong. I sacrificed some weaker colonies which I split up and moved them into 3 mediums each. But I have 2 bundled up still as nucs, hope they make it. They are 2 high 5 frame. Looks like one has some nosema.

Glad to hear what you say about taking out brood if they get strong. I didn't know what to do but knew there were just too many bees in there!

Not sure if it is till considered a nuc since they are in 3 full mediums now.


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## BjornBee

Thanks MP for the information.

Not being as north as MP, I have found that stand alone five frame nucs work very well. I can add a second five frame box in the spring to allow expansion and limit swarming, and at the same time have great comb drawn.

I am overwintering some stand alone five frame nucs, and some double stacked nucs. (5 frame with 5 frames of honey on top.)

I have tried to save all the nucs, late swarms, late splits I could this year. Many are two or three frames of bees in five frame nucs, and I placed 20 pounds of fondant on top of the ones that badly needed it. 

So far, I lost 4 out of 124, of the ones I checked so far. It seems that a couple clusters were just too small, even for the mld "winter" we are having.

I have followed Kirk's writings, and wanted to stack my nucs on full size hives, but just ran out of time. (Ok, lets call it lazy.)

I don't wrap. All my nucs have upper entrances. And I limit syrup feeding due to moisture concerns. I do feed from an open platform feeder in one yard, but the bees can only collect what they can process.

The thing about nucs (as MP stated) is how fast bees explode, and how fast they will decide to swarm. You need to stay on top of the nucs frequently, and build them after the main flow.

I believe as Kirk Webster has stated to me, that northern nuc production would not be as successful with standard italians. The odds of success increases with the darker lines such as carni's, and russians. They overwinter with a smaller cluster, and are more frugal with honey stores.

Keep in mind making up nucs. The old saying about gold fish is something like "If you keep one in a small bowl, the gold fish stays small. Put a goldfish in a pond, and the goldfish will grow to what the enviroment allows." The same holds true with nucs. The bees will grow and go into winter with a cluster based on your management and manipulations. They will stay small based on brood comb area. Taking fives frames of bees, brood, a prolific italian queen, and placing them into a nuc and thinking they will make it, usually fails.

Making the nucs at the right time, with the right resources, and knowing what gives you the best shot, greatly increases your success rate.


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## Joel

Thanks for the answers MP and your input Bjorn.

I'd like to do mid summer splits as I could take 25-50 hives, turn them into 150-300 nucs, have better bred, easily avaiable summer queens and if I can get the mind shift in management down, not have to winter anything in the south. Are the average winter survival numbers enough that the losses are worth the outlay? What is the rate of survival?


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## Michael Palmer

>I'd like to do mid summer splits as I could take 25-50 hives, turn them into 150-300 nucs, have better bred, easily avaiable summer queens and...not have to winter anything in the south.

I would approach this differently. More slowly, if you will. I think that the idea is to make and winter nucs, so that you have a resource to back up your wintering production colonies. With that back up, you can have your bees remain in the north, to be subjected to winter...the great see-lector and equalizer. That's the way you breed for wintering ability.

You could break up some of your colonies into nucs. Over winter them, and use the best in your apiary. Then, those that aren't satisfactory, you allow to build up on deep combs until it's time to make nucs. Then you can sacrifice those colonies, instead of, or in addition to the weaker production colonies. Eventually, you will have enough nucs that you can replace any winter loss, increase the size of your apiary if you want...or sell some if you don't...and have enough nucs left that can be allowed to build up until nuc making time. It's like investing in the future of your apiary. One step at a time, then two steps forward, and one step back. Or to quote from James Herriot..."Big uns and little uns."


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## Chef Isaac

I didnt get a chance to place my nucs on top of larger colonies this year but I did with one colonie. Than on a nice day. I checked on the bee yard and noticed a lot of activity going on. I checked and the big hive was robbing out the small nuc. Crazy really.

It was pretty easy finding all of the queen in August. Breaking the colonies up into nucs was a little more diffacult. 

I think if I have to feed, it will be fondant cakes.


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## TwT

well Im not for from everyone, I have a deep like fusion with dividers for three 3 frames nuc's but I use mine for splits, now I am wintering 3 nuc's this year for the first time and have 5 frames nuc's with 5 frames mediums supers on them with top feeders, so for all 3 are booming with this warm weather raising brood and bringing in pollen, I have been feeding 2-1 syrup because they are going through their stores and I think winter hasn't really hit yet, they are heavy now so I will see, If this does good I want to winter about 30 nuc's next year....


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## Marc

This is a great thread. It made me think about how I will approach it for my situation. I am a hobby beekeeper, second winter here. Started with two hives, which grew to six last year (sounds familiar, right?  ). Anyways, I will not treat my bees with anything, and I know I will have losses in spring due to Varroa, or other factors, probably lots of losses. After thinking this through, maybe you guys with more experience can tell me where I might be wrong, or where I could improve things. I know that I will never be able to raise a bee that is well adapted to my climate, is resistant to the most common diseases, can handle Varroa and be gentle, calm and productive on top of that. I just dont have enough hives to achieve that. However, I can still try to raise my own nucs to replace losses that will always occur and try to overwinter them. That would get me off the cycle of trying to order early packages, nucs, and /or early queens. The problem with my small operation will be to get new blood in periodically, because I operate with such a limited number of hives. My plan is to follow Michael Palmers strategy of dissolving the non-producers in the summer to make up nucs and let those nucs raise their own queen, but also requeen a few with queens I will have ordered (in summer) from folks like Michael Palmer, Kirk Webster, Bjornbee and others like them that raise healthy bees adapted to the northern climate. So far, thats where I am in planning for this coming year. What did I miss? What do you think/know will, or will not work? Suggestions? Ideas? Let me know. Thanks for all your postings, I learned a lot from it.
Marc


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## Michael Palmer

>My plan is to follow...strategy of dissolving the non-producers in the summer to make up nucs and let those nucs raise their own queen,

You missed the point here. By splitting up non-productive colonies, you are eliminating those genes from the pool. Allowing their nucs to raise their own queens would be adding thos genes to the pool.


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## BerkeyDavid

Marc you are generally on the right track though. You just need to find a local producer of northern queens and then use the non-producers to populate the nucs with the new local queens.

Or maybe you plan to let the non-producers raise a new queen from eggs from a queen with "good" genetics. Either way I think you are on the right track.

Man if any of my nucs make it through this winter with its warm Jan. and frigid Feb. I will be so happy. Anyone in the midwest with surviving nucs should be happy. Like Kirk Webster and others say, we have to make the winter our friend, use it to weed out the weak. I just hope it doesn't end up weeding out the whole crop!


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## Michael Palmer

>we have to make the winter our friend, use it to weed out the weak. 

Yes! The great See-lector


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## Marc

Michael and David, good points about the genetics. I guess the only two options for me then are to purchase good northern queens for the new nucs, or to let the nucs raise their own queen from strong hive eggs. Thanks for pointing that out. Other than that, you think my plan will work?


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## BerkeyDavid

Sure. That is basically my plan too. This year I made up late summer nucs using Queen Cells from Tim Tarheit and 2 queens I made from my best hive queen. 

Just hope we can get them through winter.

Instead of making up the nucs in the spring, I am making them up in August. That way you get your honey production and then double up your hives for the next year. 

You will lose some, but those were theoretically weak anyway. So the winter weeds out the losers and the honey left in those deadouts you feed to the surviving colonies.

That's the plan anyway, just hope I have some that make it.


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## Marc

BerkeyDavid, it looks like you are further north than I am, which means that I should have even more time making nucs in August. I know it's too early to tell how your nucs will winter this deep freeze right now, but are you satisfied with the August timing for your nucs? Did you enter nwinetr with enough young bees? I think I will target mid August for making my nucs. That should give the new queens enough time to lay at least one or two rounds of eggs before they shut down for fall/winter. Man, this is exciting, can't wait for warmer weather, I am itching to take a look at my hives...


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## Michael Palmer

>but are you satisfied with the August timing for your nucs?

I think you need to look at when your fall flow is. Is Goldenrod/Aster the last flow of the year? I find the best nucs are made here about mid-late July. That's about 3-4 weeks before the Goldenrod flow starts.

My Goldenrod flow...not bloom...is about midAugust, to midSeptember. From about midJuly until Goldenrod, there can be strong flows...Loosestrife/Alfalfa...but usually a slower time than the main flow. Anyway, I've made nucs in June, July, and August. 

The June nucs build up too strong, obviously, and need to be nuced again, in July. If you plan on maximizing your nuc production from weak hives, this is a good plan. Split your weaker hives in midJune, into about 4 nucs...that's what I average. By midJuly, they're packed and swarmy...if left in 4 or 5 frame nuc boxes. If your nuc boxes have movable division boards,(feeders or otherwise) then you can let each expand onto 8 combs, and when you nuc them in July, reconfigure nuc boxes back into doubles. The extra brood and bees can go into additional nuc boxes. From your original 4 nucs, it is easy to get 8 on the July split, and sometimes 12.

July nucs are probably the best here, if you're going to do it one time. They have time to get their broodnest set up, and some bees in the hive...so they're ready for the fall flow. They do have to be watched for swarming. Some of the queens will be more prolific, and they'll get especially strong. To prevent swarming, brood and bees can be removed and given to weaker nucs, or turned into additional nucs. The closer you get to August, when you make your nucs, the less likely they will be to build up and swarm on the fall flow. But there's a tradeoff.

Nucs made here in August are a gamble, depending how far into August you make them. The nucs made with the best queens will probably have enough bees to winter...but are noticably weaker than those made in July, come spring. They will also have to be fed more.


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## Michael Palmer

123456, not sure if this thread is what you're looking for?


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## CentralPAguy

Great Thread -- I didn't know it was out there and I have been thinking about my plans this year with the knowledge that with the creation of alot of nucs going thru next year's winter.


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## winevines

CentralPAguy said:


> Great Thread -- I didn't know it was out there and I have been thinking about my plans this year with the knowledge that with the creation of alot of nucs going thru next year's winter.


See also the general forum for similar thread


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## fafrd

Michael (P.),

someone has told me that your method of overwintering nucs has also provided you benefits in terms of helping the bees to combat Varroa without the use of chemicals.

I am interested to learn more about this (and the benefits of an induced broodless period in combatting Varroa in general) and am trying to find any threads/posts where you discuss such benefits.

Are there any threads you could point me to or key words you suggest I search for?


thanks,

-fafrd


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## Michael Palmer

No, not really. Wintering nucs does help in the battle though. Unless you make them up with PMessed up brood, they do handle a varroa load better than full sized production colonies. Gives yo live bees in the spring to restock your dead-outs.

Why, I'm not sure. Brood cycle break if you use cells? Probably helps. The fact that they aren't the brood rearing factories that their big sisters are? That probably helps, too.


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## beefarmer

if the nucs are stacked 2 high [having 4 nuc ] on top of the strong hive, how do you feed the 4 nucs?


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## fafrd

Michael Palmer said:


> Wintering nucs does help in the battle [against Varroa]. Unless you make them up with PMessed up brood, they do handle a varroa load better than full sized production colonies.
> 
> Why, I'm not sure. Brood cycle break if you use cells? Probably helps. The fact that they aren't the brood rearing factories that their big sisters are? That probably helps, too.


Thanks for the response, Michael.

Someone sent me an article which implied that a fall queen will lay and brood up much more rapidly than a spring queen which is split in the fall (kind of the opposite of what you are implying above) - do you believe there is any truth to that? In general, do your fall nucs have a shorter broodless period than your full-sized production hives?

thanks,

-fafrd


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## chillardbee

Thank for sharing MP, I've over wintered nucs before too but still gleened some valuable info.


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## Michael Palmer

fafrd said:


> Someone sent me an article which implied that a fall queen will lay and brood up much more rapidly than a spring queen which is split in the fall (kind of the opposite of what you are implying above) - do you believe there is any truth to that?


Not really sure what you mean. A queen raised in the fall as opposed to one raised in the spring? 

All my queens are mated between early June and early August. I see no difference in how they lay or how fast they build up. One difference I do see...

My over wintered nucs with queens raised the summer before build up faster and seem more productive than splits made in the spring with bought queens...even though the spring splits are made with equal amounts of brood and bees as in the wintered nucs have.

Brother Adam said that queens are better the year following their mating. So, he wintered over all his new queens in nucleus colonies, and used them the following year. 

Dee Lusby goes even further. She says a queen in her first year is a juvenile, one in her second year is a teenager, and only queens in their third are fully mature. I don't know.


----------



## Michael Palmer

fafrd said:


> In general, do your fall nucs have a shorter broodless period than your full-sized production hives?


From my observations, nucs made in mid-summer and wintered in nuc boxes lay longer in the fall than production colonies. Production colonies start brood rearing a bit sooner in the spring.


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## fafrd

Thanks, Michael. So basically it sounds like from what you have seen, the broodless period for a nuc is to too different in length from the broodless period for a production hive, but is shifter forward by a few weeks, right? Later stop to brood rearing and later starting back up...

Have you ever tried stimulating your nucs to start laying brood at the same time as your production hives by feeding light sugar syrup or pollen patties or both?

-fafrd


----------



## Michael Palmer

fafrd said:


> Have you ever tried stimulating your nucs to start laying brood at the same time as your production hives by feeding light sugar syrup or pollen patties or both?
> 
> -fafrd


Yes, and under certain circumstances you can get brood rearing started in the nucs earlier by feeding protien patty. It depends on how much pollen is stored in the nuc's broodnest in the fall. one way to manage the nucs so they won't swarm is to place an excluder on the nuc box and a super on top. This gives the bees a place to store nectar up and out of the broodnest. This allows the queen to fill every comb with brood...corner to corner. All their stores will be above the excluder. If you remove the super after the flows have ended, the brood emerges and there is almest nothing in the broodnest but empty comb. No honey, no pollen. The nucs use pollen stored in the broodnest for spring brood rearing...same as their big sisters in production colonies. With no pollen, spring brood rearing is delayed until pollen becomes available. Under these conditions, protien patty will start brood rearing.


----------



## beemandan

Michael Palmer said:


> Unless you make them up with PMessed up brood, they do handle a varroa load better than full sized production colonies. Gives yo live bees in the spring to restock your dead-outs.



Michael, do you think your overwintering late season made nucs somehow enables you to be varroa treatment free or does it simply produce enough new colonies to replace your varroa losses or is it some combination of both? Or have I missed something entirely (always a strong possibility)?


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## Michael Palmer

beemandan said:


> Michael, do you think your overwintering late season made nucs somehow enables you to be varroa treatment free or does it simply produce enough new colonies to replace your varroa losses or is it some combination of both?


Gives me enough new colonies to replace my varroa losses while I build up the vsh in my bees. My production colonies are still treated in the fall but the nucs don't have to be until the following fall. I think the bees are getting more tolerant of varroa, but not there yet.


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## fafrd

Michael Palmer said:


> Under certain circumstances you can get brood rearing started in the nucs earlier by feeding protien patty. The nucs use pollen stored in the broodnest for spring brood rearing...same as their big sisters in production colonies. With no pollen, spring brood rearing is delayed until pollen becomes available. Under these conditions, protien patty will start brood rearing.


Thanks Michael. So with either a couple frames of pollen stores close to the broodnest OR with the addition of a pollen patty, the nucs will start brood as early as the production colonies, right?

Once the foragers are bringing in pollen from foraging, is there any value to continueing to feed pollen patty? Does feeding pollen patty and sugar syrup into the spring extend the lifespan of the foragers and allow the colony to build up a bigger cluster more quickly?


-fafrd


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## Michael Palmer

>>So with either a couple frames of pollen stores close to the broodnest OR with the addition of a pollen patty, the nucs will start brood as early as the production colonies, right?<<

I never really compared nucs and production colonies. I don't look in big colonies much early to find out just when they start. I'm more likely to look at nucs. I do know, they'll start earlier if they have stored pollen. A couple frames of pollen seems much. It's more like pollen scattered through the broodnest and covered with honey or feed. 

>Once the foragers are bringing in pollen from foraging, is there any value to continueing to feed pollen patty?<

No, not here anyway. They'll stop taking protien patty when there's natural pollen.

>Does feeding pollen patty and sugar syrup into the spring extend the lifespan of the foragers and allow the colony to build up a bigger cluster more quickly?<

Don't know about worker longevity, but the increase in cluster size would be from increased brood rearing due to availability of protien.


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## fafrd

Thanks for the response, Michael. Here in the Bay Area, my bees are already bringing in a TON of pollen, but they also continue to avidly consume the pollen patty I have given them. Even when inspecting the hive in the middle of a warm day when the foragers are busy bringing in pollen, there are bees all over the pollen patty feeding on it.

When this latest patty is consumed, I have to decide if I am going to feed another or call it quits. I read somewhere that feeding of pollen pattys and sugar syrup preserves the wings of the foragers and allows them to live longer than the three weeks they last when they have to fly to forage. Living longer ought to translate into a bigger cluster size and more brood more quickly and accelerated growth to production size, but it sounds like that is not an option in your area where they ignore the pollen patty as soon as fresh pollen is available. Any opinions on what to do in my situation appreciated.

-fafrd


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## Michael Palmer

fafrd said:


> When this latest patty is consumed, I have to decide if I am going to feed another or call it quits. Any opinions on what to do in my situation appreciated.
> 
> -fafrd


If you are seeing pollen coming in, I guess the question is...is there enough?

Why not look in the broodnest? Examine combs...the comb next to a frame of open brood for instance. There is where you will find the fresh pollen...right next to the brood that needs it. Clever those bees. 

If you feel there is enough natural pollen in close proximity to the unsealed brood, and you're seeing the pollen flow continuing, I would say you can stop with the patties.


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## fafrd

Thanks for the suggestion, Michael - I'll have a look after the current patty is consumed...

-fafrd


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## Santos

Michael Palmer said:


> If you are seeing pollen coming in, I guess the question is...is there enough?
> 
> Why not look in the broodnest? Examine combs...the comb next to a frame of open brood for instance. There is where you will find the fresh pollen...right next to the brood that needs it. Clever those bees.
> 
> If you feel there is enough natural pollen in close proximity to the unsealed brood, and you're seeing the pollen flow continuing, I would say you can stop with the patties.


The patties, (pollenpatties, proteinpatties).... do they always eat the protein or pollen in them, or can they store it? If so, is it possible to see any difference?


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## Mosherd1

Great thread, very informative. How critical is it to overwinter the nucs over a strong hive? I have invested my time and limited carpentry skills making up 2 story nucs. Maybe I should have been converting old hive bodies to side by side nucs. In New England, can a 5 frame nuc survive as a stand alone, or will they need the heat from a stronger hive below?


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## Mosherd1

When using a deep hive body to overwinter 2 nucs, do most people in the north use a screened bottom board with the tray in all winter or a solid bottom? Also, how critical is it to overwinter the nucs over a strong hive? I have invested my time and limited carpentry skills making up 2 story nucs.


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## Michael Palmer

Mosherd1;649580 How critical is it to overwinter the nucs over a strong hive?
In New England said:


> I'm not so sure the nucs need any heat from below. I've seen times when the production colony died in the winter and both nucs survived. For my area, I think it's more important to get them up and out of the snow. If they're buried in snow they can't take a mid-winter cleansing flight if the opportunity arises.
> 
> I haven't wintered a five frame single story, but many expanded to two story...doubles. They winter well and don't need to be elevated.


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## Mosherd1

I have reread this thread twice in the last couple of months but there is one question I keep coming back to. If I make up these nucs in July when the flow has seriously slowed down here in CT, will I need to feed the nuc or will the frame of honey be enough to get them to the fall flow?


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## Michael Palmer

Should be enough.


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## Mosherd1

I have read and reread this thread a half dozen times. Really is interesting. Here is a thought but please correct me if I am wrong. Someone takes 3 of their production colonies (to keep the math easy). If 2 out of 3 colonies make it to spring statistically, why don't we just break up every production colony (strong and weak) in mid July (of course this would mean skipping the fall flow) into 5 nucs each giving us 15 nucs and if 33% do not make it to Spring then we have 10 hives instead of 2 (66% of 15 instead of 66% of 3). This logic might get blown out to the water if these nucs have a worse failure rate than 1 out of 3. Does this make sense? I 100% agree with the idea of breaking up the non productive colonies, but if we can increase the colony survival this dramatically it might be something to consider for all colonies, strong included.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mosherd, your logic seems correct. Is the answer in economics? If you break up those strong colonies - would the income lost from the fall flow not gathered by those colonies be outweighed by the potential sale of overwintered nucs and replacement bee costs not incurred in the spring? Since this thread was started in 2007 I understand that Mike has been selling more bees. I wonder if he is at the stage of sacrificing honey-making potential for nuc making potential. 
I have re-read this thread. Last winter was brutal here in the mid-west. As an experiment I made up two 5 frame nucs in a divided box from swarm cells. I added another divided box with honey on top. One side died out early. The other side survived and thrived. For such a low investment of time and materials it was worth it. This winter I plan to overwinter 10 and see what happens. One thing I learned was that I don't like the management of the divided box, so I made a bunch of 5 frame boxes and plan to push them close together as soon as the weather gets really cold.


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## Mosherd1

Adrian- I used my limited carpentry skills to make a bunch of 5 frame boxes and am planning on wintering them as 2 story 5 frame nucs. When you are pushing them together will you be sharing a cover of any sort for winter? I definitely think that there is more money in selling bees than in selling honey but I have not overwintered nucs in the past to know of an average survival rate. I always thought we could not sustain nucs in northern winters but I am eager to see what this winter brings with my 10 or so nucs. First year I am actually looking forward to winter!


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mosherd, I am a believer in upper entrances for winter. My plan is to use feedbag inner covers (fbic) and then above that a piece of 2 inch closed cell foam insulation. I am thinking of cutting a notch in that foam and then lining that notch with a little wood so that the bees can't get at the foam. This exit will be at the front of each nuc. Above the foam I will add the migratory style wooden cover I have on the nucs at present. I will probably wrap the hives after thanksgiving to seal off any drafts due to poor wood to wood fitting caused by my rudimentary woodworking. I am more confident checking the bees if they are in individual boxes. I don't like having to lift the cover of both to see one.


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## Michael Palmer

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> Mosherd, your logic seems correct. Is the answer in economics? If you break up those strong colonies - would the income lost from the fall flow not gathered by those colonies be outweighed by the potential sale of overwintered nucs and replacement bee costs not incurred in the spring? Since this thread was started in 2007 I understand that Mike has been selling more bees. I wonder if he is at the stage of sacrificing honey-making potential for nuc making potential.


I've been meaning to post something on what I'vbe been doing this summer...and how I've been using my nucs.

I keep bees in a good honey producing area. My average is about 100lbs. Last year I produced 38T of honey...both extracted and comb. I don't believe I could make that income if I split up all my production hives into nucs. That said, I might think differently if I were keeping bees in a nmarginal honey production area.

That's why I have said to nuc non-producing colonies that are otherwise healthy. Then I'm putting the bee resources to the best use. But, I'm still sacrificing production colonies. What happens if my production colonies take a hit? I can see a scenario where nucing production colonies would not be the right way to go. Since my focus in the last few years has been to develop a sustainable apiary, I have been changing my direction a bit.

Rather than thinking of every nuc as a future production colony, I look for other uses. The key is to raise so many nucs that you have a large number of strong healthy nucs that will build up..either is 10 frame equipment or in 3 story nuc boxes. These are handled as brood factories. Brood is harvested on a regular schedule, leavbing the nuc strong enough to rebuild their broodnest quickly onto the empty combs added above. 

So, I held back about 50 nucs, and allowed them to build into 3 story nucs. I began my cell building on May 9. Brood was harvested and added above an excluder on strong colonies. Each cell builder was given a box containing 2 frames of honey and 7 frames of brood. 10 days later the graft was added. 10 days later the cells were harvested, and the cell building colony was again set up as a cell builder...once again adding 2 frames aof honey and 7 frames of brood. The result...fantastic cells full of jelly when they were ready to give to nucs.

I continued to harvest brood from my factories until cell building was finished...actually just finished setting up new cell builders on the Fourth. At that point, I began splitting up the brood factory nucs into new nucs for wintering this year....harvesting the queen and giving the new nucs a queen from this year.

My focus is sustainability. Using nucs to make more nucs does just that. Manage the production colonies for maximum production and allow your nuc making operation to support your nuc making operation. So far, from my overwintered nucs, I have stocked 49 cell builders and now produced some 250 new nucs...all without touching any production colonies. 

Does this all make sense to you?


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## rkereid

Mike- That's a great clarification of what you are doing now. Makes perfect sense. I'm in one of those marginal flow areas. Most years it comes to a screeching halt around mid to late June. This year we are getting some rain so the bees are maintaining, at least for now.

When you add brood to the cell builder, is it mostly open brood or capped?

Thanks, Richard


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## camero7

See Bob Hack for some ideas on wintering nucs. Search around on his web site and watch the videos. Good ideas that dovetail with Mike's.

http://www.bobhackbees.com/starting-nucs.html


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mike, it makes sense. It will make even more sense when the kids are asleep and I can read it again. Thanks for letting us know what you are up to.


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## waynesgarden

Jeez, Mike, just when I thought I had your old system figured out...

This is like the switch from DOS to Windows.

Wayne


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## Michael Palmer

Sealed brood.


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## winevines

waynesgarden said:


> Jeez, Mike, just when I thought I had your old system figured out... This is like the switch from DOS to Windows.


 Ha!!
having learned DOS first.. i find that it makes all computing easier. But seriously, it is just a slight turn not a huge shift. Nucs are great brood builders. When I first started making them a few years ago, I made some in may and did exactly this, raised brood from them. Made nucs from more nucs, etc. Now I too have raised a few queens in nucs.


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## waynesgarden

Karla, have you ever used the pipe key | since Windows came along?

Mel Disselkoen's system of nucs is also based on the premise of using overwintered nucs to raise more nucs.

Wayne


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## MWillard

Michael Palmer said:


> My focus is sustainability. Using nucs to make more nucs does just that. Manage the production colonies for maximum production and allow your nuc making operation to support your nuc making operation.
> 
> Mike,
> I've been doing the very same thing this year, using a few of my overwintered nucs for brood factories. With somewhat limited bee resources and not wanting to reduce the population of my production hives, I decided in the spring to keep a few nucs around for this purpose. I allowed them to build up to 3 stories and then started pulling brood for various applicatinns. The nucs have proven to be a very useful resource in creating cell builders, mating nucs and my next generation of overwintered nucs.
> 
> For those who haven't tried it, I would give it a try, those overwintered nucs are extremely valuable for many reasons. Not only do the nucs churn out the brood, but they are beautiful comb builders too.
> 
> Michael


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## hilreal

I had a mean hive that I was having trouble finding the queen, but she was an egg laying machine. Just kept pulling frames of brood and making nucs with new queen cells. Got new colonies started and kept the mean hive population down to manageable numbers


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## Mosherd1

I did my last graft of the Summer today and plan on putting those cells into their nucs sometime around the 25th of July. Of course they will need to mate and start laying, putting us at early August. Then 21 days after that is the 3rd or 4th week of August before the first cycle of brood hatches out. My question is that I want to overwinter each nuc in two 5 frame deep nuc boxes stacked on top of each other. Should there be enough time for them to manage this before winter assuming I will be starting the nucs with 2 frames with brood on it? Should I do 3 frames of brood?


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## Michael Palmer

In Vermont, I wouldn't think they'd build up into two stories. Maybe CT is different, but I'd winter them one story. Three frames of brood would help.


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## Mosherd1

Good to know. I am curious what the difference in climate is between northern VT and northern CT. I have some extra frames of honey that I can load up in the 2nd story to cut down on feed if I need to. I will definitely give 3 frames of brood and maybe some extra shakes also. Thanks for your advice.


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## Sherillynn

WOW! This thread is just what I have been looking for. Thanks to all for the great info and though provoking questions. And especially to Michael for all of the time he has obviously put into this.
I am at the point in my beekeeping where I'm either going to stay small, 8-10 hives, or go gangbusters. I've really been looking hard at overwintering practices and minimizing losses. All of what you folks are discussing is very timely.
Thanks again.


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## Mosherd1

Is the main advantage to wintering a 4 frame nuc instead of 5 frame because of putting the feeder in between the 2 nucs in a standard 10 frame deep?


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## Peakebrook

Michael Palmer, what percent of nucs do you have going into winter as single story versus two or three story nucs ?


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## seal62

Heres something i noticed . I have a friend that wrapped a hive with foam last season...it was the only one to make it through the winter ..its still wrapped in foam...my point being...it had no bees bearding ...where mine is ...the insulation keeps a steady temp.


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## Michael Palmer

Over the years, all have been single story. Two summers ago I tried a few two story and liked it. Last summer it was about 50/50. This year I'm making all 2 story...going into winter with 350+ two story.


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## northbee

Michael Palmer said:


> Over the years, all have been single story. Two summers ago I tried a few two story and liked it. Last summer it was about 50/50. This year I'm making all 2 story...going into winter with 350+ two story.


Mike, 

Are these two story Doubles in deep hive bodies wintered on production colonies. Or are they stand alone five frame nuc boxes stacked two deep wintered on their own stands? Or are they two story double nucs. 

thanks, Yuuki


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## Michael Palmer

Two story, 4 frame doubles wintering on stands.


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## mcdermottm

MP: i am fascinated by the thought of overwintering in nucs. i am in upstate ny but right on the pa border. i just made up a few mating nucs out of 10 frame medium boxes..spilt into 4 sections though i'm finding that i don't like the 2 frame set up so i am using 4 frames each side. anyway, how would i make this a 2 story set up for overwintering? i cut the grooves into the box and have luan panels that stick up from the top for the separate tops. i'm just having a hard time envisioning how to make this 2 story. do you have any pics you could share so i can see your set up? i sure would appreciate it. thanks!


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## winevines

mcdermottm said:


> MP: i cut the grooves into the box and have luan panels that stick up from the top for the separate tops.


I have used Deep queen castles which also have a little bit of masonite sticking up as a divider. While possibly not ideal, it is what I had to work with at the time and I have had no problem putting 4 frame nucs on top as a 2nd story (this was an idea I borrowed from MP ). On some there appears to be a small gap, but bees can not get through and you could always duct tape it if you were really concerned. it has not created any problems for me. In my set up using QC's I have 5 frames downstairs and 4 upstairs. This year I am trying using a division board feeder upstairs. I also winter using individual nuc boxes.

I have not perfected the art of posting photos here yet, but here is a link to some photos. I can take a few more that show how the divider sticks up a bit if you want... but as I said, has not created any problems.
http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l224/winevines/OW%20Nucs%202%20Story/

In this photo you can see the lime green shim on one side which brought the top box up over the level of that little bit of divider sticking out. I have found the shim was totally unnecessary. Now that I look at this photo, above the shim is actually the cover to the bottom nuc on that side and the top box is an entirely separate nuc. You get the idea hopefully...
[URL="[/URL]


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## Michael Palmer

mcdermottm said:


> do you have any pics you could share so i can see your set up?


Double four frame nuc box.










Nuc box with 4 frame supers above nuc.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

My comfort level in having a divided box is low. Overwinter I made 18 individual 5 frame boxes. At the time of writing I have a group of 4 and a group of 5 double story nucs. We are just about to go into Goldenrod bloom. When I come back from vacation in two weeks I plan to weigh them, and feed to a wintering weight. When the weather gets cold, probably around Thanksgiving I plan to push the group of four together and the group of five together and insulate them. 
Some have upper entrances some have lower entrances. I may leave it that way and see what happens. Kirk Webster, another nuc. proponent has a website with links to his writings; He says that the upper ventilations keeps the dead-outs dryer and the combs in better condition, but stops short of saying that upper ventilation increases winter survival.
Working with nucs this summer has been fascinating. I am hopeful that with luck some will survive until spring. Last year I had one side of a divided nuc survive overwinter despite the bitter cold. If I am lucky enough to have half of these survive I will have enough bees not to have to buy packages in the spring.


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## mcdermottm

thank you for posting pictures!


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## Michael Palmer

I think an upper entrance is critical and increases winter survival. Not sure if Kirk has mentioned the icicles hanging out the bottom entrance in nucs without upper entrances but I know we both had that issue. Way too wet inside the nuc with no upper. My photo doesn't show the auger hole I use...these nucs don't have one yet. I drill a 3/4" auger hole just above the hand hold and below the ears on the top bars. No more moisture problem.


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## mcdermottm

http://www.bobhackbees.com/over-wintering-or-not.html
http://www.yulesapiaries.com/VideosandPics.html
i found these links last night. the second link has a video presentation given by MP about overwintering nucs. enjoy! 
i sort of overwintered a nuc last yr. i had a great little swarm from July that was building like crazy and then it went through a torrential downpour we had and mostly all the bees drowned.(i found out then how having an upper and lower entrance was a must!) anyway, my hubby and i had built an ob hive that summer so i put them in there with 3 combs of honey and 1 brood and the other mostly empty. they did great over the winter and didn't really want any sugar water. it was great seeing what they were doing all the time too!


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Mike, Kirk mentioned the icicles. He wrote that it was disconcerting, but didn't affect survival - it only affected the quality of combs on nucs that died out. Your advice has served me well in the past, so I think I'm going to drill me a few holes.
With the two story nucs do you have a goal weight going in to winter? How do you gauge that the two story has enough stores?


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## winevines

mcdermottm said:


> [url]http://www.yulesapiaries.com/VideosandPics.html
> i found these links last night. the second link has a video presentation given by MP about overwintering nucs. enjoy!


I have an updated 2011 presentatation on vimeo. Until I hear otherwise, it is invitation only, so PM if you want an invite to view.


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## winevines

winevines said:


> I have an updated 2011 presentation on vimeo.


Thanks to MP being the generous soul that he is - you can see this presentation on the following website. Note that it is in two parts.
http://www.vimeo.com/23178333 

and Part 2
http://www.vimeo.com/23234196

A shout out also needs to go our video volunteer extraordinaire Paul Oman of the Prince William Regional Beekeepers Association for taping this in high definition and superimposing the slides to make it easier for all to see.


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## Rick55

Mike
Thanks for taking the time to post all the great info. 
I am in upstate NY catskill mountains, is it to late to start Nucs to over winter
I have a couple of weaker hives that I could split 
Thanks Rick


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## Mosherd1

I was on the website and nothing played on the video when I clicked one to play. Is there something I need to download?


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## Michael Palmer

I think it's too late to make nucs in the Catskills.


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## delber

I'm going to be overwintering some nuc's also this year. I also have 2 hives that aren't out of 1 deep yet. Do you think that it's better to go vertical or to leave them in the deep? Is it better to winter a nuc in a stack, or to leave them in a full 10 frame deep? What's the benefit on both sides?


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## Rick55

I might have got lucky , but I overwintered a hive in a 5 Frame single story styrofoam nuc box last winter and it was one of my best hives this year


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## winevines

delber said:


> I also have 2 hives that aren't out of 1 deep yet.


Hard to know what your situation is, but if these hives were started in Spring I would be asking myself why they have not grown more. Sounds like a problem with the queen and if that is the case, then winter survival may be questionable in any configuration.


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## delber

One hive was a swarm from late june. I fed for a while and then stopped for fear of them being fed too much. They have built up well, but aren't out of a deep. 
The other hive was a cut-out that I did where the queen didn't make it. I requeened w/ a queen from Ga. by the end of April. The original bees from the cut-out were old and it took a bit to get them going again, but I think now they're doing well it's just that initial set back put them back a bit. This hive has just about filled the deep and I put a nuc box on top of them to give them room to continue to build in the last month or so and during the fall flow. I guess I'll just have to see how things go. Is there anything specific that you'd do in these situations?


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## Adrian Quiney WI

I just watched the second part of Mike's Vimeo presentation. My question is about the upper entrance, I drilled the 3/4 inch holes; Does it have to be on the opposite side to the bottom entrance? Mine are on the same side at the moment, and the top entrance is closed because I'm feeding. Do I need to reverse the top box 180 degrees, or is it OK to keep the entrances on the same side? I wasn't going to open the top entrance until I'm done feeding. Conceptually, I struggle with ventilation versus draught.


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## Michael Palmer

I don't think it matters much. I wouldn't turn the box 180.


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## Bush_84

Great thread! A little bit of a grave dig from a few months ago, but this really is amazing. I am going to try my hand at making a nuc or two next year and see how things go. I really like the idea of making nucs from wintered nucs! Brilliant!


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## the doc

yes great read. i'm trying this up here- some in the unheated garage and others on their own. will report back


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## stripstrike

Running eight frame mediums, do you think you could split a box with luan into 4 frames on each side with opposing entrances, and stack another medium on top as a vertical? That would give you 8 mediums, or about the same space as a five frame deep. Would you need to or could you go to three tiers if necessary? In spring I assume you would then take the brood nest frames from one side, put them in the lower of a new 8 frame set-up, and drop the brood nest of the remaining nuc, remove the dividers, and be off to the races, assuming they both make it and your goal is increase? I suppose you could nuc them again in July of that year for further increase or let them build up for production, or use them as brood factories for cell builders or starters. Boy, there are a lot of options with this scenario, very cool stuff to think about.

Good read, thanks to the many contributors.


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## Michael Palmer

stripstrike said:


> Boy, there are a lot of options with this scenario, very cool stuff to think about.


Yep, lots of options. I don't see why yours wouldn't work.


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## rkereid

stripstrike said:


> Running eight frame mediums, do you think you could split a box with luan into 4 frames on each side with opposing entrances, and stack another medium on top as a vertical? Would you need to or could you go to three tiers if necessary?


I usually have several nucs that are in three story 5 frame mediums and they do great. The top super generally has a division board feeder, so only 4 frames up there.


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## woodguyrob

Every time I re-read this thread I get fired up thinking about spring and making Nucs!


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## Happy Honey Farm

Hey Mike, if a queen is better the second year, at what age do you coonsider requeening.


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## Michael Palmer

I don't requeen because of age. I go by performance.


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## Gypsi

That makes sense to me.


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## Happy Honey Farm

Mike I made nucs in july before I heard about your system. They grew to a deep and a half going into winter. Do you keep pulling brood out of your july nucs and making more nucs? and if so when is the latest do you make nucs. I don't live all that far from you, we get the same winters as you. Thanks PS you changed my whole thinking on this beekeeping thing.


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## kilnrat

Well it is always good to hear from someone who has made it work. I have alot to learn since I am a 2nd year beekeeper. I tried two nucs this year and both were a flop. Probably the biggest problem was that I didn't include enough bees and brood. So you live and learn. Thanks for all who provide knowledge for the less experienced. Jim


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## Michael Palmer

I run nucleus colonies in two basic configurations, both in double boxes. Single story four frame nucs and double story 4 over 4. They are handled differently.

For the single story, I usually started them about July 1 to August 1. The first made, build up on the second half of the main flow and are too crowded for hot August and the coming Fall flow. To keep them in a four fram cavity is next to impossible. There are a number of ways to handle the problem. Tou can place an excluder above the double nuc box and super. Both nucs will work in the super, and with a good flow will fill the super. Trouble is that leaves the nucs with zero feed when you remove the super. Another way and one I prefer, is to remove brood/bees and replace with comb or foundation. The brood can be given to colonies needing a boost, or used to make additional nucleus colonies. The earlier you make up the nucs the more brood you can harvest. This is, to me, an acceptable method of swarm control. Problems arrise with managing an increasing number of nucleus colonies. How much time do you have to manage them? Once youy get a few hundred nucs going, and if you have lots of bee work to do in your apiary or you have a day job that takes your time, there's a better way.

I started experimenting...well my whole beekeeping experience has been a 38 year experiment...with expanding the nucleus colonies up into a second story...a four frame super. The nucleus colonies march right up onto those additional four combs, make a beautiful cluster, and store much of their winter needs without massive feeding of syrup. They will draw out four frames of foundation, increasing your supply of new comb. They won't abscond in the heat if late July and August. All in all, a better plan.

If you are going to allow them to expand up, the nucleus colonies should be made up early enough to take advantage of the flows so they can draw out their foundation. For my 4 over 4's, I start making them about the middle of June and try to finish by the middle of July. Some of the later made nucs will require comb instead of foundation...depending on the strength of the late flows.

Making nucs from nucs...you can save back wintered nucs and not place them into ten frame equipment. Expand them up into additional nuc boxes...maybe 12 combs total. Then you can use them as brood factories to make all your nucs for wintering. I would say that you can increase your numbers...maybe 10:1...managing them this way. 

I have a beekeeping friend that works pumping gas. He and his wife have taken off in their beekeeping. Already making and wintering nucleus colonies in their third year of beekeeping. He was whining about his job...six days at 12 hours a day. I'd whine, too. My plan for them?

First year, make as many nucleus colonies as you can. Winter them. They made ten. 
Second year, expand five of them into brood factories, resulting in fifty going into winter. 
Third year, expand thirty of them into three hundred.


After the third year...figure losing fifty in the winter which is high for two story nucleus colonies...you should be able to sell a couple hundred in the spring and have thirty-fifty to expand into brood factories, resulting in 250-500 nucleus colonies to winter.

At $125 for a nucleus colony in late April or early May...depending on where you keep bees...

Can Bill quit his gas pumping day job yet?


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## rkereid

Mike- Thanks again for your input. I am into my second year of wintering nucs after good success the first year. Last year I wintered 6 of 7. This year I am going in with 37.

My main problems are probably regional. In much of the mid Atlantic region, our main flow is in the spring until Tulip Poplar ends in early to late June depending on area. After that, like this past season, we often get a hot dry summer that may end with a small fall flow, if we are lucky. In a good year there is some maintenance flow to keep the bees from using all their stores. So there isn't much flow in the summer after June. Consequently, if I start nucs after the flow, I end up feeding much of the summer to get the nucs built up. I started nucs this year from April through early August and the early ones did the best because they could get established. Like your nuc brood factories, they helped start lots of the later nucs. But those later nucs needed constant feeding.

Also if I am going to nuc my least productive production colonies, I have a short window in the spring to analyze which ones to use, and then break them up early enough for those nucs to get established while still on a flow.

All in all it has worked out well, but I really want to find a way to avoid some of the feeding necessary after the flow (3 to 4 months of the season). It seems like I need to compress all my nuc making into the spring and make all of them up into doubles and triples so they can store as much as possible. Any thoughts?

Thanks, Richard


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## squarepeg

i am wondering what the difference is between a four over four, and just having them in a single deep? is it because they will have better separation of brood and honey? sorry if you have already answered this


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## Michael Palmer

How much are the later made nucs requiring as far as feed goes? How many gallons of 2:1? Quantity/cost in relation to how much the nucleus colonies are worth?


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## squarepeg

i am wondering what the difference is between a four over four, and just having them in a single deep? is it because they will have better separation of brood and honey? sorry if you have already answered this.


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## Michael Palmer

SP, the difference is in the winter. Bees don't like to move...or can't move horizontally. Oh, oh, now I've said it.

In very cold weather that is. In Alabama, it doesn't matter. It won't be cold enough for long enough to matter. Here in Vermont, a cluster can get stuck to one side of the box and not be able to reach out for the honey that's a frame away. If it's above them, no problem., heat rises.

Also, it's about them feeling they can work overhead...my opinion here. Bees that can move up onto empty comb, or feel they have ample room for overhead nectar storage are less apt to start swarm preparations than colonies that expand sideways...because that sideways expansion is way over there at the other side of the box and upward expansion is right on top of them.


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## Dynasty

So quick question about building your nucs, I've seen several posts on how to make nucs out of 1/2 inch plywood. Are any of you over wintering your nucs in these? or do you typically use 3/4 inch for your nucs to overwinter.


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## squarepeg

thanks mp, that makes sense. the bees in the five nucs i made up already show a preference for the 'sunny' sides of the hive. do you use foundation when getting your nucs to build comb?


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## Michael Palmer

Yes, foundation...as long as there is a good enough flow. Otherwise I give them comb.


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## drone1952

Friends,

Can you help me about extra multiple mating nuc made by A Komissar.I'm interested about drawings.
Thanks


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## Michael Palmer

I use all 3/4 pine that I buy cheap from the mill.


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## Michael Palmer

drone1952 said:


> Friends,
> 
> Can you help me about extra multiple mating nuc made by A Komissar.I'm interested about drawings.
> Thanks


Do you have a link?


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## Dynasty

So forgive me if this sounds stupid, but i have to ask since i don't have bees yet.

If i accept that i wont have a honey harvest the first year, is there any benefit to hiving my nucs that i get in april. Would it not be smarter, since i plan to expand in the coming years, to just keep them in 5 frame nucs, and make as many nucs as i can the first year. Since you've said that you can have up to 10:1, would it not be smart the first year to keep splitting the nucs the first year, and since im starting with 2 nucs, have anywhere between 5-20 nucs going into winter.

It seems to me that that would be the smarter way, if for no other reason than covering winter losses, then yr 2 could be half of them hived, and the other half resplit for nucs.


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## winevines

Michael Palmer said:


> Do you have a link?


Try this
http://www.wiltshirebeekeepers.org.uk/Downloads/BeeLines April 2007.pdf


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## rkereid

Michael Palmer said:


> How much are the later made nucs requiring as far as feed goes? How many gallons of 2:1? Quantity/cost in relation to how much the nucleus colonies are worth?


You got me there. I should go back and add up everything spent on sugar before mid Sept or so. I was feeding 1:1 once a week until the first of Sept when I went over to 2:1. I use single frame division board feeders. The 1:1 seemed to just disappear except for a few nucs that were more adept at putting it away. Some of the least thrifty ones were Italian queens that were brooding like crazy, but using all the feed up doing so.

The queens I got from you did a better job than most putting away the feed.


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## Vance G

Dynasty my friend, the bees are indeed capable under optimum conditions of being split that radically if properly managed. I am not trying to burst your bubble, but are you sure you are going to have the expertize out of the starting blocks to manage this feat? You might flame out and split your two nucs to death and end up with nothing. If you read a lot and listen to the right people here, I would almost bet you can double to four or five total units that you could get thru the next winter. But I really doubt twenty! Now Mr Palmer or Mr. Bush can do that regularly I am sure, but it takes some experience to gt to that place. Good luck. Passion to push hard is a good thing. But don't let everyone convince you that you can't get a first year honey crop. WIth good conditions unsplit, you probably could if you have a good location.


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## winevines

Michael Palmer said:


> How much are the later made nucs requiring as far as feed goes? How many gallons of 2:1? Quantity/cost in relation to how much the nucleus colonies are worth?


Jim Haskell has a presentation on "nucenomics" for the mid Atlantic area comparing SPring made vs. overwintered nucs. It is only one year old so still pretty current. He figures overwintered nucs vary in cost from $20 to $50 to make and feed with much of the variable cost dependent on the cost of queen purchase or using your own home reared. Sounds about right. Labor is another factor entirely of course, and for most hobbiests/backyard beeks, not sure we ever really factor that in. Thanks to MP's ideas, I have found that using 2 stories help a lot in reducing time needed for management- less need to remove brood in summer, more food stores for winter, and a little more time before they burst at the seems come Spring. Next Spring I will experiement with a few- using some as cell builders and splitting some to rear their own.


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## Dynasty

Vance G said:


> Dynasty my friend, the bees are indeed capable under optimum conditions of being split that radically if properly managed. I am not trying to burst your bubble, but are you sure you are going to have the expertize out of the starting blocks to manage this feat? You might flame out and split your two nucs to death and end up with nothing. If you read a lot and listen to the right people here, I would almost bet you can double to four or five total units that you could get thru the next winter. But I really doubt twenty!


Well i wasn't actually thinking 20 lol, more of a hypothetical really. But what i am more curious about is the ability to increase. More than likely what i will end up doing is 2 hives for the whole year so i can get the feel of how things should do, then experiment the 2nd year, or hope for picking up a swarm from one of the 2 feral hives ive located and do the experimenting then. But of course i don't expect to have 20 hives by the end of my first season

Of course since its my first year i know i will be wanting to be in the hives more than i should be. And i keep reading how nucs need to be managed more, so Nuc managing sounds like it would be good for a beginner who wants to spend a lot of time with the bees. And since theres still 5+ months till i can start, i'll continue thinking of what ifs until then.


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## rkereid

Dynasty said:


> Of course since its my first year i know i will be wanting to be in the hives more than i should be. And i keep reading how nucs need to be managed more, so Nuc managing sounds like it would be good for a beginner who wants to spend a lot of time with the bees. And since theres still 5+ months till i can start, i'll continue thinking of what ifs until then.


I think you are right about this. The bees might not need you to be in them all the time, but you will learn volumes by inspecting and watching what they are doing. And yes the nucs are easy to go in and usually have less defenders bugging you.


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## squarepeg

if there is a local bee club in your area, i bet that you would find folks willing to guide your efforts to start new hives, catch swarms, and make nucs.


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## Happy Honey Farm

Mike thanks for that info, can't wait to start in the spring and start using your methods. ps I belong to Mid NY Beekeeping club how do we get in touch with you to come and give a presintation. if you could email me on beescource or [email protected]


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## firebug

I live in central nc near greensboro. I only have one hive now its in one ten fram deep and one shallow supper fulll of honey. I was wondering if I can split them in the spring before they fill the second deep and still get honey? What about the lumber i use, Will nucs overwinte in 15/32 ply wood here. Thanks for the help


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## rharlow

Question on moving an overwintered nuc into 10 frame equipment. Currently have a 5 deep frame nuc, configured as 5 over 5, with top five having been filled with honey. Intention is to move to 10 deep in the spring. But, due to temperature, I think I'm going to need to super the Nuc before the move. If I go with something similar to Mike's methodology, I should be supering before dandelion flow (maple) and reversing on dandelion flow. Should I plan to super, perhaps another deep (5x5x5) and then at reversal time move them to 10 frame equipment? I'm thinking it might still be too cold at dandelion flow. Or perhaps wait for a nice warm day, and then do it? Thanks


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## Michael Palmer

Your bees are more resiliant than you give them credit for. In Maine, you can transfer the nuc into a 10 frame setup at the end of April or the first week of May...as long as the nuc isn't weak. That's well before your dandelion bloom or flow. As far as reversing goes...a nuc colony like this won't need to be reversed the first year. The task is accomplished by adding the second brood box of combs. If only foundation is available, bait the center of the second brood box with empty combs or a couple combs of brood from below.


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## Guest

I have read only a few pages of this thread so far, but it is very informative. Thank you all for posting your experiences and ideas. 
As a new beekeeper last year, I was already interested in overwintering nucs for the sole ability to have locally raised fall mated queens available in my Northern climate for spring increases and loss replacement. 
Seems like if you are NOT overwintering nucs, you will be buying bees every year.
No reason to throw good money away when you can educate yourself to manage them correctly in the first place.
Lauri
http://www.itsmysite.com/laurimilleragricultural/


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## Guest

You may be intersted in a few of my 'combo' hives. I made this one as a queen mating nuc combo, but some of the dividers can be removed for overwinteing nucs larger or converted to overwinter 3-ten frame hive combos. All second story box's are seperate for easy inspections of each colony. This is just a prototype and a few alterations are planned for the next one. A heavier insulating 1 1/2" bottom box with 3/8 tempered hardboard dividers for sharing warmth. Lots of ways this combo can be used.









here's a slide show with all the assembled parts:

http://s425.photobucket.com/albums/...w&current=6faef8fd.pbw&mediafilter=slideshows












Heres a photo of my heating cable bench my overwintering stock is kept. It is thermostatically controlled and only comes on when needed. My intent is to maintain the small clusters ability to move onto feed if I have very cold temps for extended periods of time. It has not stimulated brood rearing-at least not yet when the days are short.



I burned and sealed this body with my propane torch Spar urethane and am just waiting for my Nuc Disk reducers from Canada to arrive. When it is complete I will post aother photo.
My next combo box will lay out to accomodate 8 nuc box's as a second stack.
I really never lift the bottom box and as long as I am careful about it's initial placement, I think this will work well for me.
Here the color of this cedar decking material after burning and sealing. I was playing around with some PVC fittings for entrance control, as you see in this photo. Just drill a few holes in the plug for queen excluder and keep one solid for total confinement.









I am just a new hobby keeper with about 20 hives. Surley different from the beekeeper trying to make a living and needs volume over pretty.


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## AstroBee

Lauri,

A couple of suggestions on your prototype. 
1) try to avoid groves in the wood for interior surfaces. These can serve as a safe haven for small hive beetle (SHB).
2) extend your hardboard dividers about 3/4 inch above so that you can individual tops over each nuc space. That way you can open only the nuc you want to work, also some virgin queens can be very frisky and if multiple nucs are open then problems can happen. Of course you will need a weather tight outer cover to keep the dividers dry.


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## Guest

Here's a few more pics of my mating nuc combo hive shown above. Had to make the edges of the masonite tight to the box so no bees can slip by. I had some cedar that fit just right and made a 1/4" channel along the bottom-similar to the grove on a top bar frame-and glued the masonite into the grove. If I had a 3/16 bit it would have been better 1/4" grove was a pinch too big. But now that I toped the masonite, only two frames will fit. But that is OK for mating nucs. I offset my foundation so the small cluster of bees won't get trapped on one side of that giant frame. You can also see I made my mini nuc frames. Just cut down the big frame tops and bottoms, trimmed up one end to fit the side bars and mini frames for half the price.
It was funny, making these frames reminded me of making baby clothes! It's been 25 years since I did that!
Now I plan to put these frames in established hives to get at least somewhat drawn out before using them in mating nucs. Heck, I might insert the black foundation into the broodnest of queens I want to graft from, do my grafting, put the remaining black foundation frame in a starting colony horizontally by laying this frame on top with a spacer-enticing them to build the queen cells in a more vertical form. Then when they are done with that, use them in the mating nucs as drawn out frames. LOL too many choices.


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## Guest

Thanks. Right after I cut the dividers I remembered I needed to make my channel deeper and cut them tight enough to close that gap. You can see in my post above how I fixed that Oops.
I will have to figure out how to cover up those groves on the interior, that is a good point. I have a whole unit of beautiful Cedar decking I plan to use. This is just how it came-with the groves to prevent warping. I generally make my woodenware out of stuff I get from my friend at the cedar mill. Frequently he will give me or sell me shorts which work great for hives. My patterns usually are made from the least waste of this wood. Maybe fill them with dry pollen substitute in the fall.


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## geebob

My unscientific report on my overwintered nucs.

I had two unproductive hives that I decided to break down into nucs last Summer. I wound up with a total of 5 nucs. I requeened three of them and decided to keep the other two queens. As my apiary developed symptoms of nosema, I treated all of the colonies there with FUMAGILIN-B. One of the nucs superceded multiple times and was eventually combined with a production hive late in the season.

So, I took four nucs into the Winter. Unfortunately, I had a higher mite load than I originally thought and it was too late to treat. Two of the nukes survived and are doing well. Both of the production hives died out, also from a high mite load.

I'm not going to draw any conclusions from this small sample, but the math worked out well. From two colonies almost certain to fail, I made five nucs, two of which survived despite a high mite count. Two stronger full-sized colonies in the same apiary both died. I intend to follow the same management strategy this year and see if I can improve my results (although I will monitor my mite load more scientifically this year).


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## Mosherd1

I overwintered 5 nucs. 4 were side by side 5 framers and one was a 5 over 5 nuc. 2 of the side by sides (same box) did not make it through winter. The other 2 side by sides made it but are still growing to try and fill out the original 5 frames. The 5 over 5 is already in 2 deeps and I put a super on a few days ago. Very small sample but I think I will be increasing my equipment to 5 over 5's. Anyone else compare the two? Obviously the extra 5 frames has alot to do with the increased expansion.


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## Rick55

I overwintered a 5 frame nuc and a Michael Palmer double 4 frame 2 story nuc. One of those was a swarm I caught in a trap at the beginning of August. All 3 made it through. I just moved the double and one side had 4 frames of brood and the other had an unbelievable 8 frames of brood. Thank you Mike Palmer for all the info on overwintering Nucs. Also if you read this any hints on the best way to get Nucs into new separate homes.


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## winevines

Mosherd1 said:


> Very small sample but I think I will be increasing my equipment to 5 over 5's. Anyone else compare the two?


I can hear MP right now saying, it's not the box, but what is in the box that matters. I believe that many different methods work with similar results unless there is some design issue in your equipment causing a problem like lack of ventilation or excessive wind, etc. I have found no difference with single boxes vs. shared boxes in my area. 

As to the other poster re mites. I too lost a bunch of OW nucs last year to PMS/mites. It could have been that the hives I drew the frames from had high mite count in the brood and I was unaware, but I have seen high mite counts in nucs. Last year I treated very selectively in 8-10 frame nucs.


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## Yucca Patrol

In a mild climate such as Alabama, what is the latest date that I can start nuc's for overwintering?

I'm a first year beekeeper and started with two strong nuc's this spring. I know that my #1 goal is to get these colonies strong enough to survive until next year, but if it is possible to also grow my apiary with a couple nuc's this fall, I'd really like to do that too.

Also, as I am interested in moving towards using all medium size boxes, how many frames are necessary to create a strong nuc in a medium size box?


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## squarepeg

the latest i started one last year was mid august. i introduced a mated queen to three deep frames of bees and two drawn frames of comb along with five frames of deep foundation all into a 10 frame box.

i had to feed a little at first, but we had a strong fall flow here. none of the foundation got drawn, so i removed it and put a divider board in to close off the box to five frames.

they overwintered fine, were given at patty or two in the early spring, and are now in one deep and three mediums with one medium of honey already harvested.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

I went through my nucs today, with a mind to the build up to winter. I have nucs started at three different times. I have them all in two storeys (except for three) but noticed that the latest ones hadn't had time to draw out 5 frames of foundation. I went through the other nucs and exchanged empty undrawn frames with frames of honey, and added a couple of empty drawn brood combs to the weak ones. Goldenrod is starting soon, and I wanted to make sure they were able to take advantage of it. I have around 18, 3 of which I have put in 3 storeys of 5 as an experiment. 
I think the best thing I can do for them now (having verified that everyone has space and stores) is leave them alone.


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## Keth Comollo

Adrian,
Sounds like a good plan. Tomorrow I am going through the nucs that I queened with my last graft. They were all laying three weeks ago and I have left them alone. I am basically going to see how each queen is performing and mark any hives that seem to have a poor queen as a possible combine with others at the end of the fall flow. One of the traits I want to select for is a rapid build up of a solid broodnest so I see no need to nurse lagging queens through the winter.


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## MissouriMule

I am trying to winter NUCs for the first time this year, I made up 4 in the Palmer fashion culling frames of brood and stores to make up the colonies and then adding mated queens.

I constructed the NUCs using the split deep box style with a center dividing wall and using 4 frames per colony. Two are going gang busters and are packed, 1 is pretty full and looks to be very active and one has already bit the dust. I went to inspect one day a while back and there was furious buzzing and lots of bees tying to pack into the reduced opening of one of the boxes. I also noticed what looked like chewed up cappings under that side having fallen through the screen on the bottom board. It was being robbed out by other bees and one of the frames had wax moths & larvae present. It looked like they absconded when the moths got too much of a foot hold.

That brings me to my question should I move the surviving colony from that split deep into an actual separate NUC or just stuff the empty side with something to act as insulation and leave them alone. The surviving colony in that box is one of the really strong ones by the way and I had considered giving them an additional drawn frame and letting them pack it by feeding them 2:1 if I moved them to a bigger box.


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## Michael Palmer

First, it seems the robbing is still going on, and there are wax worms present? I think the nuc probably failed, wax worms got started, and then the robbing started. As far as absconding...why do you think they absconded? Did you see emergency cells? I've seen many absconds, and they always have brood, sealed brood, and emergency cells. Maybe the nuc just failed.

I would leave the strong nucleus colony in the box they're in. Last year, I set up several nucs in double nuc boxes...but with only one side populated with one nuc. They wintered just fine.





MissouriMule said:


> I also noticed what looked like chewed up cappings under that side having fallen through the screen on the bottom board. It was being robbed out by other bees and one of the frames had wax moths & larvae present. It looked like they absconded when the moths got too much of a foot hold.
> 
> That brings me to my question should I move the surviving colony from that split deep into an actual separate NUC or just stuff the empty side with something to act as insulation and leave them alone. The surviving colony in that box is one of the really strong ones by the way and I had considered giving them an additional drawn frame and letting them pack it by feeding them 2:1 if I moved them to a bigger box.


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## squarepeg

mm, i had a few like that last winter. i used crumpled up newspaper in the empty space for insulation and to absorb excess moisture. it seemed to work pretty good.


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## MissouriMule

Maybe I was the wrong terminology in saying absconding, the previous week or so they appeared to be fine with good population and some stores and brood. 

It probably was as you suspect the moths moved in after the bees bailed out of the box.


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## Adam Foster Collins

Michael Palmer said:


> ...
> Making nucs from nucs...you can save back wintered nucs and not place them into ten frame equipment. Expand them up into additional nuc boxes...maybe 12 combs total. Then you can use them as brood factories to make all your nucs for wintering. I would say that you can increase your numbers...maybe 10:1...managing them this way...


Mike, can you talk more about this specific aspect of nuc management? How does using a nuc allow a 10:1 expansion? Can you talk us through the process?

I'm gearing up to focus on nucs, based on what I've learned from you online. I'm building 8 frame deeps with divider boards, and planning to move toward an operation which is maybe 75% nucleus colonies, and 25% production. I'm going to do 8 frame 4 over 4's in split double deeps.

You said in another thread that in order for a person to become self-sufficient and sustainable, you recommended maintaining 100 colonies. I want to work toward that, and I feel like nuc management is the key. I want to raise my own queens, in my own region, and to get away from buying bees from Hawaii.

Adam


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## Michael Palmer

You start the season with over-wintered nucleus colonies. I use 4 over 4 deeps. In late April or early May, I add another story of 4 combs. The queen moves up onto these combs, expanding the broodnest. At this point, they will swarm unless you do one of two things. Add another story, or remove full combs and replace with empty combs. I do the later.

Once the bees have expanded up into the third box, and you have queens available, Remove frames of brood and bees from the nucs. Take enough to keep swarm preparations under control, but not so much the nuc is severely weakened. Early in the season, this might mean only one or two frames of brood and bees per nuc. As the season progresses, and the little colonies get stronger, two or three combs of brood and bees can be robbed at each visit. At the height of the nuc making season, say July 1, you begin knocking the 3 story nucs down as you remove brood and bees. First to two stories, then to one, and then to nuc strength, so by the last brood harvest, the original nucleus colony is taken all the way down to a new nuc in strength.

For your 10:1 goal, you need to harvest 20 combs of brood and bees, 10 frames of honey, and have access to 10 empty combs. The three story wintered nuc has 12 or 15 combs already by the beginning of May. So harvesting those combs isn't a stretch. It does require a prolific queen and a good flow. The honey combs might be difficult to come up with from the nucs alone, but I get all I need as a by-product of my cell building apiary.



Adam Foster Collins said:


> Mike, can you talk more about this specific aspect of nuc management? How does using a nuc allow a 10:1 expansion? Can you talk us through the process?
> 
> I'm gearing up to focus on nucs, based on what I've learned from you online. I'm building 8 frame deeps with divider boards, and planning to move toward an operation which is maybe 75% nucleus colonies, and 25% production. I'm going to do 8 frame 4 over 4's in split double deeps.
> 
> You said in another thread that in order for a person to become self-sufficient and sustainable, you recommended maintaining 100 colonies. I want to work toward that, and I feel like nuc management is the key. I want to raise my own queens, in my own region, and to get away from buying bees from Hawaii.
> 
> Adam


----------



## Adam Foster Collins

Mike, thanks for the response. Okay, so if 10:1 is a stretch without other resources, or a bumper year, then 4:1 or 5:1 should be pretty easy to do using that approach.

What's interesting, is that it keeps the nuc-making with the nucs. You don't touch the production colonies, unless one of those turns out to be weak and you want to break it down into resources.

I think the thing stuck in my mind at the moment is that it's going to be a challenge to know when the bees are getting too tight later in the season. If you're making nucs in July, it seems like a fine line between a nice, strong nuc, and too many bees/pssible swarming. Any advice specific to finding that line? - knowing when to remove resources from a nuc to keep it from swarming?

Adam


Adam


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Adam, I was doing this last year and my experience is that a nuc made up with two or three frames of brood in July, and then given a second box with only one drawn comb doesn't want to swarm; It is as though they know that job number one is to set up for winter. When I made up 9 nucs the year before this was also true.
The real issue for me was not splitting them up early or far enough. The population in those overwintered nucs took off faster than I could have imagined. I was dealing with excessive swarming Mid-May.
I have bought some plastic queen excluders, and what I am contemplating doing is cutting them in half, confining the queen in one box for a week and then taking the queenless box away and replacing that box with a box of empty combs. I realize that I would be better off splitting them harder and dealing with fewer swarms; Swarms suck up your time.
I am not trying to expand my numbers any further, given my other commitments 15-20 production hives is enough for me. I just want to run enough nucs to replace worn out production colonies every year without buying packages.
I can't emphasize enough how easy it is to get behind with wooden ware and frames. I am moving to as simple a system as possible. FBIC's and 2 inch styrofoam on the top and simple boards on the bottom if I run out of regular bottom boards. This winter I am going to make about 20 more 5 frame nucs and buy some more frames.


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## Michael Palmer

You misunderstand me. 10:1 isn't a stretch. It's nothing for a good queen to produce 20 frames of brood between the middle of May and the middle of July...as long as you have comb to use for replacements. With a decent flow, you can get a feed comb when you harvest brood. I get most of my extra feed combs from my cell builders, as they get too strong and the cell builder body is full of honey when I harvest the cells. You could also get frames of honey from production hives, but I don't. You can also feed them at the start. In 2011, a poor honey year, flood followed by drought, I harvested more than 900 combs of brood and bees from 50 overwintered nucs.

You prevent the bees from getting too tight, as you say, by keeping them loose...adding enough empty comb, in the right place, to give the brood rearing bees a place to rear brood, and the nectar gatherers a place to store their nectar. Your strong, three story nuc will behave as a large hive in miniature. Honey up top, and brood below. So, you might take a couple feed frames from the top box and replace with comb or foundation if the flow is strong. The middle and bottom box have much brood. You take a frame or two from each, and replace with worker comb. I try to replace the combs taken at the separator between the two nucs...as that's the real center of their broodnest and where they are likely to raise the most brood. This gives the queen empty brood comb right where she wants it, and she'll go to town filling it up for the next harvest.

A strong nuc and good queen on a flow, will fill those added combs in less than 2 weeks. And that's the big thing. Realizing just how prolific one of these units really is, and looking often enough to prevent swarm preparations from beginning. Also, don't bank on thinking strong nucs will wait until they have sealed cells before they swarm. I've seen them go with cups with eggs or day old larvae. So, staying well ahead of them with empty comb is essential. If you see them elongating queen cups, and adding bits of white wax to their sides, you're behind, and I would bet that if you looked closely enough, you would find a cup with an egg. And if you leave with the colony, away they go.

Never think that you've got it made for another week without at least tipping up the boxes and looking for cups and crowded conditions and frames of brood.

"When life looks like easy street, there's danger at your door". Jerry Garcia




Adam Foster Collins said:


> Mike, thanks for the response. Okay, so if 10:1 is a stretch without other resources, or a bumper year, then 4:1 or 5:1 should be pretty easy to do using that approach.
> 
> What's interesting, is that it keeps the nuc-making with the nucs. You don't touch the production colonies, unless one of those turns out to be weak and you want to break it down into resources.
> 
> I think the thing stuck in my mind at the moment is that it's going to be a challenge to know when the bees are getting too tight later in the season. If you're making nucs in July, it seems like a fine line between a nice, strong nuc, and too many bees/pssible swarming. Any advice specific to finding that line? - knowing when to remove resources from a nuc to keep it from swarming?
> 
> Adam
> 
> 
> Adam


----------



## winevines

Note his reference to comb- that is drawn comb. This plan works with foundation, but probably not as well. Monitoring for queen cells and acting upon them is super critical- as it is in all colonies, but more so it seems in these brood building OW nucs expanding upwards. I should have paid more heed to Garcia myself and even resorted to taking out the queen (artificial swarm) in a few as breaking down queen cells was not enough - booming populations, cells everywhere, on frames, bottom, and hidden on sides. Plus I didn't even consider that I should be shaking bees off frames to find cells, and even if I did, surely I would have missed some cells. I lost many good queens to swarms- even with ow nucs expanding to 12- 15 frames (3 boxes high). On the bright side, I also raised several great queens from swarm cells by taking frames with cells out and putting in mating nucs. They were packing away plenty of honey so took that out as well. And definitely I harvested much brood, honey, etc. for more nucs, mating nucs, etc. But if I had comb, and/or really paid attention every 7 days, I can see that expanding exponentially is definitively within reach with this plan. Next year adding shaker box into the routine when needed, brushing off comb, and training my other half to look for QCs should improve the odds.


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## Adam Foster Collins

*Adrian Quiney WI says: "The population in those overwintered nucs took off faster than I could have imagined. I was dealing with excessive swarming Mid-May...I can't emphasize enough how easy it is to get behind with wooden ware and frames. I am moving to as simple a system as possible."*

I am only overwintering 7 nucs and 4 full colonies at the moment, but I'm building gear to house 30 nucs and 10 full colonies. But given the talk here, maybe that's not enough... I guess it depends on how much I want to expand next summer.

*Mike Palmer says: "So, staying well ahead of them with empty comb is essential." 
*
Mike, that's why I thought 10:1 might be a stretch - for me. I don't have the drawn comb. How do you advise management in a situation where you only have foundation? Also, how often do you see having to check on your nucs?

*Winevines says: " This plan works with foundation, but probably not as well. Monitoring for queen cells and acting upon them is super critical...if I had comb, and/or really paid attention every 7 days, I can see that expanding exponentially is definitively within reach with this plan. "*

Karla, you're saying every 7 days. So when is the range of dates you would be on that schedule? When would you begin to worry in the spring, and when would you begin to worry less about them swarming? Just trying to get a sense of what kind of work a full yard of nucs could be.

Each of you suggests the imperative of keeping ahead of these nucs to prevent swarming, so I'm trying to get a handle on what kind of schedule that would present, as well as how much gear I need to produce to be able to handle it. Also, at this point, I don't have the drawn comb to work with, so that has to alter the approach somewhat. How does that change the picture?

Thanks

Adam


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## winevines

Adam Foster Collins said:


> Karla, you're saying every 7 days. So when is the range of dates you would be on that schedule? When would you begin to worry in the spring, and when would you begin to worry less about them swarming? Just trying to get a sense of what kind of work a full yard of nucs could be.
> /QUOTE]
> you have 16 days for the new queen to emerge- so looking every 2 weeks in theory should be enough. I say looking every 7 days because I am not always adept at seeing that egg or larvae housed in the queen cup until that cup is bigger and more clearly a queen cell- so that is potentially 3 days right there I miss at a minimum... and the cell is capped at 9, and they swarm early, so I came up with 7 days being the schedule I need to aim for if I can.
> I figure we are about 1 month ahead of you more or less. April 1st is generally when swarming starts. Later April more average. We seldom have strong Fall flow so I don't worry much about later swarms, although they do happen.


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## Adam Foster Collins

You're even more than that ahead. We don't really begin swarming until Mid May to June 1.

You say you don't get the Fall flow, so if your 7 day inspection schedule begins on April 1, when does it end, or switch to wider intervals? 

Adam


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## Specialkayme

Adam Foster Collins said:


> so if your 7 day inspection schedule begins on April 1, when does it end, or switch to wider intervals?


Bees are much more likely to swarm right before, or in the beginning of, a big flow. 

I don't know what your flows are, so I can't tell you how long you should continue to look.

For me, swarm season can start in early to the middle of March, but most issue around April 1. That's because Tulip poplar (are large, and sometimes only flow) blooms from April 1 to April 30 (on average). So for me, I continue to check through out March and April on one week intervals. May I usually keep checking at one week intervals. Clovers are usually going well now, and some overstocked hives don't always get the "memo" that swarm season is over. But almost all of them are done by June 1. From there I usually check about once every two weeks, or once a month, until July 1. Then the dearth hits and you better not open that hive up unless you want to lose it. Then recheck in middle of August.


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## TWall

Michael Palmer said:


> "When life looks like easy street, there's danger at your door". Jerry Garcia


I heard Garcia sing it a number of times. I believe Robert Hunter gets the credit for it.

Tom


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## Michael Palmer

TWall said:


> I heard Garcia sing it a number of times. I believe Robert Hunter gets the credit for it.
> 
> Tom


I knew someone would set me straight.


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## Michael Palmer

Adam Foster Collins said:


> *Mike Palmer says: "So, staying well ahead of them with empty comb is essential."
> *
> Mike, that's why I thought 10:1 might be a stretch - for me. I don't have the drawn comb. How do you advise management in a situation where you only have foundation? Also, how often do you see having to check on your nucs?


The nuc's first year, you can draw out several frames of foundation. You start with the original 4 frames used to start the nuc. As soon as they are strong enough, You add the 4 frame super on top. Move up one comb from the nuc and replace it with a foundation in the bottom box against the divider. They'll draw it out and fill it with brood...yes, even in the bottom box. The comb moved up is at the divide between nucs and the 3 remaining are foundation. As the bees draw the foundation, replace it with more foundation. Most of the foundation will have honey/nectar. Leave brood in the nuc when possible...this allows the nuc to gain in strength, and draw foundation even faster. Obviously, the strength of the flow and the strength of the nuc, will determine how much work they'll do for you.

The nuc's second year, you can expand it up into 3 or 4 nuc boxes, and they'll raise brood below that can be harvested, and draw foundation. Or you can put the 8 combs of the nuc in a 10 frame, and add a deep of foundation above. Now when they draw that out, they have 14 new combs out of 19.

Growing your stock of good comb takes time. Nucs help the process along. Thje tend to draw mostly worker comb, and you invest very little in the process, when comparing full sized hives to nuc boxes.

I look at my nucs at 2-3 weeks, depending what time of year it is, the flow, and the strength of the nucs. This continues from the beginning of May until the weather changes in the fall. This happens when the nights start cooling off, and we get 40s. I've found that it's not the fact that there's been a killing frost, but that the nights cool off.


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## DonShackelford

winevines said:


> you have 16 days for the new queen to emerge- so looking every 2 weeks in theory should be enough.


2 weeks is a little too long Karla, 16 days is from a laid egg. 13 days from a new larva.

I know, always a critic


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## minz

Michael, it has to be ‘shop time’ for you as well as the rest of us above the 45th parallel. It sounds like you have a lot of double’s in your plan that you stack on top of each other for 8 frame hives, are you in construction? Do you have some pictures or links to previously posted pictures? I am plaining wood and cutting to length it would be a good time for me to make up some 2/2 MP deeps (trying to get a name to stick can you tell).


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## Michael Palmer

I wish. All the production hives are ready for wrappers. Waiting for the rain to stop. Most nucs are ready for wrappers, too, but some will need frames of honey added to the top box, as they didn't finish the ones I gave them in early August. Nice populations but with an empty frame or two in the top box. 

I can't hardly wait to be finished with my bee work so I can work in the shop. Have lots of plans for the winter. I'll be re-doing my shop...right now my wood shop is the back corner of my honey house...surrounded by plastic sheeting to keep the dust out of the rest of the shop.I plan on making the plastic walls permanent by constructing walls and...oh my gosh...a door! Shelving all around. A long table with chop saw to cross-cut long boards. Did I say shelving to hold nails, tools, glue, etc, etc. And a door! GeeHaw.

So, once I get working in the shop, I can take you some pictures and post them here. You'll have to remind me. I'm so forgetful. How forgetful am I...I got up at 5 am this morning because I forgot to turn my clock back. God gave me a neck so I wouldn't forget my head somewhere. 

First project...a wooden case for my microscope. That's after my shelving and door are finished.


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## TooFarGone

Mike,
Loved the 2 part video on overwintering the nucs! I probably missed it while reading the thread but could you clarify some size confusion for me. Are you using 8 frame or 10 frame boxes with a divider when you make your two nuc, 4 frame each side boxes?

I will be preparing equipment this winter for medium frame nucs on order from a local VHS treatment free supplier (Broke-T). My daughter is very interested in raising queens (she is spectacularly good at genetics). Because of the box weight issue, I am strongly considering 8 frame mediums. I am also considering building plywood nucs based on the plans by D. Coats from the "Build it Yourself" section here but reduced to medium depth. If I were to "shrink" the width to be able to stack two side by side on an 13-3/4" wide 8 frame box, then the inside dimensions are 5-5/8". If one used standard with 1-3/8" frames, they would require 5-1/2". Is this too tight to fit 4 standard frames? If I used 1-1/4" "narrow" frames, then this only requires 5". Being located in Mississippi, should I build them with the width per the drawings (7-1/2" inside width), make a bunch of stackable supers, and forget the idea of stacking them on the 8 frame equipment? 

Thanks, and when is you book going to be done?
Tim H


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## Adam Foster Collins

Tim,

I'm using 8 frame gear, and just making a divider board, rather than the separate small boxes. Less gear; less material.

Adam


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## allincuddy

Mike, great thread.
In reference to the brood factory, I get that you let her fill out the bottom box, move a frame of brood up to bait the second box and put a third box of drawn frame for gathering. My question is, do you reverse the first and second boxes to get her back down to supply her with accessible empty comb?
Thanks,
Mark


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## minz

The big question is: did Mike ever get his door?
If he is still subscribed this is the reminder to post the pictures of the shop (walls and doors) and microscope case (that is on my list as well). Here is a shot of my divided deeps with shallows (posted it in another thread). 
With base (painted base gray)
http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n599/6minz/DSCF4334_zpsa21269cf.jpg
Just a pile (funny cause of the color of a pile):
http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n599/6minz/DSCF4265_zpsf2950e48.jpg


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## Michael Palmer

allincuddy said:


> My question is, do you reverse the first and second boxes to get her back down to supply her with accessible empty comb?
> Thanks,
> Mark


I don't reverse, but do rearrange the combs. I find them raising brood in both boxes by the end of April, sometimes with a couple frames of honey left above. I leave the bottom box alone. Two combs of brood go in the second story against the divider and two empty combs fill the box. The top box gets two empty brood combs against the divider and the two frames of honey at the outside. 

I consider the divider where the two 8 1/8 super meet.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Here's a little to add to the discourse. I was just going over my notes from this past winter on my un-miticide treated nucs. I had a group of 5 who (like the others) provided some brood, but didn't get an observed broodbreak from 2011/12. Of those I lost 2. The other 13 all had a beekeeper induced/observed broodbreak - of those I lost one. The overall survival rate so far (still have snow on the ground) is 15 out of 18 which is pretty good considering the winter we have had. I plan to ensure that everyone gets a brood break.
I am also contemplating the wisdom of cutting off some honey production August 1, and then if I can get my timing right, adding cells and splitting some 10 frame hives back to nucs; The number of these I try will depend on the drawn comb and combs of feed I have at the time. 
The season is short, and the winter is long; Rather than leaving the supers out to catch the dregs of the summer flows and the Goldenrod my apiary might be better served making more nucs. I wish there were more local beekeepers who raised cells; I think there is real opportunity at a local level for some synergistic cooperation.


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## squarepeg

>I think there is real opportunity at a local level for some synergistic cooperation.

good point adrian. i have been talking with a few of my local beeks about swapping some queens this year.

i have changed my plans a little bit, from rearing queens and making nucs during the main flow to waiting until after the spring honey harvest.

the drawback is i will miss out on the best forage for making nice cells, won't be taking advantage of the swarm impluse, and drone availability will be less than is associated with the main flow. i'll have to make sure my cell builder is properly fed, and i will likely have to provide supplemental feed for the nucs through our summer dearth.

the advantages are that i can concentrate on swarm prevention and honey production this spring, plus i can gauge vigor, production, and get a meaningful mite count at the start of summer in order to select which queens to graft from.

last year's dead outs are now swarm traps that will hopefully give me plenty of bees to make up the nucs with.

i try to maintain twelve production hives, and will try to keep at least that many nucs on hand to overwinter.


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## thenance007

With all the mentions of how fast overwintered nucs build up in the Spring, I'm wondering if it is worth overwintering my 3-4 full size hives or simply overwintering nucs made from them. We have the April swarm season and flow is May/June followed by July/August dearth and iffy fall Goldenrod flow. So having to provide honey or feed to the production colonies most of the summer and fall takes a lot of resources vs. nucs.

Will overwintered nucs build up quickly enough in the Spring to take advantage of the flow here? Or overwintering twice as many nucs and combining them into production hives in early Spring?


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## Solomon Parker

Perhaps if they have drawn comb to build on. One way to find out.


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## Darius

Michael Palmer said:


> Growing your stock of good comb takes time. Nucs help the process along. Thje tend to draw mostly worker comb, and you invest very little in the process, when comparing full sized hives to nuc boxes.


How do you store your surplus comb in the summer and then in the winter?


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## Michael Palmer

On bees in the summer and in a cold shed in winter. Actually my storage barn remains cold enough in the summer so I have little problem with Greater wax moths. All my combs are on bees by mid-summer.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Another way is to let surplus bees look after surplus comb. If you adopt the nuc method of making increase successfully you will have bees-a-plenty.
This fall I had a couple of production colonies that I did not allow to build up for wintering - I had harvested their honey - I let them sit on the combs until Nov 6th, and then I shook them out. There are no comb pests active up here at this time, and now I have 50 good brood combs sitting in my shed. 
It is wise to plan to have spare brood combs in the spring. I have been moving away from overwintering double 10 frame deeps to overwintering 5 over 5 frame nucs, with a few 5 over 5 over 5 framers thrown in.
I will need those combs in the spring. I hope to sell a 1/3 or so of these, run 8-10 for honey, and then make increase with the rest. I bought no bees last year, not a single one.
http://s1110.photobucket.com/user/A...000D008158F4C_zpsd85e4c9f.jpg.html?sort=6&o=8


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## Specialkayme

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> http://s1110.photobucket.com/user/A...000D008158F4C_zpsd85e4c9f.jpg.html?sort=6&o=8


Looks like some type of pink bee fortress.


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## Adrian Quiney WI

I know. I'm a sucker for cheap paint and foamular.


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## wildbranch2007

how did that plastic green house with the dehumidifier work out?


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## Adrian Quiney WI

It worked well. I pull supers one day then run the dehumidifier for 24-48 hrs, the honey is in the 16.5%-17.5% water range. It can be very humid here in the midwest in the summer.


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## Randy south MS

This is probably a dumb question but since i'm way down in the learning curve here goes.
Can comb from honey production be used for brood comb after its been extracted? 

Thank all you experienced beeks for this info. Im like some of the others said, I cant wait til spring to try to apply some of this knowledge.

Randy


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## ccar2000

It is my understanding that in some scenarios honey comb will be drawn too deep for brood rearing. However, for the most part the answer is yes, they can. It could be possible that the uncapping process would provide the proper depth. Hopefully someone can confirm this for both of us


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## Michael Bush

>Can comb from honey production be used for brood comb after its been extracted? 

People often do give it to the bees for brood. My only issue is, if it's natural comb (not from foundation) it often is larger for honey than they typically build in the brood nest for brood...


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## delber

If the cell size is proper the bees will make the debth what they need to for brood. They'll tear it down to use if they need to. When they fill the brood nest in the fall / summer with nectar / honey / sugar whatever they'll often draw the cells slightly deeper. Then come spring buildup as they use the stores they'll shrink the depth of the cells as is needed. Also if it's too thin they'll obviously draw it deeper.


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## cristianNiculae

I see you move the nucs on top of more powerful hives or huddle them together.
When exactly do you do this to prevent disoriented bees? I guess you do it after a few non-flying days; and again when do you put them back to the new Spring position?

I've read in a Doolittle book that they placed the hives exactly in the same position after wintering them in the cellar.

This looks tricky to me. Can you please post some details about this?


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## Michael Palmer

When I used to move single story double nucs to the top of production hives, Webster Method, I made the move after the bees were done flying for the year…in November. 

I run all two story double nucs now, and leave them on their summer stands for winter.


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## cristianNiculae

Michael Palmer said:


> I run all two story double nucs now, and leave them on their summer stands for winter.


I think in my climate I can easily get away with one box. I'm thinking on using a regular second box above excluders during the summer for giving them space and storage. In late August I will organize them in double singles... with God's will.

Thanks


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## WRLCPA

MP, Hello from Milton Vermont. 

I am very new to bee keeping having just purchased my very first two packages and installed them into two hives just last Thursday. I understand what you are talking about when you talk about the negatives about purchasing package bee's so hence my question.

Would you feel it it would be a good idea to "Sacrifice" both hives in late July and split them both entirely into X number of nucs to overwinter, introduce locally raised queens and essentially start next year with X hives of locally raised queens and locally overwintered bees?


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## Michael Palmer

If they build up well you might set up 2 nucs about July 1 by taking some brood and bees from each. It's difficult the first year because you have no comb.


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## BTG

Michael Palmer said:


> If they build up well you might set up 2 nucs about July 1 by taking some brood and bees from each. It's difficult the first year because you have no comb.


I got my packages on 4/25 and the one that lived through the cold rainy spell at the end of April are building comb like crazy. I am using foundation-less deep frames and I added a frame on Monday and yesterday it was about 1/3 drawn out. I have a nice section of capped brood and some honey. I am limiting their space and increasing it one frame at a time but they seem to be happy and I am planning to re-queen with local queens this summer. I am hoping I will be able to split it into at least 3 nucleus colonies before fall. I suppose at the moment it doesn't hurt that I have a major flow. Things could change if we have some bad weather but I will take what I can get at the moment.


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## MTN-Bees

I will be adding a third level to the double nuc setup this week. This is my 1st year using nucs, so the lack of comb is an issue. When I start to split the nucs- I was going to pull 1 frame of sealed brood, 1 frame of open brood, and 1 frame of honey. I'm hoping to split the 3 level nucs every 10-14 days as they rebuild until mid-July.
Does that sound correct? I'm open to suggestions from others with more experience.
Thanks, Rich


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## Pathfinder

Mtn-Bees I am eager to hear about how your splits went? I am going to be doing this next year without any drawn comb as well. I hope it went well.


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## MTN-Bees

Things went ok. A huge learning curve. A couple of things I noted. Start earlier to allow more time to draw comb. Feed heavy. Consider rearing your own queens as local queens can be hard to come by and expensive. I had a 4:1 ratio of nucs I wanted to make up to brood factories. That was not enough resources, especially without drawn comb. I'm going use a 3:1 next year. Maybe even 2:1. Make sure you monitor varroa, especially in your brood factories. Varroa caused some set backs that I'm still trying to play catchup with. Leave your strong hives alone to produce honey. Break up your weak hives that are not going to produce. That was hard to do. Read everything you can on the subject and find someone to mentor you if you can.


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## Vance G

I am in this same project. Something that I think helped me immensely was I ran deeps for supers and when I extracted used that wet comb to replace all the foundation still undrawn in those nucs. Hopefully it will be fed full soon when I would still have been struggling to get more foundation drawn. I am going out to pull the last of the supers off today and may use the unextracted frames for feed if it looks like I need to. I do not anticipate finding the former extracting combs not full of feed however. We have snow forecast Thursday but I still think I have a month to get the nucs up to weight.


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## Pathfinder

Thabks for the response Mtn. Luckily as of yet I don't have any Varroa so knock on wood. How many nucs were you able to make off of a brood factory using only foundation?


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## MTN-Bees

16 colonies in 8 double nuc boxes- I used 4 colonies as brood factories, 2- 3 story brood factories. I had a double queen tower hive to help draw foundation.


----------



## Pathfinder

SO you were able to make 3 colonies for each of your brood factories? That's not bad at all. Did the double queen hive help quite a bit with the foundation?


----------



## MTN-Bees

It did- the one thing I'm going to try is the top enterance only which is a Parker Shim. The four frame nuc boxes have a a 3/4 auger hole as top entrances also. The four frame nuc boxes allow pretty easy access to the bottom deep. I seperated it in August.


----------



## McBee7

This thread has been a real eye opener for me and I have started 15 , 5 frame nucs to overwinter into next year.. hopefully all works out and I won't have to buy more bad bees next year. I'm currently torn between insulating and sealing up the hive as the Europeans do or , ventalating to the max to prevent condensation in the box, I'm thinking maybe a hybred of both, but leaning toward max ventilation as my bees survived -43f but frost from condensation killed them last year.......
Something I have been contemplating this summer is if the frost is what killed my 4 hives last year, or if the frost formed from the last dying breath of my bees???
If the frost was the result of the death of my hives, then the problem is with the genetics and vigor of my late winter stock....this years nucs are carneolians instead of Italians and mite free/treeted compared to last years untreated......
Time will tell , thanks to all for the info...

==McBee = =


----------



## j.kuder

QUOTE=Pathfinder;1162961]SO you were able to make 3 colonies for each of your brood factories? That's not bad at all. Did the double queen hive help quite a bit with the foundation?[/QUOTE]
last year i restarted with 3 nucs after not having bees since about 1995 i was able to increase to 15 and brought 12 thru to spring i fed them heavy cause it was a bad honey year last year. i set up 6 for honey this spring and used the rest as brood factories to support the 6 and i also increased to about 30 this year and if i had more equip. i could have done more i'm thinkiing from now on after the main flow break everything down to nucs for winter. i have plenty of honey this year don't think i will need to feed for this winter


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## squarepeg

mcbee7,

water vapor rises from the cluster and then condenses out on the 'ceiling' of the hive. that cold water then drips back down on the cluster and kills it. if you insulate the tops well and allow some ventilation up there you shouldn't have that problem. if you can push your nucs together that will help conserve some heat and you will only have to put insulation on the the two outside ends. leaving the fronts and/or backs uninsulated will allow any moisture that may build in the hives to condense there and it will not drip back down on the cluster.


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## minz

Commercial beek came into the bee meeting this week and gave a talk on wintering bees and his experiences. He said you get moisture 3 ways: through cracks and wicking into the hive seams (weeps along side poor fitting covers and box seams, weeps up from our damp ground, honey is 20% moisture so if you have 80 Lbs of honey on your hive you put 16 Lbs or 2 gallons of water to your hive. His simple suggestions: use tar paper on the lids to give some overlap so all the rain does not rain and blow in. get your hives up off the ground, and ventilate your tops or drill a hole in your top box.
I brought 6 through the winter, from two of my best I ended up with about 15 now. Feeding hard and it is getting expensive!


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## scituatema

Mr. Palmer, I saw some of your nucs in Cardboard nuc boxes under snow. You do not overwinter them in cardboard boxes, do you? You use them just to sell nucs, right?


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## Michael Palmer

Right


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## cristianNiculae

nevermind


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## Adrian Quiney WI

Re post #207. Another way not to let moisture in is not to disturb them too much. Once I am done feeding them up I leave them sealed. I wait until a warm day in late February/March to check stores and strength. That can mean 5 months straight!


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## delber

Where do you find the canvas or whatever you use for the tops of the double nucs? I am also using more of a migratory type of cover. Does the canvas "wick" moisture in like newspaper does? I used the Mountain camp method of feeding a couple years back and left the newspaper inbetween the shim and the upper box and it killed my hives due to all the moisture wicking in.


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## Colobee

It appears to be (past) time to re-awaken this thread for 2015


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## Vance G

Mcbee I know you have to deal with a lot more moisture than I do and I follow what you describe as the insulation rather than what you call the max ventilation. A lot of Canadians north of you are of the insulation school and I have seen pictures of there boomers in the spring as they start to put on patties about now. I just put my third round of patties and I appear to still be over 80% alive and no moisture problems and I literally duct tape the top air tight as I can get it. The ventilation comes thru the hole thru the upper brood box right below the handhold. Bees are great hvac technicians.


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## McBee7

Vance, there seems to be 2 schools of thought, as far as what to do with the top of the hive, and I watch all your threads with intrest...One school says seal up the top to keep All the heat in, and ventilate a few inches down from the top by drilling a ventilation hole. There are many here on BS that do this,, as you do--and yes the bees seem to do the best job with what we give them....I'm of the other school that trys to use a permiable layer up top to let the humid air pass through to condense outside,,this layer also acts as a layer of insulation (quilt box). I've also noticed that you have mentioned leaving one of the lower walls as a "cold wall" which will condense moisture and let it run harmlessly out the bottom, which I think is a great idea and have used it on a couple of hives that were outside wintered this year,,,,I've had some losses with them but it wasn't because of condensation. For me, moisture is the enemy. 

==McBee7==


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## Vance G

I don't leave A cold wall, I just want the walls less heavily insulated than the roof so the condensation is on the walls not over the cluster. It is a hard thing. We have a week of flying weather ahead of us here and I need to go out and count noses again. I sure do not claim all the answers. I saw some pictures Irwin Harlton I think it was posted and he has all the answers and he is north of you in the same wet air you are. I would research what he does. But you are right about moisture being the enemy.


----------



## Pathfinder

Adding a question to the mix Mr. Palmer...Here in SE Tennessee we get our main flow April/May and a secondary very small flow in the fall. Since we don't have abother strong flow like you do up north, could I continue to split my nucs later that normal...say June/July when our dearth is and just feed them syrup to simulate a flow to be able to get more splits out of them than the normal splits I would be able to get just making them in April/May During our Main flow?


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## Beregondo

delber said:


> Where do you find the canvas or whatever you use for the tops of the double nucs?


It's apiece cut out of a feed bag or (untr4eated) seed bag. If you don't have any of these, ask a farmer for some.



delber said:


> I am also using more of a migratory type of cover. Does the canvas "wick" moisture in like newspaper does?


No, it doesn't. It's made of woven poly (plastic) material. 



delber said:


> I used the Mountain camp method of feeding a couple years back and left the newspaper inbetween the shim and the upper box and it killed my hives due to all the moisture wicking in.


If I have to mountain camp, I leave a half inch or more space around the edge of the paper between it and the sides of the hive.
I also make many slits in the paper for bee access.

That way there is no wicking, the bees get weasy access, and any moisture that condenses is absorbed by the sugar instead of dripping on bees.


Have fun.
Enjoy your bees.


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## Michael Palmer

Pathfinder said:


> Adding a question to the mix Mr. Palmer...Here in SE Tennessee we get our main flow April/May and a secondary very small flow in the fall. Since we don't have abother strong flow like you do up north, could I continue to split my nucs later that normal...say June/July when our dearth is and just feed them syrup to simulate a flow to be able to get more splits out of them than the normal splits I would be able to get just making them in April/May During our Main flow?


I assume you could, but I don't know beekeeping in TN.


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## Pathfinder

Thank you very much Mr. Palmer. I will give it a go and see what happens. 

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt


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## rkereid

Pathfinder said:


> Adding a question to the mix Mr. Palmer...Here in SE Tennessee we get our main flow April/May and a secondary very small flow in the fall. Since we don't have abother strong flow like you do up north, could I continue to split my nucs later that normal...say June/July when our dearth is and just feed them syrup to simulate a flow to be able to get more splits out of them than the normal splits I would be able to get just making them in April/May During our Main flow?


I'll certainly defer to Mike's response, but since my area is a little more like yours in respect to the nectar flows, and lack of, I'll comment. Our dearth starts in late June to early July and often lasts until early Sept depending on rain. I make up nucs all the way through until mid Aug. The biggest problem can be robbing. When I set them up I always install a robbing screen right from the start. You don't want robbing to start and then have to control it. Actually the last several years I've had less and less robbing as the Carniolan and Russian genetics have started edging out the Italians. If you can make up the splits and immediately move them, it will help you keep some of the older bees as foragers and defenders. That can also help avoid the robbing.


----------



## winevines

Pathfinder said:


> Adding a question to the mix Mr. Palmer...Here in SE Tennessee we get our main flow April/May and a secondary very small flow in the fall. Since we don't have abother strong flow like you do up north, could I continue to split my nucs later that normal...say June/July when our dearth is and just feed them syrup to simulate a flow to be able to get more splits out of them than the normal splits I would be able to get just making them in April/May During our Main flow?


Northern VA area. Honey flow usually over by late June. Sometimes a small one in Aug/Sept. I've been making these for several years. Historically I make overwintered nucs around July 4th weekend. The past few I have pushed this up to end of June. I would rather make them on the tail end of the flow before a real dearth and pull brood frames out if need be or add a 2nd story if flow is longer or dearth is later, then to wait to make them until the dearth is here. 
Why? 
More often than not I find robbing to be a real potential issue and queen acceptance seems worse. Syrup can only do so much. Sometimes it makes up for the natural conditions and other times it does not. Certainly you would want the most protected way to feed (inside the nucs) rather than boardman feeders that time of year.


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## cristianNiculae

My results on this practice.

started from:
7 - divided from (made the queens myself using the same resources - starter + finisher)
27 - wintered nucs

results so far:
5 - booming hives with exceptional queens
10 - good queens, medium powered hives
15 - Total hives

So I merely doubled my numbers. This year I'm thinking on making the firsts nucs stronger and maybe divide those later. Unfortunately I don't have much drawn frames and I use foundationless.
I only had good finisher hive on the firsts 2 batch of grafts and this resulted in poor queens it seems. I'm also thinking on applying an OA treatment in the 21 day from making the nucs.

My conclusion is that I could have done the same numbers with much less work but maybe with more poor queens. The selection consists in numbers as you get much more chances to obtain exceptional queens.

... or maybe I'm missing something


----------



## garusher

I took 24 double story nucs on divided deeps through the winter. Early spring i was pretty happy with 18 survivors, however as time past they did not seem to increase. 

Now we have had a week of 75+ degree weather and i am worried about swarming, i have more bees and brood than i know what to do with. My Grafting is going to have to come up to par or there may be many swarms in them there trees.

G.


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## cristianNiculae

I think this a very good practice rather then equalize colonies. It helps with selection a lot.
I already defined my plan for this season: I have 7 production hives and 9 singles that I decided to use for nucs. The singles good be very well be doubles but I want heavy frames for my nucs.
The idea is to keep the singles crowded and when about to swarm divide and give cells.

Thank you Michael Palmer for sharing it!


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## WRLCPA

I was inspired this weekend after reading this thread 2 times and here is what came of it.





Made two sets in about 1 hour, cost about $25.00 each. They are beautiful.


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## MTN-Bees

They look great and should work well. Have you considered the 2 inner covers?


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## WRLCPA

MTN-Bees said:


> They look great and should work well. Have you considered the 2 inner covers?


Yes, they are easy to make, so I stopped with the boxes since I don't need these until July probably. Also need a movable divider board as well, but again easy to make


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## gnor

> Michael Bush has asked that I participate in a discussuin on "Wintering Nucs."


Thank you to both Michaels for this thread. I'm a noob, but this is very much in my plans.
Michael P, I understand that you set the 4 frame nucs side by side on a divided 10 frame box. Could you explain how you set up the frames to help the bees cluster against the inner walls to share heat?


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## Michael Palmer

gnor said:


> Could you explain how you set up the frames to help the bees cluster against the inner walls to share heat?


Nothing special. The bees just do it that way.


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## MTN-Bees

Gonr: Betterbee's website has a nice fact sheet on setting up overwintering nucs.


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## maynard

What method do those of you using these nucs use for varroa control in the nucs?


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## Michael Palmer

If you have good mite control in the brood source colonies, you don't need any mite control in the nucs.


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## winevines

maynard said:


> What method do those of you using these nucs use for varroa control in the nucs?


Same as in parent colonies. If timing works out and you can treat parent colonies before breaking up into nucs, potentially you can avoid treating the nucs but I would still monitor for mites. If you are making up nucs in late June/early July there is still plentiful time for a mite build up in my area. You should also consider any influence of neighboring colonies and their mite loads


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## asd

Hi,
I have some questions if you don't mind:

How late do you feed?
What are the temps during that time in your area?
Do you think late feeding can be a problem?

I fed mine during the last half of August and I still have some nucs that still need more feed because they raised a lot of brood and consumed the reserves. Comparing to normal size colonies these nucs raise brood late into the cold season(October). The problem is that the temps are in the 50's now... a bit cold for feeding sugar syrup.

Thanks,
Cristian


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## Beregondo

asd said:


> Hi,
> I have some questions if you don't mind:
> 
> How late do you feed?
> What are the temps during that time in your area?
> Do you think late feeding can be a problem?
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Cristian


Bees stop taking syrup when the *syrup* temperatures get down to about 50°F.

Depending on what sort of feeder you're using, you can often continue feeding when outdoor temps are in the forties.

With a Miller feeder and a large population of bees, when I opened a hive early this morning to add syrup, I felt a warm draft of air wafting out of the access chimney in the middle of the feeder, and there were a lot bees feeding.

Judging from syrup consumption, they'd been feeding all night.

The low here in Olympia last night was 36°F.

It's similar in a nuc with a Miller feeder:
The warmth of the bees below can keep the syrup warm enough to keep them feeding long after temps are in the forties.

If you need to feed later, a sugar cake or laying paper on the top bars and pouring sugar on it, dampening with a spray bottle dnough to getvit to clump together (called "mountain camp" feeding) will get them through winter if low stores is the only issue.

I used to use galon can feeders, but the syru gets too cold too quick.

If a colony is underweight, (a single 4 frame nuc nuc in the North needs about 40# wt, or 10# per frame) I feed heavy syrup til they are upvto weightvor stop feeding.
If they are still light, I feed sugar as above. 

Mites, poor moisture management, and not enough food are the biggest overwinter killers.
Neither mites not moisture matter if your bees starve.
Feed til they are up to overwintering weight.

Have fun.
Enjoy your bees.


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## aunt betty

Bought a nuc this spring that came out of boxes just like pictured in this thread. Built one the day I saw it and figured it might be a while before I'd need it. Well, in about two weeks a colony built queen cells and I needed it.
Very handy things to have. Have three of them now. Cutting up deeps gets easy when you see what you get and why.


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## asd

Thanks. I will continue feeding as soon as temps rise.


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## Bob J

This is an awesome thread! I know this is about Wintering Nucs but was wondering Michael, what mite control do you use in your production colonies?


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## Mosherd1

I have raised queens using the starter/finisher method as early as late April in Northern CT. I have had trouble getting a good percentage of the grafts to take this early. I am assuming when you are making nucs from your overwintered nucs/unproductive colonies, you are at the mercy of drone availability and grafting acceptance. Am I correct in this thinking or are walk away splits (letting them raise their own queens) used in early spring?


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## Michael Palmer

I don't make nucs or queens in early spring. My first graft is about May 20, first cells about May 30, and first queens about June 15. That's when I make new nucs. Early spring I have almost more overwintered nucs than I can handle.


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## johnbeejohn

walk aways are not the best option imop you never know what your gonna get better to wait till drones will be ready make your best choice and graft from that rather than let each nuc make there own a well timed spilt would out preform an early walkaway just my thoughts


----------



## maynard

Michael Palmer said:


> Early spring I have almost more overwintered nucs than I can handle.


I would imagine so. 

What does swarm management on the nucus look like? My understanding is that the first brood you pull from them is for queen rearing which you do at the end of May.
Is it just adding the 3rd story that does the trick, or do you do your brood bombs before may if you need to prevent swarming in the nucs?


----------



## Mosherd1

johnbeejohn said:


> walk aways are not the best option imop you never know what your gonna get better to wait till drones will be ready make your best choice and graft from that rather than let each nuc make there own a well timed spilt would out preform an early walkaway just my thoughts


Yes I agree, I almost never do walk aways, especially in this case where you are taking an unproductive colony and splitting it up, since walking away will give you nucs with the poor queens genes which we are trying to eliminate. I am guessing at the early point of Spring Mike is focused on selling the nucs he overwintered. His time line make a lot of sense, since the goal is not to get the nucs up to full strength colonies before winter, but to utilize them as either brood factories, queens in reserve, comb drawers, etc. I understand the concept and the idea of waiting till a flow hits better now. Thanks guys,
-Dave


----------



## Mosherd1

Does anyone have any pictures off their bottom boards for 4 frame side by side? I have a general idea of what I am going to do but would like some thoughts. Thanks,
-Dave


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## johnbeejohn

Go to better bees website look at theres I have made them from regular bottom boards just add a strip down the middle and in the front and cut a notch out of the back so u have 2 entrence s


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## gnor

Mosherd1 said:


> Does anyone have any pictures off their bottom boards for 4 frame side by side? I have a general idea of what I am going to do but would like some thoughts. Thanks,
> -Dave


These are good pics: https://www.betterbee.com/images/Double_nuc_instruction.pdf


----------



## Mosherd1

gnor said:


> These are good pics: https://www.betterbee.com/images/Double_nuc_instruction.pdf


Perfect, thank you both, that reinforces my initial thoughts. Thanks,
-Dave


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## Kimkaseman

What should I feed if I have to feed for winter? I know you ain't thrilled with white sugar. I'm in Minnesota. I'm also wondering if I have a double 5 frame nuc stacked, will it be ok with the normal winter prep (wrapping as you explained in your videos)?


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## Michael Palmer

2:1 syrup in september after the goldenrod is finished. That's how I do it.


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## Kimkaseman

Ok, thank you!


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## Amibusiness

Thanks Michael for sharing your experience. I reread this and didn't see the answer: how many frames of honey (or pounds) do you leave on each 4 over 4 double nuc? You said when you were doing one storey you left about 3-3.5 frames of honey. Inspired by this thread I now have 16 of these going into winter this year (upstate NY). So far they have been great.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Top box full, two outside combs in bottom box, full.


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## abbee

Can the double divided deep supers be used on the 2nd and 3rd levels in lieu of using the 8-1/8" nucs? I can buy the budget deeps for around $10, the 8-1/8 deeps nucs cost $10. as well. So, using the divided double deeps are like 2 for 1 cost wise. Or would using the deep supers for level 2 and 3 cause management issues? Thanks!


----------



## delber

The problem with this is you can't isolate one colony. You will not be able to check the bottom most box without totally moving all of the frames from the hive next to it to ensure your queen doesn't go over to the next hive and you end up with a queenless hive and a hive with 2 queens. I did it once because I didn't have the supers built yet but that was my problem. Once I had the supers built I just transferred the frames and put them on and it wasn't a big deal.


----------



## aunt betty

abbee said:


> Can the double divided deep supers be used on the 2nd and 3rd levels in lieu of using the 8-1/8" nucs? I can buy the budget deeps for around $10, the 8-1/8 deeps nucs cost $10. as well. So, using the divided double deeps are like 2 for 1 cost wise. Or would using the deep supers for level 2 and 3 cause management issues? Thanks!


That's not such a great idea imo.

What I did on the first double-nuc hive I wintered was to cut a hive body in half but I removed an inch out of the middle. You end up with two 8.125" nuc boxes each with three sides. Cut plywood to fit the sides and use two pieces of plywood for "lids" then cover it all with a telescoping cover if you want. 
That way you can inspect one side without bees running into the other. 
Have quite a few of these things now. (8) 
I winter 16 colonies that way. Some might even have a nuc-sized super on top. 
It's dark and snowing or I'd go take pictures for you. They're wrapped up still. 
Even went as far as to make nuc-sized feeder shims so I can feed them.


----------



## Faith Apiaries

aunt betty said:


> That's not such a great idea imo.
> 
> What I did on the first double-nuc hive I wintered was to cut a hive body in half but I removed an inch out of the middle. You end up with two 8.125" nuc boxes each with three sides. Cut plywood to fit the sides and use two pieces of plywood for "lids" then cover it all with a telescoping cover if you want.
> That way you can inspect one side without bees running into the other.
> Have quite a few of these things now. (8)
> I winter 16 colonies that way. Some might even have a nuc-sized super on top.
> It's dark and snowing or I'd go take pictures for you. They're wrapped up still.
> Even went as far as to make nuc-sized feeder shims so I can feed them.


I tend to overthink and over build things. I did essentially as you described but I bought extra long sides from the manufacturer and manually cut the finger joints in the front and back of the box after slicing it in two. I don't cut that inch out as you do because I'm using a finger joint, I need that much meat on the front and back. It makes for a bulletproof little box but it is a lot of work. 

I'm not sure why the picture is sideways...sorry about that.


----------



## Colobee

If you build on standard hive dimensions, those two nuc boxes each hold 4 (+) frames. They can be stacked on in pairs, like a super. Once filled, they can be re-distributed to OW nucs in the fall, or saved for supplemental winter nuc feed.









The bees could care less about the divider boards. And of course they are lighter & easier to handle when filled.


----------



## Butler101

I am in south western Ontario Canada and started this year with two local Buckfast nucs June 1st. I am using all 8 frame mediums with no extra supply of comb as this is my first year. Each hive has an extension on the bottom box to accept the deep nucs I purchased 

July 18th I made up to splits and bought a queen for each. Each split had a frame and a half of brood (back filled with pollen and nectar .... little honey bound) and a full frame of honey in a 8 frame medium box filled with empty foundationless frames. 

The plan is to winter as follows: original hive with screened bottom board with a deep 8 frame then two medium 8 frames ( should be full) then an inner cover with 1/8 screen over feed hole, then a screen bottom board with the 8 frame medium "nuc" with inner cover, foam and lid on it .

All wrapped with lower and upper entrances cut out. 

Thoughts or suggestions?


----------



## msl

abbee said:


> Can the double divided deep supers be used on the 2nd and 3rd levels in lieu of using the 8-1/8" nucs?


That's how Liz Huxter does it with shallows and miny frames https://vimeo.com/161651142
The magic is not in the type of box, but how you use it


----------



## Branman

Does anyone in the south overwinter in single nuc boxes with feed on all winter?


----------



## j.kuder

I have the last few years here in north east tenn around Huntsville /Oneida. I put dry sugar on top in December


----------



## Branman

You use a shim and put it on newspaper or how do you do it? Thanks!


----------



## j.kuder

Branman said:


> You use a shim and put it on newspaper or how do you do it? Thanks!


yep I got shims two and a half to 3 in. tall lay1/2 sheet of newspaper on top of frames. shim has vent holes at both ends






pic of shim with stocking feeder


----------



## Amibusiness

Butler: I'd be interested to know if you wound up setting them up as you planned and how it goes come spring. Please keep is updated.
Michael: I am curious what you do about the wide gap in the 4 over 4 nucs. (It's not quite the right bee space...) I push my frames almost all the way to the divider. In spring and summer I make sure they have an empty frame to draw but in the fall I get a lot of wild comb or an extra wide outside frame which is not so interchangeable.... If I made the divider a bit narrower it would be perfect for 5 frames 1.25" oc.... Has anyone tried this or come up with an interesting solution? Thanks!


----------



## Butler101

Update: added the upper entrances and stacked the nucleus colonies on top of the main colonies today. Just need to add 1/2? mesh for mouse guards(forgot the mesh at home) and wrap in tar paper.

Interested in constructive advice and or further discussion 

First pic was October 14th
Second pic was October 29th


----------



## Michael Palmer

Amibusiness said:


> Butler: I'd be interested to know if you wound up setting them up as you planned and how it goes come spring. Please keep is updated.
> Michael: I am curious what you do about the wide gap in the 4 over 4 nucs. (It's not quite the right bee space...) I push my frames almost all the way to the divider. In spring and summer I make sure they have an empty frame to draw but in the fall I get a lot of wild comb or an extra wide outside frame which is not so interchangeable.... If I made the divider a bit narrower it would be perfect for 5 frames 1.25" oc.... Has anyone tried this or come up with an interesting solution? Thanks!


Yeah, I tried that. Too tight.

I don't really mind the extra space. I divide it between the space at the divider and the space at the side wall. Maybe the frames aren't quite touching. Doesn't cause much trouble. Better to have a comb puffed out because the bee space isn't quite right, than a rolled queen because everything is too tight. So, I would say, just open up your spacing a bit. The combs are going into a big box soon enough.


----------



## Butler101

The hives are now wrapped for and ready for winter. Hoping for the best and if so I hope to split each nuc into 4 nuc?s and split a nuc off of each full size colony in the spring. That would be a total of 12 colony?s as a best case scenario. 

I am open to suggestions.


For now I?m going to try and build 50 more boxes and frames to go with many now bottom boards, lids, and inner covers.


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## Amibusiness

Thank you, Michael. When in mid summer do you aim to start NUCs? Are you thinking after solstice similar to MDA? Or mid flow? Or x number of weeks before frost? Or when you have a lull in working the production colonies? I am in mid hudson valley so about two weeks before you(?) So I'm wondering if it's better to set them up so they are well established before the dearth and manage for swarming or set them up just before dearth and feed through to golden rod as needed.... Thanks.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!


----------



## Michael Palmer

Yeah right. A lull in my work. 

We start making nucs to overwinter when I have queens available. First queen catch is June 13. But we start making up mating nucs weeks earlier. For the winter nucs, we start about June 15, and finish about July 10. I make 20 or so late as replacements for failed nucs. So, I guess all on the main flow. The earlier I get done the better. I want the nucs to build up enough to be able to draw out at least 4 frames of foundation. The earliest mad will usually build to three stories, and sometimes four. The nucs made after July 4 or so have a difficult time drawing foundation. Flow ends by the time they're strong enough to draw foundation. By the end of July, I replace any undrawn foundation with comb so the bees can raise brood and work the autumn flow...without swarming or absconding. If I use comb, and not foundation, I want the nucs made at least three brood rounds before they shutdown at the beginning of October.

I don't know what to say about the solstice theory. I've never seen anything that would lead me to support that theory.


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## Shelley R

Hello Mike, I watched a lecture you were giving on wintering bees and I was under the impression you were located in northern Quebec? As I looked on to locate you I see you are in Vermont. I was wanting to contact you as I was interested in purchasing a nuc or queen as you seem to have good over wintering bee strain and was hoping to bring that into my apairy. Are you in Canada or U.S. and if you are in the U.S. is it possible to have bees sent to Canada without to much delay/stress on the bees?


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## Michael Palmer

I did send queens to British Columbia this past summer. Not easy, and quite expensive. The Canadian permit on your end is $1500CDN. On my end $121US. And, I have to have a DNA test to prove I haven't got African genes in my bees. That was $650. So, it's possible but not practical.


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