# Filling Mini Mating Nucs?



## tecumseh (Apr 26, 2005)

an LT snip..
The main flow is almost over here. 

tecumseh...
just casually you will first need to figure out some way to feed. plus without some flow and a large number of bees don't expect a mini nuc to draw foundation.

when you come to some trick on stocking mini mating nucs tell me first. all I can suggest is one frame of feed and one frame of green brood plus about one cup of live bees seems to work out the best here. too many bees, no feed, no flow, too few a bees always seems to equate to NO product for your effort.

ps... if you are in a shb area I have found in recent time I need to check these small boxes about once a week to limit this probem from growing.


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

Stacking matting nucs is done by shaking 8 oz cup of young bees in the matting nuc with starter strips and full inside feeder, put a mature (10 day old ) queen cell and close for 4 days and put it in a dark cool place. The nuc must have ventilation screans. After 4 days put it outside in a yard that you have your drones and opend the entrance.
Starter colony needs to be very strong and full with young bees (nurse bees) so that drone layer wount help. This is very important and this is not a place to save recourses.
In my case, the whole yard is in function of my cell builders and finisher helping them with young bees or sealed brood.

Gilman


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

The method Gilman describes is how it's done out here. And when he says dark and cool he doesn't mean shade. You need a room with A/C or swamp cooler and tin foiled windows.


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## peletier (May 5, 2007)

Hello L.T.
...Visited a queen producer last Saturday for a demonstation. He used cut down deep frames (1/2 normal width) with foundation. Three frames and a feeder in each box. He taped the entrance shut and put in a cup of shaken bees. (dipped them out of a bucket) He leaves them closed up for 2 days, on their stand in the shady mating yard. I guess I missed the part about when to install the cell but it would seem you could put it in as soon as the colony considers itself established.


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## Tom G. Laury (May 24, 2008)

You put the cell in same time as the bees, then confine while she emerges.


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

*missing q cell*

so are you sure he was using a queen cell or did he put in laying queen or an older virgin that had acquired her pheromones.

because i tried this with foundation a feeder with feed and a queen cell had them in a good shade and unplugged (at end of 3rd day) in the late evening was worried they were getting hot, all mine nuc were bees less when i returned to check a week later. 4 days plugged to be sure will work 95% of the time. was afraid to try it again.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Velbert, I'm having troubles understanding what you are saying. The method is cool and dark. Shade does not count. Seems to me if the bees were hot and you opened them up they could have boiled out never to return. You probably would have seen that as you were opening them up.

It's important that the nucs not be placed in a yard that has established colonies. The pheromones from the larvae attract the adult bees that are in the mating nucs. Next thing you know the mating nucs are very weak. I suspect that is what happened to you Velbert.

Jean-Marc


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

*mh*

jean it was all most totally dark when i unplugged them.then a week later the nuc had no bees in them the frames had only foundation in them.years ago i read that this would happen if only on foundation and you introduced just a queen cell, the queen when hatched the bees would most of the time leave with the queen when she took here orientation flight. and if you were to let them stay confined until the end of her 3 day from hatch she would have gotten her pheromones and this would keep them in the even just on foundation it worked the very first time i ever try it left the closed until the queens was about 3 1/2 days old from hatch


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

I find that eggs and larvae keep them settled. I guess we all experience the depopulation of the mini nucs. But I figure so what it's barely 1/2 a frame of bees. Besides the are still in another one of your hives.

Jean-mARC


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