# Splitting Mating Nucs



## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

I divie up resources between the mating nucs. If one is a little shy of bees I'll put a frame of brood from a stronger nuc in there. Likewise with honey. Yeah, if there is no queen in there they sure do fill it up with honey. That is the first clue there is no queen, lol. I put the honey in another nuc or take it out and give them an empty comb for brood when I recell it.
Sheri


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Anyone ever have to split their mating nucs? I am running some of both deep and medium, and they just got too big, so I split them. They are 2 framers.

I split four of them a few minutes ago...


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## Albert (Nov 12, 2006)

Hey guys,

If I may,

A mating nuc is the hive that one uses to raise a queen from a cell to a mated queen correct? Then I suppose you would move them up to the next size box you have. My assumption is that you are making colonies from those mated queens. 

So, my question is why split it? And how does a two frame box get too big?

I must be missing something here...

Regards,
Albert
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles 
The Three Bar Spear Memoirs


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Hi Albert
Yes, correct, a mating nuc is as you describe.
While they could just be transferred into larger boxes to eventually make a complete colony many folks pick the first or second or third queen mated in this nuc and install another cell to get more use out of the nuc, ie raise more queens which are used to requeen other colonies or make splits from, or to sell. These picked queens are often banked until needed.
If you are making just a couple splits you might as well raise the queen in the split you are making.
If you leave an ambitious newly laying queen in a (as we use) 3 frame colony, one of which is usually solid honey/pollen, they do get filled to the point something has to give. 
Sheri


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>So, my question is why split it? And how does a two frame box get too big?

I never have enough mating nucs. I'm not raising queens for my colonies, I'm raising queens to sell. If I run out of two frame boxes, yes, I move them up to a three, four or five frame box and then an eight frame box etc. But not until all my two frame boxes are full.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

I am also raising queens to sell, so ditto to all the other replys. I tend to leave my new queens in the mating nuc until I can get a sense of what kind of pattern she is going to lay, so the nucs get full fast.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Peg: are they mini nucs or full sized nucs? The only negative things that people have said about the mini nucs is that it is hard to establish a good brood pattern using the mini frames.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I tend to leave them in the mating nucs until I'm ready to ship them. This makes strong mating nucs which makes better odds on getting a mated queen and sometimes a split for another mating nuc. I usually take the queen to the new spot to hold more bees there and give a cell to the old spot.


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

peggjam said:


> I tend to leave my new queens in the mating nuc until I can get a sense of what kind of pattern she is going to lay, so the nucs get full fast.


I think many commercial queen breeders the past few years have been picking the queens too soon to know what kind of quality she is. We are hearing of increased supersedure from early queens and have experienced this ourselves on one's we've bought. This is the main reason we started growing our own.

This year we gambled on picking some of our first batch early because we needed them so badly. Picked some after just a pretty good open pattern showed. We usually wait til it is sealed to know its not a drone layer. A couple of them turned out to be just that. 
It is one thing to play the odds within our own operation but not a good thing if you plan of selling them. 

We are going to try to overwinter a bunch of late summer queens in nucs for early spring use. We will see how that goes. 
Sheri


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## Church (May 31, 2007)

Good advice Sheri,

Seems like too many queen breeders will sell anything just for the money without consideration of quality.

I really wish 1/2 would get out of the business they don't belong in, it does no one a service to sell poor queens that were mated with garbage drones.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

I have been preaching this same thing for the past year. I would rather take a queen breeder calling me and being honest and tell me it will take a little longer versus a queen breeder pumping out crap and not being upfront with the customer. 

Just be honest....


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

Chef

At this point I have a combination of 2 frame deeps, mediums, and some mini's going. I have been splitting the deeps and mediums.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

This time of year I primarily use medium sized mating nucs with 1 frame of brood/bees and one frame of nectar. As the queens begin laying and the nucs fill up, I can reduce the colony back down to 1 frame of brood and 1 frame of nectar and use the extra to make up additional mating nucs. It has worked well for me.


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

Loss of 1/2 the Queen Producers in the US would generate queens priced in the $40-$50 price range min. This would do no one a good service. There are very few new producers coming on line now anyway. It is "hard" to routinely produce, cage and ship large quantities of queens on a weekly basis. Some of these producers ship up to 1000 to 1500 each week. 
I am not condoning poor business ethics, but sometimes with the weather and other "minor" problems things can happen. 

For arguments sake: Assume you want to ship 100 Queens each and every week.
I am using assumed percentages. 
Graft 170 cells
Assume 80% take - 34
cells to transfer to nucs 136
assume 10% are a miss -14
number of cells to hatch 122
assume lost in flight 10% -12
returned to hive 110
Culled-poorly mated 10% 11
99 mated queens to ship each week.

This means you will need 136 ready made nucs for queen cells each week 
x 4 for one month 4 weeks.
need a total of 544 ready made nucs with drawn comb and 
support bees. 
add one week 136 for better evaluation time
680 nucs needed.

This (4weeks) allows very minimum time for evaluation of the new queens in the mating nucs.
Multiply this number by however 100 of queens that need to be produced and you will see that : the number of mating nucs needed climbs quickly.
Not to mention the Drone support colonies.
In 1999 NSW Agricultures, Agnote. J.Rhodes; recommended an average of 4-10 drone mother colonies per 100 mating nucs used. ( to provide adequate mating)
Not to mention; queen breeder colonies, queenless finishers, and support colonies for the above.
It would be interesting to see how many people can routinely generate approx. 30 queens every week.
All industries have problems

Everything about bees amaze me.

Frank Wyatt


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Frank:

you ARE condoning poor business ethics. So if you come visit my restaurant and order a Certified Angus Filet Mignon and we charged you $35 dollars for this and you like it. You decide to come back and order the same thing but we serve you a roller filet mignon (the crappiest stander of meat i might add), than is that ok? But wait a minute, I am serving 200 people that night and you are the last seating at the reaurant. So it is ok to shaft you because we had to pump out all these steak orders and ran out of the angus steak? 

COME ON!!!!

Ok Frank, you buy from the big guys and gamble your twenty dollar bill plus shipping PLUS YOUR TIME AND RESOURCES. 

I will go with the smaller people, who frankly, put out better queens and a heck of a lot better customer service. 

People like Fatbeeman, Tim at honey run apiaries, Dan at Purvis, John at Old Sol and people like Dan and Pegg have the opprotunity to provide better queens by checking them BEFORE they send them out!!!!! 

Where the heck is the QUALITY CONTROL????!!!!????

I would rather deal with the small guys who actually COMMUNICATE with me about things and NOT PUT OUT CRAP CAUSE THEY HAVE TO MEET SOO MANY ORDERS AND MAYBE THEY ARE OVER THEIR HEAD.......

I thank you all who sell queens and actually check quality control..... 

And for those who pump out the queens with quality that is dicey.... think about it..... BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE.

You numbers look good frank but yo be honest, it will cost the producer much more time and money by having to fix problems with crappy queens when a customer calls in and complains...... and all that time and money it takes the customer......


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

I am off my soap box now.... and breathing normally!


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## JohnK and Sheri (Nov 28, 2004)

Isaac, I will take your place on the soapbox for a bit, lol.
Yeah Frank, the numbers are mindboggling. A queen breeder I know has 15000 mating nucs, another smaller one has 5000. I sure wouldn't want to pick either of those batches, lol.
These queens producers need lots of help for the stuff that needs doing "right now", which pretty much describes everything in the queen rearing process. They need lots of resources to support the entire operation. You are right on that. My point isn't that it is easy to produce queens, I know first hand it isn't. There is a lot of attrition. The cost of the product should reflect this. Likewise the product should be worth the cost. If the price needs to rise to establish a certain quality control, most would be better served.

I think a certain amount of failure from boughten queens has always been expected and acceptable. If one really needed 100 queens you better buy 110. But if indeed the supercedure rate is getting close to 60%, well, isn't that edging toward unacceptable? And worse yet is the rise in number of queens totally unmated. That is a shot colony if you don't catch it in time. These obviously were not tested at all. If I were selling queens I think the minimum would be sealed brood to determine a fair pattern. I understand it is tough to wait when you have customers who need those queens and yell if they aren't on time. (I confess to being amongst those yelling myself, lol.) For many northern honey producers a badly mated queen is better than no queen at all. Losing a couple weeks to a supercedure is better than not having the colony at all. But it seems like the price should reflect this.

Any queen rearer can be caught with really bad weather for mating, especially in early spring when the weather is unsettled. These queens should be more carefully evaluated and culled accordingly. If my honey crop is bad due to weather should it be acceptable if I just put corn syrup in my containers instead!? Or to carry the analogy farther, could I just send an empty jar?

No doubt queen rearers are in the same boat as the rest of us, fighting rising expenses and weather that doesn't always cooperate. Most are concientious about sending good queens for the money. But a growing number are just chasing the money with no heed for quality. I suspect some are sending too much of their breeding stock into almonds to help pay the bills, then getting a late start with the queens and trying to make up time any way they can. As John says, they are trying to milk the cow twice.
Sheri


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

Chef Issac, you are rewording my statement. "I am not condoning poor business ethics,but --" and twisting my comments to suit yourself.
Ethics can be taught and learned, but only the individual person knows whether they are ethical and will do the right thing when no one else is looking.
I stopped buying queens from the larger producers 8 years ago. But that does not mean that I would suggest that 1/2 of the producers intentionally ship queens knowing that they are inferior. 
Any more than I would suggest that you would intentionally burn my rare steak or undercook my wifes well done. As you know, serving the public is the most difficult job around. There are times when you do it right and the customer is still not satisfied. How many meals have you comp'ed.
Try calling Kona Queen and tell Gus that his quality stinks
Try calling Weavers
Strachan
Olivarez
Rossman
Lohman
Jester
Avoyelles
and the list goes on. All of these producers are proud of the product and service that they provide for the industry and would never intentionally send anyone a bad queen. 
But, I am equally sure that they have. 
As I am equally sure that anyone producing queens will at times produce some poor quality queens. Queen production is not a science with fixed rules and fixed results.
Even if you-Chef were to produce the best queens in the world. What guarantee is there that the end user would install them in such a way that they would be accepted. It is possible that 1/2 of the problem with new queens might be that they are not being accepted by the existing hive.
In this case, where does the responsibility lie.-With the Queen producer or the Queen installer or with the bees themselves.
As I stated earlier, I don't purchase queens from anyone. I raise my queens and some of what I raise is sent North. Hopefully I am getting it right since they have standing orders each year. I treat my customers like I want to be treated.
John & Sheri- I have heard of the 60% supercedure number but I have also heard that in most cases it may be attributed to banking of queens. Many queen producers and even some smaller queen producers on this list, may bank queens. My understanding of the use of banked queens is that when queens are banked their phermones shut down and do not fully start back up until they have been allowed to lay for several weeks.(in a nuc) After they have had the opportunity to lay naturally, they function as they did before being banked. It is my understanding that queens that are shipped immediately after being pulled have some reduction in their phermone levels and if they are not introduced quickly after being received, this creates further reductions in their phermone levels. This is thought to be one of the reasons for supercedure. The new queens are introduced into the hive after the old queen is dispatched and because her phermones are not yet up to full production the hive perceives her as being flawed. After which they replace her even though she is a new young queen. 
I don't think bees always make the right decisions.

Amazed by bees
Frank Wyatt
Eden, NC


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## Albert (Nov 12, 2006)

*Not to Stoke the Fires...*

Fellows,

Boy this really is soap-box territory!

This conversation points out the need for regional small scale producers that put out top quality (Insert your needs here) products. Sure you have to pay premium, but isn't it false economy not to use the best for your region?

I'm not at the point that I need outside breed lines, yet. But when I do, I will purchase them from those whose names are held in high esteem on this site. I believe that supporting the small scale, quality concious, caring and in most cases old-school honest, producers is a very important aspect of saving the wealth and character of this Great Nation. It is these same folks that are actually at the forefront of reestablishing honeybees for many. They have the time and inclination to do the right thing!

I don't make a living from my girls mind you, I just about break even, but that doesn't mean that I care any less about my bees than a commercial producer. In fact, I care for them far more than most, I would think. And what's good for them is good for everyone else too.

Anyway, I thought I would add my two cents worth.

Regards,
Albert
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles 
The Three Bar Spear Memoirs


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Frank:

ALL big queen producers bank there queens. 

and I have visited Strachan just last month when I as in Cali and YES.... they were producing very very very small queen cells. This by no means was my conclusion but yet the conclusion of Sue Cobey. 

Why where they small.... cause they had to pump out queens like mad to fill orders. 

By all means I do think some of the time it is the beekeepr who installed the queens falt, yes. 

However, Last year our club bought packages from a big boy in Cali and I bout 20 packages..... 15 of the 20 queens that came with the packages were superceded and I ended up buying new queens from someone else. When I called the owner, he said that they have had no problem at all with the mating but when I called the producer a few miles away from him, he said that the weather was really sucky and they have had a problem getting the bees mated.

My point... is to check the freaking quality before yo usend a product out. Do not wait until the consumer calls you and says something is wrong. Than who would be right???? IF you check the quality before hand, and it is tight, than you know it wasent error on your side. 

I have seen the big boys oepration and it is pretty cool. They do it for a living, not me so it is easier to see from a different side and come to my conclusion. 

I believe this:

I tend not to like to buy queens from Calif in the Spring as it is a gamble with weather

When trying to find out where to get queens from, I will look at there weather and talk with the people there to get a feel for things

I tend to like to buy from the smaller producers as they deliver better customer service, and what I believe is, better product than the big boys. 

I do expect communication.... I tell them that if there is a quality issue, call me and let me know. I tell them it is OK to be late with the order if it is an issue with quality. 

When buying the queen, I will actually ask them what method they prefer when introducing a queen and follow their recomendation..... which covers my ***. 

This is a very simple concept for me to grasp coming from the food industry..... when buying produce, who do you buy from? A big boy like Sysco... or a smaller local company? If the pineapple is not ripe.... who is easier to deal with? If I want to know what is in season.... who is easier to get a hold of? 

Personally.... I like the smaller folks as it seems like when I buy from the bigger folks, it comes down to shadey products, lack of communication, and lack of ethics. But this is only my opinion. 

I would rather fork over the $25 for a queen from a smaller guy than pay the 15 bucks and get a shadey product. 

But I do admit a few things....

Yes, it is sometimes the beekeepers fault when installing, no doubt about it. 

My hat is off to them. They do a big business and it is a lot of work. When I visited Strachans, it was sooo big. 

Maybe the answer lies in training of the people that work for the big boys and maybe pay is an issue. When I visited another place in their grafting room, someone dropped a frame of capped cells they pulled from a starter colony and they did not think anything off it... just place it in the incubator and go on with the work...

I would have hated to see those queens go out.......


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

Chef,
Since 1980 when I started in bees I have visited several producers in Miss., La.,Georgia. The banking of queens has been going on even before I started keeping bees and will continue long after I am dead.
I have found that 99% of ALL beekeepers to be honest, fair, hardworking individuals that will go out of their way to help fellow beekeepers. If this was not the case; then this very list would not be open to all that have questions or want to share their wisdom with the rest of us. Thanks MB

Maybe, I got a little sensitive when I thought it was being implied that they are intentionallly trying to defraud fellow beekeepers, just for money. Especially when I have known several of them myself for years.

I raise my own queens because I get better quality and I can control my own breeding stock with the traits that "I" want. But that has also lead me to change some of my management tech. to where my splits are later than most beeks like to do. I have records to queens that have been produced from 1999 and even though I am very aware of quality there are times that I have queens that do not meet my standards.
The smaller the cells does not always mean that the queen is of lesser quality. Even Sue Cobey states that "it is not the size or appearance of the queen that makes a good queen but how she performs." 
I have noticed that you are trying to raise queens.
Good luck with your efforts
Frank Wyatt
Eden, NC


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Frank: You ARE tooo senseative... so am I 

I do need all the help I can get.. it seems. I have been very nervous to see if the first batch of queens have mated... I will know soon. 

It amazes me how many bees it takes to really pull all this stuff off and still try to harvest honey..... yikes. 

I would like to be able to raise my own queens so I can be a little more self sastainable.... same with getting my colony numbers up... so I can split to replace my died outs instead of having to buy packages. 

I would like to try a smoke up box to be able to stock my cell builders with, etc.


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