# Double Mating Nuc Boxes



## DHawkes (Jan 19, 2014)

I have just bought a bunch of Mann Lake's Double Mating Nuc Boxes and I am trying to set them up correctly. My questions are: 
(1) Do you really need the queen excluder or does it stop the bees from getting to the feed? and 
(2) What do you put in the feeder for a ladder to keep the bees from drowning in the syrup?


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Welcome. Did not want you to fall off the list so here goes; never used that type but this is what I have read. Queens will go in the feeder and hide. It will not keep the workers out of the feed. Ladders are a some do ,some don't.

A drinking bee will stay and submerge themselves in all feeders as it is filled. Just a fact.

OK everyone now is your chance to fix my advice.


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## Rube63 (Jun 28, 2010)

The queen excluder keeps the queen out of the feeder so she won't drown. The sides of the feeder has a texture that the bees are able to walk on and not fall in the syrup.


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## DHawkes (Jan 19, 2014)

A while ago, I visited a queen breeder that had older wooden nucs and they did not have an excluder in them. Is the excluder a newer thing with these styrofoam boxes?


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

They have been around a long time, some use them some do not. In a double nuc you have to keep the queens separate, but not the workers. Some also use small QEs on the feeders themselves as well as between the 2 hives.


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## DHawkes (Jan 19, 2014)

Thanks a bunch. The responses help a great deal.


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## Velbert (Mar 19, 2006)

The bees will build a comb in the feeder when your looking for queen she might be in the feeder laying in the piece of comb. I would leave it in place.
Certain time they will fill it with honey but lot of the time it has brood and lot of the time queen will be in there


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