# importance of colour and distance with mating nucs



## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

when setting up our mating yards I get rather obsessive about distance and colours.

If I have too many nucs of the same colour in the yard I put rocks and sticks on top in different patterns to make it look different to it's neighbours,

and have been known to move a nuc a couple of feet because I feel it's too close.

It drives my partner nuts.

does it actually make any difference? 

frazz


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I usually have seven four way nucs stacked up like apartments. So there are 28 entrances all within inches of each other...


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Mike, I did that this year to try it out after reading your posts about it last winter... it did work, but it took some getting used to (more so for me than the bees)... I had a good many poop outs on the sides near the top and the center to begin with... but the second stocking I doubled the amount of brood and added a third shake of nurses to each hole and they took well that time... I used a mix of shallows and mediums in three frame, threeways and rotated every other box so that the front entrances were at least opposite of each other on each level...

I am going to take them through winter to see how they do like that... the type of tops that I used for each level makes them look like nice little oriental towers. Lol. 

I have overwintered threeways plenty of times and I have even overwintered threeway mediums above threeway deeps in stacks of three high... but those were always well established and well provisioned before I stacked them...


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Frazz, you may have already seen how close I set mine and how many there are in rows, but just in case I will post a few more pics... and yes, to me it does matter a bit.. once they are stocked and you are able to stay on top of the cycles, they are fine, but its those first stockings that really make it hard to successfully stock lots of nucs... so for me, every little bit helps until they get going, after that you can squeeze them together more and do not have to worry so much about the markings to help orientation... the queens are pretty accurate once the bees have taken well... I mark the tops with odd shapes and designs... and the doors on mine are twisted to different intervals to make the shape around each facing appear a bit different... It definitely makes the most difference for mini nucs of any sort...

These are threeway mating nucs in deeps, mediums, and shallows in a small yard that is mostly filled with duplex minis (half length frames)... 









These are single mating nucs which hold three half frames and a feeder... with these tops we would place coins, rocks, sticks, etc, ever so often as a bit of a guide, but the main help was docking them very strong, very early... this is equivalent to stocking them strong and leaving them closed up indoors for most people...









Here are some of the duplexes with symbols drawn on the tops...


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I'm amazed you can have that many that close and have the required success rate that would not make you spread them more. Amazing. Interesting. Another example of why one shouldn't assume.

But why? Why are they so close to each other? Is it more efficient for the persons working them? Is space limited, when running thousands?

I would think that stacking them would mean more work and having to pay attention to the order of assembly of the stack. Or does it not really matter?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Mine are because of real estate. Any area for the bees has to be fenced off from the horses and the horses need all the room I can give them. It also saves lids for all of the ones except the top as the bottom of the next one acts as the cover and I only have a few 10 frame covers left around. But I suppose I'd put them each on their own if I had the real estate to save lifting them all when I check for queens.

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/TwoByFourMatingNucs.JPG
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/TwoByFourNuc2.jpg


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

Those photos are great it gives me something to think about thats for sure.

I've always wondered what the success rate would be when seeing photos or video of nucs so close together.
I'm really interested in how both of you have set them up it's something I'm keen to try in the Autumn.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> Is it more efficient for the persons working them? Is space limited, when running thousands?
> 
> I would think that stacking them would mean more work and having to pay attention to the order of assembly of the stack. Or does it not really matter?


Yes it is much faster and easier on the backs of the caging crews to work them when they are closer together... imagine caging 100 queens... now imagine caging 700... now imagine having to be done by noon so the queens can be driven 200 miles to the postal hub, be sorted and labeled, then processed by the postal staff before they can be loaded onto the trucks and planes... the caging crews do this everyday for four days straight each week... while caging, there is one or two "support" men running in circles bringing the cagers brood/food/empty/foundation frames and shakes of nurses as needed... the cager can scoot along the rows on our "scooter boxes" so long as the nucs are close enough together... if they were spaced out more, the ups and downs would slow the process pretty badly on the first day, but Really badly on the second and Really Really badly on the third and fourth due to the back aches. Lol. 

This is mainly due to our commitment to not bank the queens... since we practice a cage and ship policy, efficiency is vital... up until last summer, we only provided queens for retailers and large commercials... so they were going to be banked once they were received by the customer until they were ready to be used... my fathers policy was to send them fresh so at least had the best chance at getting the best queen they possibly could... even though we are now open to the public, we stay booked in advance, so there is no time to bank anyway... 

We do have plenty of space at each location, but so long as they are stocked well and the caging crews are thorough about addressing any and every need in each nuc as they go along, they work fine close together like that and get takes in the high 90%s each cycle... 

Stacking the little nucs is not really an option as they would be too easy for wind or animal to knock over... the other issue with stacking smaller nucs would be the change in the "shape" each time the stack was taken down and restacked... I have noticed confusion in returning bees when I break down and restack the threeway towers... so the "shape" or picture of the stack in detail does have some effect... 

My father once described a queens perspective to me this way... imagine looking down at the top of the tree canopy of a forest... then blur your eyes and look at the pattern that the canopy makes... a queen can leave a 1" hole in a tree in the middle of a dense forest, turn around and look at that tree and remember what it looks like... then fly up out of the canopy and turn around and look down and remember what that spot looks like... then she can go about her business miles away and return back to that exact spot that she exited the canopy through and the exact 1" hole that the exited the tree through... 
With that in mind, the solid bands of colors used for each row act somewhat like the canopy... from above, she sees a pattern or "shape" and knows where in that shape she has come from... then the doors being twisted a bit differently or coin or rock being in a certain spot will help her to remember the particular hole that she came from... 

When you change that, you had better be changing the queen as well, because if she has not finished her mating flights, she is very likely to be entering the wrong hole on her next return... 

Oldtimer and I were discussing something along these lines not long ago... the discussion was on queens leaving hives and returning to the mating nucs... in my case, it was queens leaving five frame nucs and returning to the hive that the nuc was created from... and in some cases, they were traveling miles to do so... although it is an extremely rare occurrence, it does give some idea that queens have a lasting memory of the outside surroundings of their hives even after they have long since stopped exiting them... 
In fall when we shake out bees from nucs that we will not overwinter so we can place the combs on hives, the bees usually have e-queens already laying by the time we get to the last few yards... these queens get shaken out along with the bees and they usually get a nice cluster of bees with them and try to start over again on a tree limb or under a plank, etc... out of curiosity, we have set nucs back after two days in the sane places were the queens had been before, and sure enough, more than half returned to their spot... even with new combs and new bees... 

Here is what happens when they decide to make a go at it under a tree limb... this is a Feb pic...









Mark, this pic was for you... I remember in another thread you were trying to help someone understand that bees do not heat the hive, but rather the brood... this is completely open air, started in October and the pic was taken in early Feb when the temps were right around 40 f on average...


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Neat. So, I assume they survived?


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Yep. I took the momma and a center comb out and started a full sized hive from them and got a few dozen grafts from her to mix in with some nuc production yards... there was four inches of snow on several occasions during winter... lots of freezing rain, etc... even for a "southern raised bee" that's pretty winter hardy... there are a lot of combs and the longest was about 19" deep x 2.5' long... that's a lot of wax development for such a short period... granted, the bees were from multiple mothers and there were a lot of them, but I was still impressed... this was in a southern select Sunkist mating yard... and the combs are much larger now... if the shb do not get them, I will be watching them this winter... I had to tie up the limbs to hold the weight... guess they missed the memo about only putting honey in supers. Lol.


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

rrussell6870 said:


> My father once described a queens perspective to me this way... imagine looking down at the top of the tree canopy of a forest... then blur your eyes and look at the pattern that the canopy makes... a queen can leave a 1" hole in a tree in the middle of a dense forest, turn around and look at that tree and remember what it looks like... then fly up out of the canopy and turn around and look down and remember what that spot looks like... then she can go about her business miles away and return back to that exact spot that she exited the canopy through and the exact 1" hole that the exited the tree through... ]
> 
> I never once thought about that, that is such an interesting way of looking at it.
> 
> ...


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## frazzledfozzle (May 26, 2010)

Just been thinking some more and I'm wondering do you think the queens sense of smell also helps her back to the right nuc/hive?

When you look at how dogs can find a small amount of drugs thats been hidden inside sealed glass jars with coffee surrounding it which to me is incredible I wonder if each individual nuc has it's own "hive scent" that the queen also uses as a way to make it back.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

frazzledfozzle said:


> Do you ever take on kiwis for work experience in your busy times?


Absolutely! Kiwis are always welcome! I even have the contacts to get your travel paid for and your educational/work visa taken care of... I welcome guest from operations all over the world and find it to be an invaluable asset to be able to share practices with one another...

However, I may be soaking up the sun in kiwi land this winter (your summer) if I do not get roped into writing a book instead... I have a few lectures to give early this winter, then I am hoping to trade the cold for some jet lag and visit a colleague at the bee lab there in NZ, then get around to see how the kiwi bee keepers are making it work... who knows, may be able to give some pointers on giving Russell a run for his money. ;-)

Oldtimer and I had discussed a fishing trip, and lord knows I could sure use the vacation...


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Yes, each queen knows of the presence or lack of another queen in nearby nucs by scent of pheromones... if you watch the mating nucs in mid afternoon when queens should be returning from their mating flights, you may see another neat occurrence... the bees seem to sense the return of their queen as she enters the yard with a comets tail of workers that race up to meet her, the bees in the nuc with take to flight in what seems almost like an orientation flight, while other circle the entrance fanning the scents of their nasonov... this is like an airport runway crew guiding her in for a landing... with hundreds of nucs in each row, it can be a really amazing site...


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## jeffcool (Feb 24, 2011)

That sounds really amazing. If anyone has ever captured a queen returning to a welcoming party like this on video it'd be great if they could post of link.

- Jeff


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