# Double NUC Setup vs two 5 frames NUCs?



## Knisely (Oct 26, 2013)

Both approaches will work. One possible advantage in winter might be the greater protection a telescoping cover gives relative to a migratory lid. Also, try calculating it not on a per-frame basis, but on a per colony basis. Colonies are the functional subunit here, not frames.


----------



## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Five frames have at least two outer frames leaving at most three for brood. Same number of working frames in double and a warm wall besides. It is spring warm, well year round warmth. Workers do not fight, it's a commune that works.


----------



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

You can use standard bottom and 10 frame box with removeable divider for bottom as well as standard cover. This one kept growing taller and I put on an excluder and a super. They were well on their way to filling it!

I did not have trouble with the queens getting lost but would put entrances on opposite ends rather than side by side. They should have equal age queens. Working them is a bit more difficult especially if one side gets a box taller.

Unless you are making the 4 frame nucs they are a bit harder to source.


----------



## Jeff L (Dec 13, 2016)

I think if you go back and listen to Michael Palmers talks about his double nucs the design was so he could use his existing equipment, and I think several times I have heard him say you can get the same results using 2 5 frame nucs.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I made mine this way so everything would be interchangeable. Lids fit. Supers can go on top above excluder. Nuc boxes fit on top of production hive if you want to winter that way.


----------



## Alex Madsen (Aug 26, 2018)

4 frame nucs boxes can be sourced from both these places. 

https://www.humbleabodesmaine.com/

http://nhhoneybee.com/


----------



## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

Another option is to push two five frame NUC together. If using migratory style covers can push them wood to wood. If using telescopic covers, add a piece of two inch Styrofoam between or use two 3/4 wide pieces of Styrofoam.


----------



## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Michael Palmer said:


> I made mine this way so everything would be interchangeable. Lids fit. Supers can go on top above excluder. Nuc boxes fit on top of production hive if you want to winter that way.


As we use 11-frame brood boxes, I use pairs of 5-frame nuc boxes side-by-side for exactly the same reason - identical footprints and thus interchangeability of kit.
. . . . . . . 

Michael - at the risk of creating some thread drift - could I take this opportunity of asking you a question related to these pairs of 4-frame nucs ?

This question relates to the YouTube video of your 'Sustainable Apiary' talk at the National Honey Show back in 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznzpiWEI8A (BTW - a video well-worth watching for anyone who hasn't - highly recommended)

At around 35-36 mins you're showing your preferred method of making-up a pair of Nucleus Colonies, in which you're very particular about placing a comb of honey against each side of the divider - "because each nuc needs a frame of feed" - for as you say the divider effectively becomes the centre of the brood-nest. You then add two frames of brood, with an empty comb on the outside of each set of combs.

At around 42-43 mins you then show your procedure for the later expansion of the above pair of nucleus colonies by the use of a super (being another half-width nuc box) above each.
Having checked for a laying queen, you then pull the original frame of feed (which was preferably uncapped honey) in which the bees will by then have removed it's contents and filled it with brood (because - "just as with production colonies - *bees do not like nectar in the centre of their brood-nest*. So - in two weeks that comb is full of brood.")

And that is the basis of my question - if the bees don't like having nectar in the centre of their brood-nest, why do you put it there ? That does - at first sight - seem counter-intuitive, and that inserting an empty drawn comb would be much less work for the bees. I do have a hunch as to your reasons, but thought I'd ask you first, before theorising about them.

Best wishes from an unseasonably warm UK (50 deg F in the 2nd week of February) !
LJ


----------



## JWPalmer (May 1, 2017)

LJ, Mike has discussed this in other posts. The honey frames go to the inside wall becasue that is the warmer side of the nuc and where the bees will tend to cluster. Once the weather turns and they begin to brood up, this becomes less important. You have to think of the double nuc as one hive with a divider in the middle, or at least that is my interpretation. I find Mike's lectures to be very informative.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

little_john said:


> And that is the basis of my question - if the bees don't like having nectar in the centre of their brood-nest, why do you put it there ? That does - at first sight - seem counter-intuitive, and that inserting an empty drawn comb would be much less work for the bees. I do have a hunch as to your reasons, but thought I'd ask you first, before theorising about them.


I want the bees clustering on the honey comb, and turning it into a frame of brood. I found that sometimes, when at sidewall, the bees ignore it and it renains a honey comb. If the empty comb is at the divider, they use it, but it seemed more slowly.

That said, I've been doing it both ways of late, just to see the difference. Not much. So, maybe over thinking it.


----------



## lharder (Mar 21, 2015)

I've been going to 6 medium frame. 2 of them will fit a square dadant footprint. But if I want to separate them they make for a wide enough footprint that I don't have to worry about them falling over in the wind even if stacked 3 boxes high. Since I have all medium frames, I found the 5 frame single box didn't provide enough volume. Any time there was heat after that initial batch of brood hatched out, they would all be clustering on the outside of the box. Add another box and they march back in and get back to work.


----------



## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Michael Palmer said:


> I want the bees clustering on the honey comb, and turning it into a frame of brood. I found that sometimes, when at sidewall, the bees ignore it and it renains a honey comb. If the empty comb is at the divider, they use it, but it seemed more slowly.
> 
> That said, I've been doing it both ways of late, just to see the difference. Not much. So, maybe over thinking it.


Hi Michael - I need to preface what I'm about to write with a big MAYBE.

I've been digging through the 'Gleanings' archives recently, and in one edition Doolittle had just read about the Adair 'Long Idea' hive, and so duly built himself two of them to experiment with. With one of these hives - for reasons known only to himself - he began extracting honey twice a week. Although the amount of honey from that hive ran to over a quarter of a ton, he wasn't at all impressed with that hive's performance, *seeing as double the amount of brood had been generated by the extraction process*, and the percentage of extra honey gained didn't reflect the extra number of bees that were then present.

It would appear - MAYBE - that there was something about the removal of honey from a comb which then stimulated brood-rearing - and my thoughts raced back to your 'Sustainable Apiary' talk - and so I wondered if you were placing the feed comb in that position with the intention of stimulating brood rearing in a similar way. From what you have just written it appears not, or at least not directly.

I'm left wondering if there might be a simple response mechanism at work here: either the movement of nectar/honey from one comb to another is simulating a flow which stimulates brood-rearing - or - that there is something about a freshly emptied stores comb which has the property of stimulating brood-rearing in some way. My fantasy is that we may have just stumbled across a basic principle. Or perhaps not ? 
best,
LJ


----------



## msl (Sep 6, 2016)

little_john said:


> I'm left wondering if there might be a simple response mechanism at work here: either the movement of nectar/honey from one comb to another is simulating a flow which stimulates brood-rearing


Can't place my finger on the writer, one of my readings talked about placing a box of honey on the bottom, the bees moving it up simulated a flow.


----------



## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

What I find quite extraordinary about the Doolittle report is that he had two 4ft. 32-frame Long Hives. One was used for extracted (twice a week) honey which produced 599 lbs, the other was used for comb honey, which produced 400 lbs. Same location, same conditions etc. Both were VERY respectable yields compared with my miserable location - BUT - only the extraction hive doubled it's workforce - the other didn't. It appears he wasn't that impressed with the extra 199 lbs (for all that work) from double the number of bees. Most of that extra workforce would presuambly have arrived AFTER the flow, which is exactly when they weren't needed - indeed, they would then present as so many extra non-productive mouths to feed at a time when nothing very much would be coming into the hive. Presumably that's why Doolittle was so negative about the experiment.
LJ


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Perhaps. I think I'll do some both ways and track the buildup





little_john said:


> I'm left wondering if there might be a simple response mechanism at work here: either the movement of nectar/honey from one comb to another is simulating a flow which stimulates brood-rearing - or - that there is something about a freshly emptied stores comb which has the property of stimulating brood-rearing in some way. My fantasy is that we may have just stumbled across a basic principle. Or perhaps not ?
> best,
> LJ


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

msl said:


> Can't place my finger on the writer, one of my readings talked about placing a box of honey on the bottom, the bees moving it up simulated a flow.


I believe that's true


----------



## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Doolittle, again, when making sections. 
In A years work in out apiaries.


----------



## Rocky Mt High (Mar 22, 2014)

Alex Madesn----how did you lose two queens in a row, using a double nuc set up? Were the boxes just not tight? Do you suppose the problem originated with the entrance to the hive, or at the top? Or did a rogue queen fly in and attack? Did you make the equipment yourself? I'm asking because I'm planning on a nuc expansion this year and I'd like to learn from your experience. I've chosen to use a 4 frame, double nuc system and I've been building, building, building.

Thanks, RMH


----------



## Alex Madsen (Aug 26, 2018)

I am not sure where the leak was. It was a purchase double nuc. I will be fastidious this year checking for gaps. I still like the double nuc system, in infact all my new hives will be this. Hence my question about configuration cost.


----------



## jkellum (Dec 29, 2016)

I cut deep boxes down to make my 4 frame supers. I just cut the Finger joint sides off and joined them together with glue and pocket hole screws. This left me with the center section that has the handle cut in it. I will use these to make some mini mating nucs so there is almost no waste. I got the deep boxes from Mann lake when they were on sale for $9 or so.


----------



## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Alex Madsen said:


> I am not sure where the leak was. It was a purchase double nuc.


If you were to run a double (side-by-side) nuc-box stack with separate half-width boxes from the ground up - then the chances of queens ever meeting would become zero. You would lose the stability which a divided brood box at the bottom of the stack gives, but that's about all. Of course, you could recover much of that stability by placing some kind of full-width base board underneath the half-width bottom-boards.
LJ


----------



## Beebeard (Apr 27, 2016)

I ran into trouble by putting a QE on top of a double nuc and letting them use a communal honey super. On several occasions, bees migrated from one side to the other (presumably) stronger side. Result: a booming side and a dwindling side, that caused further drift and eventual loss of the weaker colony. Queens were present throughout, so i don't know how to avoid that, other than not trying the communal super method again.


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I stopped using the excluder/communal super. Didn’t see the dwindling you mention. Would rather stack up the nuc supers, and harvest the top couple boxes


----------



## Alex Madsen (Aug 26, 2018)

I was using a communal feeder with QE. I suspect that is where the queen leakage was, but it is impossible to know for sure. 

Alex Madsen


----------



## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Beebeard said:


> I ran into trouble by putting a QE on top of a double nuc and letting them use a communal honey super. On several occasions, bees migrated from one side to the other (presumably) stronger side. Result: a booming side and a dwindling side, that caused further drift and eventual loss of the weaker colony. Queens were present throughout, so i don't know how to avoid that, other than not trying the communal super method again.


Bees vote on queens with their wings and feet. The same thing happens with nucs. I believe you only lost a dink in the making.


----------



## gcolbert (Nov 21, 2017)

One advantage to individual five frame nuc stacks is that it is easy to move them around to balance out populations (swap locations of a weak hive with a strong one or even a regular hive) to add foragers. I guess you could do the same thing with the combined resource hives, but it wouldn't be quite as flexible and would involve lot more work.

Also, you can rather easily divide a 5X5 nuc with a double screen bottom board to make a few queens or split a strong nuc. This might be a bit more difficult with the 4X4 stack.


----------



## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

I run communal supers for divided deeps and divided double deeps and as long as the queens are young it is not remarkably hard to manage. I winter divided doubles with mountain camp sugar shared thru a flat metal or plastic excluder also. As long as you keep the queens separately homed, you have two queens working and one colony divided by a 3/8" plywood wall


----------



## Amibusiness (Oct 3, 2016)

Beebeard, I have used the excluder to equalize, rather than moving brood (usually with overwintered nucs and queens): when the small half is using every frame so I don't want to remove one to replace with brood, and the big half has not started cells but is crowded enough to think about it, and it's too early for me to want to make a split off the strong one, I've added qx and shared super. They have always equalized without my doing much, besides check bottom of upper box on strong half. Potential down side, I believe of one side swarms they will not requeen properly with shared super on, so if they swarm colony must be separated again. Also, they may potentially both swarm at once even if cells are only on one side. I have not had this happen but that is what I'd expect.... Down side of 2 5-frame nucs is I'm not always careful enough to make sure qx is really covering edges. When using shared super, little nucs can become booming colonies with nowhere to store honey when supers come off. They may need to be split to be able to overwinter as 4 over 4 again.... Good luck! Mike Palmer's videos are excellent and inspiring. The resource hives are more fun than harvesting honey....


----------



## Alex Madsen (Aug 26, 2018)

I decided go with a double 5 over 5 nuc configuration. I will let you how the experiment goes. I ordered 4 sets of equptment.


----------



## Beebeard (Apr 27, 2016)

The divided deep/ 4 frame box system of resource hive works great and I will keep using it. As MP said, I'm just going to super up from now on. The communal super might be a little more convenient to harvest, but not all that much better than using the 4 frame boxes. In the end, for me, the risks outweigh the very small benefit. YMMV


----------



## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

When supering a double 4 frame nuc with a 10 frames box ( ran out of equipment), I cut a QE and put that over the holes on the inner cover then put the box on top of that. The bees did store nectar in there. We also used 5 frame nuc boxes on that, the outside edges hung over but didn’t have any gaps. That was during last years Autumn flow which was huge. Deb


----------

