# Mating nucs



## TWall (May 19, 2010)

I'm planning on raising some queens next summer. I've been thinking about what type of mating nucs to use. I was planning on making four way queen castle out of a 10 frame deep. This would allow easy equipment switching, reduce new equipment purchases, etc.

For those who are fairly new queen breeders what do you use?

Tom


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## Steve10 (Nov 19, 2008)

Tom,
Last year was my first attempt at raising some queens and that is exactly what I did. On three occasions (out of 6 castles) the returning queens were stuck between the screening of the screen bottom board and the slide-in corrugated grid panel. Obviously these panels are sloppy enough to keep them from being bee-tight. Since I don't have any solid bottom boards, I may just staple or duct tape the panels in place to avoid any gaps to avoid the same mishaps. Otherwise they worked well without having to have buy/build anymore equipment. The tip here is if you use this SBB set-up and can't find the queen, and you see a clump of bees on the bottom screen, the queen may be hiding from you under the screen!
Steve


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## JSL (Sep 22, 2007)

Tom,

You are very close to Simpson's Bee Supply in Danville. They have a very nice 4-way as you describe. I use their boxes and really like them as they are well made, reasonably priced and most important, the bee space is correct.

Joe


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

Joe,

Thanks for the reply. 

I get almost everything from Simpsons. They are great people to work with.

Tom


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#matingnucs

I use my standard frames (mediums) in two frame nucs that I make either by dividing existing boxes (two from a five frame nuc, three from an eight frame box or four from a ten frame box).

http://www.bushfarms.com/images/Thumbnails/TwoByFourNuc2_small.jpg
http://www.bushfarms.com/images/TwoByFourMatingNucs.JPG

"Some queen-breeders use a very small hive with much smaller frames than their common ones for keeping their queens in till mated, but for several reasons I consider it best to have but the one frame in both the queen-rearing and the ordinary hives. In the first place, a nucleus colony can be formed in a few minutes from any hive by simply transferring two or three frames and the adhering bees from it to the nucleus hive. Then again, a nucleus colony can be built up at any time or united with another where the frames are all alike, with very little trouble. And lastly, we have only the one sized frames to make. I have always used a nucleus hive such as I have described, and would not care to use any other."--Isaac Hopkins, The Australasian Bee Manual 

"for the honey-producer there seems no great advantage in baby nuclei. He generally needs to make some increase, and it is more convenient for him to use 2 or 3-frame nuclei for queen-rearing, and then build them up into full colonies...I use a full hive for each nucleus, merely putting 3 or 4 frames in one side of the hive, with a dummy beside them. To be sure, it takes more bees than to have three nuclei in one hive, but it is a good bit more convenient to build up into a full colony a nucleus that has the whole hive to itself."--C.C. Miller, Fifty Years Among the Bees 

"The small Baby Nucleus hive had a run for a while but is now generally considered a mere passing fad. It is so small that the bees are put into an unnatural condition, and they therefore perform in an unnatural manner...I strongly advise a nucleus hive that will take the regular brood-frame that is used in your hives. The one that I use is a twin hive, each compartment large enough to hold two jumbo frames and a division-board."--Smith, Queen Rearing Simplified 

"I was convinced that the best nucleus that I could possibly have, was one or two frames in an ordinary hive. In this way all work done by the nucleus was readily available for the use of any colony, after I was through with the nucleus...take a frame of brood and one of honey, together with all of the adhering bees, being careful not to get the old Queen, and put the frames into a hive where you wish the nucleus to stand...drawing up the division-board so as to adjust the hive to the size of the colony."--G. M. Doolittle, Scientific Queen-Rearing


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

I have been using 5 frame nuc boxes as mating nucs. I gave each box 2 frames of sealed brood and bees, and 3 undrawn combs.

It is convenient for me as it didn't require any extra purchase or equipment, as I already had some 5 frame nuc boxes.

Just starting out raising a few queens, this works ok for me. In the future when I am raising more queens, I may start using specialized equipment.


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## BigDaddyDS (Aug 28, 2007)

When raising queens, I quickly realized that I didn't have enough equipment to make mating nucs. And mini-nucs seemed cost prohibitive.

What I did was use cardboard 5-frame nucs, with a "spacer" inside to reduce the capacity to 3 full frames. This gave me 1 frame of honey/pollen, and 2 frames of drawn comb with brood of mixed ages.

What this also meant was that for the "price" of 1 deep box, I have enough frames to make 3 mating nucs that perform similarly to a full-sized 10 frame hive. That eliminates a lot of the problems that M. Bush points out with his quoted text.


On the other hand, while I don't use them, I DO know a few people who use the Queen Castles with pretty good success. They "claim" that a queen occasionally gets confused and enters the wrong entrance, thereby leaving her share of the castle queenless, although (to me, at least) it's quite possible that the queen could have been lost just as easily from a bird eating her during mating.

DS


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## bleta12 (Feb 28, 2007)

TWall said:


> I'm planning on raising some queens next summer. I've been thinking about what type of mating nucs to use. I was planning on making four way queen castle out of a 10 frame deep. This would allow easy equipment switching, reduce new equipment purchases, etc.
> 
> For those who are fairly new queen breeders what do you use?
> 
> Tom


I would recommend the single matting nucs the Beeworks sells, the German stile. They are in Canada.
Then you have the Apidea stile mini nuc from Manlake. I do use the four way out of the regular deep. You can use the regular 5 frame nucs for matting but if you plan to rear a lot of queens, they are not practical.
Smaller the matting unit - less the bee resources and more attention they require
Bigger - more resources and less attention. 

Good luck Gilman


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## MWillard (Dec 8, 2008)

Michael Bush said:


> http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm#matingnucs
> 
> I use my standard frames (mediums) in two frame nucs that I make either by dividing existing boxes (two from a five frame nuc, three from an eight frame box or four from a ten frame box).


Michael,
I see in your photo that you stack the mating nuc boxes, which is a great space saver. What do you use between the boxes? It looks like some sort of plastic divider.

With several mating nucs stacked closely together, have you experienced any issues with orientation as the newly mated queens make their way back to the mating nucs? 

Thanks for posting and sharing your information.

Michael


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I see in your photo that you stack the mating nuc boxes, which is a great space saver. What do you use between the boxes? It looks like some sort of plastic divider.

Horizontally it's whatever I had handy, usually 1/4" luan, sometimes the coroplast (plastic cardboard). Vertical dividers are either 3/4" boards or 1/4" luan. I wish more had been 1/4" luan since the ten frame boxes are a bit crowded when you use 3/4" pine.

>With several mating nucs stacked closely together, have you experienced any issues with orientation as the newly mated queens make their way back to the mating nucs?

It's hard to say when a nuc ends up queenless what went wrong, but few enough of them do that I don't worry about it. I'm sure a few get confused, but they do face different directions. If I had time, painting the entrances different colors would probably help too.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

bleta12 said:


> Smaller the matting unit - less the bee resources and more attention they require
> Bigger - more resources and less attention.


Clearly stated in a few words.

Just to add to that, I found there was a higher rate of queens eventually going drone layer, and other problems, the smaller the baby nuc. Using large standard size frame nucs will give the best % of queens that go on to be high quality queens.

I cannot say with absolute certainty, but there are several possible hypothesis for this. One is that a virgin in a large hive will not feel the same urgency as a virgin in a baby nuc, and will take the time to make as many mating flights as needed to properly mate. Another is that after the queen mates she needs a hive at the correct temperature to bodily adjust for correct sperm storage/handling. Can't vouch for that 2nd one but it's an idea that was put to me.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

I will say that the problem that we see the most in our countries queen stock seems to come from a lack of drone supply in most mating operations... too often there will be 100+ nucs per drone colony...and too many so called "speakers" that are teaching queen rearing through the associations, but fail to teach that properly mating queens requires many hives for selection and for drones...

It is great to not have to treat to keep colonies from failing, but if you are mating queens, you should pay very close attention to your untreated drone colonies... mites can cripple drones, even when the colony appears strong, it may not be producing enough healthy drones to make a difference in a mating operation... 

No matter what size nucs you use, a good rule of thumb would be "if you are not sure there are enough drones, double them"... and for baby nucs..."inspect, inspect, inspect... you want to keep these nucs somewhat weak, to raise their acceptance of new cells, but you must be sure that each queen is properly mated and laying with quality before you catch her"....


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## ChristopherA (Jul 20, 2010)

Rrussell,

Speaking on drone yards or colonies.

I have read a lot about flooding the area with drones. That most queens will not mate with bees with in the same yard without flooding the area because the virgin queen will go to different area than the drones. That the queen does this as part of natural rearing to keep from mating with siblings.

I plan on setting up 3 to 4 drone colonies in the same yard and trying to strategically place 3 to 4 drone yards within a mile to mile and half of my production yard. 

Can you enlighten us on how you would do it. If you have already posted in a thread on this issue, you could point us in that direction.

The definition of flooding drone colony is real flexible when people talk about it.

Chris


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Chris,

Our drone colonies are always within a few hundred yards of our nucs... Drones will choose several areas to congregate (DCAs)... mainly along woodlines or structure breaks... Drones do not travel as far as the queen can, but if there is a proper number of drones, the queen will not "pass them up". '

I commented on this topic in a thread titled "drone nuc" here in the breeding forum... Pete (Beekuk) added an awesome link to that discussion... I usually find falsehoods in most links from associations... But this group is dead on... very impressed with their studies...

http://www.montybees.org.uk/content/drone-congregation-areas

Hope this helps!


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## ChristopherA (Jul 20, 2010)

Thanks Rrussell, like always great source of info


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

You are welcome, but the link came from Pete (Beekuk). lol. I am glad to help.


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## BGhoney (Sep 26, 2007)

Depends on how many you want to make. I made 10 small 3 frame nucs , they are deep frames cut in half. I sell queens right out of them, people come by and they can see the brood pattern and the queen is very easy to find.

I made a big hive of the same size 12 small frames for drawing out frames and moving brood back and forth. As the small ones get packed I remove brood.

I also have several 3 frame queen castles for found queen cells..


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

We have many of the same... They work well... We have made many different types of nucs during studies, shallows, mediums, deeps, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 12s, and even 20 framers... production speed, cost, space, quality, labor, and percentages were all questions of the studies...

Over all, the mini duplex 3 frame with medium hight frames scored highest... but that is when operated correctly... which takes trial and error to learn because every layout and operation is different.

Shallows, mediums, and deeps parted off to make 2, 3 and 4 frame nucs were by far the easiest, and I would certainly suggest these for beginners... the only troubles that we ran into other than the space they require are:
1. some percentage of queens entering the wrong side after mating flights... this was fixed by painting each side a different color.
2. if you can winter your large nucs, do so... the larger frames will require more bees to clean and prepare in spring... thus more resources and/or time.

We winter our mini nuc wax on regular hives and we use hives that are completely made up of small frames (20 per super) to supply frames on rotation in spring... these will have bees, brood, pollen, and honey already available... aiding in getting an early start.

I have wanted to try to winter 3 frame nucs in the styrofoam nucs... but they look rather "dinky" to me.. has any one out there tried it?


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## Broke-T (Jul 9, 2008)

Robert, I have seen your mating yard with the rows of mating nucs. How do you arrange the different ages of cells within the rows? Is one row for this week, one row for next, and so on?

Johnny


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Johnny, We have many mating yards. When planting we use colored marker flags at the beginning of the plant, and at the end of the plant... each color stands for a different hatch date... These flags can be found at lowes or Howme depot in the landscape dept. My father used sticks, bricks, and anything that was handy. lol. But even though he knew exactly what each mark meant, no one else did...so if he was sick or busy elsewhere, it caused trouble...

We graft from multiple hives at once and when we plant our cell, we mix the cells in a certain order so that each nuc in the row gets a cell from a separate hive. This way when we catch our queens, each order is made up of up to 40 different lineages. This is important as most breeders do not do this... so when you buy queens to requeen your be yard... they are all sisters... This has been one of the greatest reasons that our nations queens have been going down hill...


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Hey Robert what a great idea!

This is something that bothered me for years, that a guy could buy queens for his outfit and they could concievably all come from the one mother.

Great you are doing something about this!


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

We have been doing that for nearly 100 years. Lol. Our associations hire "speakers" to teach queen breeding... the trouble is that while they are great writers and speakers, they fail to teach these simple practices and fail to push for heavier drone populations... thus there are a huge number of Apiaries out there buying poorly mated queens and filling there yards with queens from the same mother... the US has seen a decline in productive queen stock due to this... that's why I try to teach these practices every chance that I get on here.... the associations don't pay enough and I don't have time to write a book. Lol.


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## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

Robert,all good advice and imformation,and i hope you get the time to write a book someday.
Meanwhile keep putting it on the forum.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

Thanks Pete. I will.


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## fat/beeman (Aug 23, 2002)

mr russell
I been saying the same thing for yrs.I am getting old now and stop trying convince beekeepers what you just said.they all want quick dollar and don't want to put in the sweat.
Don


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

They say folks like you and I are from the "old school" Don. 

Sweat and stings teach far more than any number of books... if that's "old school", then maybe todays bee keepers need that kind of education... 

As a scientist, I study the new technologies, but good bee keeping practices seem to be overlooked by todays educators. Everything seems to be focused on the next gimmick or trick... all of which require some form of plastic product that was manufactured in some other country...

I think most of it stems from people looking at bees as a wild creature that they "harness" temporarily... instead of livestock that requires care and dedication...


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## fat/beeman (Aug 23, 2002)

Mr. Russell
your absolutely right I teach beekeeping to the new guy as well as the man wanting to learn commercial beekeeping. most think you get lot of bees and get rich{lol} been doing it 50+ yrs haven't got rich yet. but I do seem to eat every day and that says some thing. I am trying to pass this art form on the next generation as I see you trying too do same. keep up the excellent work. 

Don


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## hipbee (Sep 11, 2009)

i sure appreciate the knowledge you have passed on to me don, I try to learn everything I can on these forums but get very frustrated with all of the conflicting info. I only wish i lived closer and had more time to come down and see you more often.


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## ChristopherA (Jul 20, 2010)

I for one am of the old school thinking and take every word from people like FBM and Mr Russell to heart.

I agree everyone looks for a fast buck. I am of the belief hard work pays off and what you put into it is what you get out.


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## rrussell6870 (May 14, 2009)

You are exactly right... The bee industry has supported 3 generations of my family very well... but we have also worked ourselves into the ground for it... each year it requires more and more work... if you truely love what you are doing, the work is worth the pay... if you do not love it, go to med or law school...

Sure, there are many "quick bucks" out there and if you have the capital, you can buy a ton of bees and turn some quick profits... but if you want to keep them, sooner or later you will have to roll up your sleeves and get dedicated... Forget what you learned in school, read in the books, or saw in the DVD, and study your own bees... they are the only constant... each area is very different and experience is the only teacher that is never wrong.


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## Whitetail (Feb 3, 2011)

I bought 15 of the three compartment mating boxes from Walter T Kelley. I'm anxious to try them. My plan was to get down to one queen per box, and pull the divides. I can place a hive top feeder on them as any colony, and winter them. Then I wont have to rob from my hives to stock them, and I'll have new queens ready for use. I like that I can rob frames from any of my colonies. The mini's require an additional size fram to mess with. I guess they might be beneficial for a larger operations though.


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