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Building Nucleus Colonies June 9, 2012. INTRO: Where do your bees live?. Finding your queen is important Use marked queens Use only a little bit of smoke a puff under the screened bottom, and one at the entrance Remove top hive body, remove frame #2 and assess the oval of broodnest - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Building Nucleus Colonies June 9, 2012
INTRO: Where do your bees INTRO: Where do your bees live?live?◦Finding your queen is important
Use marked queens Use only a little bit of smoke
a puff under the screened bottom, and one at the entrance
Remove top hive body, remove frame #2 and assess the oval of broodnest
The queen is most likely to be on a frame with eggs and young larvae – go there first
Only go through every frame as a last resort.
Look near the eggsLook near the eggs
◦House bees – under 3 weeks of age: don’t fly well, perform tasks within the hive
◦Nurse Bees – 5 to 15 day old bees produce the most royal jelly – they are found on the young larvae
Nurse BeesNurse Bees Nurse bees are essential for queen production, queen health, and brood development
Nurse bees are not aggressive, don’t fight with other bees, and rarely sting
Cull combs in early spring Cull combs in early spring ◦Rotate 20% of frames with new
foundation each year so none are older than 5 years
◦Date your frames, pull out oldest ones when broodnest is small (don’t pull brood frames) Save frames with capped honey and pollen
in the freezer Clean out frames that are broken or full of
drone comb – add new foundation and change the date (If you glue and nail your frames they should last for years.)
WHY EVERYONE SHOULD WHY EVERYONE SHOULD MAKE NUCS:MAKE NUCS:
◦Our goal is sustainable hive management – Stop Buying Bees! Overwintered nucs with northern raised
queens are in high demand and short supply – become part of the solution
I look forward to the day when there is no demand for package bees (but don’t worry about my business) Nearly every bee in a package has just returned
from California almond pollination – where every disease known to bees is in one place for a month
Why make nucs?Why make nucs?◦Swarm prevention – in spring
Backup against winter Backup against winter losseslosses
Go into winter with as many nucs as you hope to have hives for next year and you’ll be sure to not buy bees (and probably have nucs to sell)
Use your own raised queens or purchase queens “Reverse split” – combine weak hives in the fall
or break the weak hive down into a nuc The survival rate of bees in nucs is significantly
higher than in full sized hives
Ideally nucleus colonies Ideally nucleus colonies should be on a separate yard should be on a separate yard from full-sized colonies.from full-sized colonies.
◦If they are in the same yard as your hives, put them as far away as possible, reduce entrances, and add a robbing screen
Types of nucleus colony Types of nucleus colony equipmentequipment◦ Queen castle (not really a nuc, but great for rearing Northern
queens) Use better bees!
◦ Any new virgin queen open-mated locally will be stronger than a Southern raised queen
◦ Carniolans use less honey in winter, and Russians even less◦ Carniolans and Russians forage better on cloudy, foggy, and
misty days◦ Dark bees shut down broodrearing when resources are scarce
and are less prone to robbing than Italian bees
Types of nucleus colony Types of nucleus colony equipmentequipment
◦Double wide (in 8 or 10 frame sizes) Advantages: uses standard sized
equipment; two small colonies share warmth
Can live atop a full hive and share more warmth
Types of nucleus colony Types of nucleus colony equipmentequipment◦Standard 5 frame deep
Advantages: industry standard, easy to transport and sell
◦Two-story 5 frame medium Advantage: huge demand for nucs on
medium frames and tiny supply
Making a nuc:Making a nuc:Need a queen
Take out the existing queen for swarm prevention nucs Cut queen cells in parent hive down to ONE Then return within nine days and double check for queen cells
Purchase queens for nucs for increase Or better, move swarm cells into a queen castle and raise your
own* Nucs can be made with queen cells at the right time of the
year Move weak queens into nucs in the fall
Sometimes they improve and perform well in spring
*(Move a frame like this into a queen castle, add a shake of young nurse bees and a frame of resources and wait for a couple weeks)
Making a nuc:Making a nuc:◦Need resources (at least one frame)
Use pollen and honey from comb rotation, or take it from a too-strong hive
Making a nuc:Making a nuc:◦Need brood and nurse bees
Move at least one frame each of open brood and capped (ideally emerging) brood and the bees that come along
Shake one or two frames of nurse bees from additional frames of open brood
Making a nuc:Making a nuc:
◦Spring nucs need space (foundation); late season nucs need drawn comb
Spring and summer nucs tend to want to outgrow their space; to prevent them swarming take out full frames of capped brood and give them to your hives that can use the population
Making a nuc:Making a nuc:◦Feed the nuc
For spring nucs, feed just until nurse bees grow up into field bees (a week or two)
For late season nucs, feed heavy syrup (until mid October) to pack the hive FULL
Overwintering nucs Overwintering nucs ((use dark colors)use dark colors)◦Solo 5 frame (worked last winter) –
solo double wide (I’ll try this this winter)
◦Double wide over a full sized colony
*The Forbes Overwinternator (naming rights by D. Israel)
Overwintering nucs Overwintering nucs
◦Multiple boxes, packed tightly together for warmth