Hengest
New Bee
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2013
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Wiltshire
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 1
Hi
A couple of related questions I could use some help with!
I hope to get my first colony this spring and as it will be an established colony, I would hope to be able to increase from it - to get to what many consider the minimum of two colonies.
Reading around the topic it seems that you can use a brood box (with suitable dummying ) to get a colony going or start with them in a nuc.
Is a nuc just a cheaper option or does it have advantages?
I imagine I could have a go at making a nuc (looking at Hedgerow Pete's videos but brood boxes and supers I suspect are beyond my current skills.
Supplementary question - is there reason that very few nuc plans include the use of a mesh floor?
The other question is around changing hive types and sort of ties in with the first one.
From my reading here and in some books it seems advisable to have a big enough brood box to help reduce(but not eliminate) the urge to swarm.
My bees will be coming in a national hive and I had thought I would move to 14x12 at some stage.
Is it worth waiting a while and putting expansion plans on hold while I build my experience and see how prolific the bees are or is it a relatively straightforward job to convert to 14x12 and I may as well start as I mean to go on sort of thing.
Sorry seems like a bit of an essay but I thought I would dump the lot in one go as it all seemed a bit related.
Any suggestions or advice gratefully received.
A couple of related questions I could use some help with!
I hope to get my first colony this spring and as it will be an established colony, I would hope to be able to increase from it - to get to what many consider the minimum of two colonies.
Reading around the topic it seems that you can use a brood box (with suitable dummying ) to get a colony going or start with them in a nuc.
Is a nuc just a cheaper option or does it have advantages?
I imagine I could have a go at making a nuc (looking at Hedgerow Pete's videos but brood boxes and supers I suspect are beyond my current skills.
Supplementary question - is there reason that very few nuc plans include the use of a mesh floor?
The other question is around changing hive types and sort of ties in with the first one.
From my reading here and in some books it seems advisable to have a big enough brood box to help reduce(but not eliminate) the urge to swarm.
My bees will be coming in a national hive and I had thought I would move to 14x12 at some stage.
Is it worth waiting a while and putting expansion plans on hold while I build my experience and see how prolific the bees are or is it a relatively straightforward job to convert to 14x12 and I may as well start as I mean to go on sort of thing.
Sorry seems like a bit of an essay but I thought I would dump the lot in one go as it all seemed a bit related.
Any suggestions or advice gratefully received.