Anything I can do to build up nucs to full brood size?

[Jimy Dee]

Help needed please - How can I assist building up splits/nucs to full brood size as fast as possible this season please?

I have 2 splits and the new queens have just started laying. Only around 2 frames laid up at this stage. I wish to get these splits up to full brood chamber size as soon as possible – that is if it is possible. I really do not know what to do to assist the bees in this regard. Is there some thing I can do rather than leaving them to their own devices? All help and advise welcome.

 

[Grub]

Are they on new foundation or already drawn out ?

If me i would feed to get them off to a good start , are you wanting to build them up for a late summer flow ie Himalayan Balsam.

My mate has only just revived his nucs (this week) and he is feeding for the next two weeks so I imagine would be the same.

Be interesting to see what other on here will suggest...


Grub

 

[oliver90owner]

Warmth and no extra demands on them other than brooding. You require the largest sized brood nest they can cope with.

That means an appropriate sized cavity (all cavernous spaces dummied down or, preferably, divided off).

Feeding in a sensible manner - diverting bees to drawing comb for sugar syrup storage is counter-productive to brooding.

Assist by transferring a small patch of emerging brood from the original queen colony. When emerged, add a further but larger amount. Continue until colonies are strong, but do not overly weaken your donor colony(ies)!

 

[Finman]

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Feeding is worst you can do...it fills only brood combs.

When brood cycle is 3 weeks, the colony has time to draw its foundations. But nuc is normally made from ready combs. It is better that big hive draws those foundations.

As fast as possible is not wise idea. The colony grows with its own speed, and the most important factors are start size of the nuc and hive insulation (warm hive)

At least shut the mesh floor if you have such open.
Then take off the excluder from parent hive that it makes new bees with maximum speed.

3 frame nuc is very slow start. That is why professionals sell 5 frame nucs an packages. It is a reasonsble minumum to start a colony. But it needs much bees and brood from parent hive.

If you want to speed up the the build up, the fastes way is to add a frame of emerging bees from strong hive. And a strong hive is 4-5 boxes full of bees. It is quicker way that strong hive id strong and it produces bees to your nucs.

 

[Hawklord]

Feeding will be necessary if adding frames of brood as it will give more mouths to feed. What isneeded is a bigger flying force.

 

[oliver90owner]

Feeding will be necessary if adding frames of brood as it will give more mouths to feed.-

The one single thing you do not do is give them is more mouths to feed! The queen can lay sufficient eggs for that, at the appropriate time. If too many eggs are laid, only the eggs lost - and they will be recycled. If larvae are provided, there is a fair chance that some will be lost - a wasts of a great deal of energy and effort. A huge waste of time.

That is why one gives them emerging brood. They are not eating anything. Neither needing so much warmth, nor for very long (by definition - emerging).

 

[Finman]

Feeding will be necessary if adding frames of brood as it will give more mouths to feed. What isneeded is a bigger flying force.

No no and no. I have made so many hundreds of nucs in my life.

If the nuc has not enough pollen and sugar, give from big hive a store frame.

Starving is very different issue than 'accelerate build up'. No need to mix them...when you profound a nuc, give to it necessary stores. Pollen frame is very necessary.
If you profound a nuc in the same yard, foragers return to the original hive. It takes 2 weeks that young bees start to forage and carry pollen. You see it yourself.

To add flying force is impossible from the bees of same yard. If you get a swarm, you may join bees from that.

 

[beesleybees]

I agree,excess feeding only takes up room in brood frames and makes bees work hard to evaporate excess water off it.

Queen will only lay x amount of eggs, depending on the size of the colony as if she lays too many, there are not enough bees to tend to them and keep them warm. The bigger the colony gets, the more she lays. So therefore, it just takes time

 

[Hawklord]

Emerging brood are non flyers and must require some food.

 

[oliver90owner]

Emerging brood are non flyers and must require some food.

Irrelevant. Read the thread title.

 

[Ben90]

Feed pollen patty, not carbs. And remember that the brood nest size is constrained by the area the bees can cover to incubate. I've found that re-arranging frames so that the frame with the queen on is at the edge of the hive, with all broodless frames placed next to it going inwards, encourages the queen to lay sequentially on those frames and optimises her laying rate across those frames.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Emerging brood are non flyers and must require some food.

As brood emerges they take over the housekeeping and nursing duties thus freeing up the present nurse bees to flying duties which means more foraging and thus more food coming in i.e. they will feed themselves

 

[Jimy Dee]

Thanks for all the input. I was hoping they would be strong enough for a late summer flow. The replies are very educational, learning loads !

 

[Finman]

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Jimmy, how big are your nucs. How many frames bees cover?

 

[Little John]

I see the OP is listed as having 3 hives. If these are strong hives, then I'd take one frame of sealed brood out of the two strongest, and give one each to the NUCs. Then swap the positions of those hives and the two NUCs, so that the NUCs will pick up the hive's foragers. That'll set the hives back a little, but life ain't perfect. I reckon that's about as much as you could do.

There's no hard and fast rule about feeding - if there's nectar available, then don't feed. If there's no nectar coming in, then feed a little each day, so that it's consumed in daily metabolism, and not stockpiled in the brood space.

 

[Hawklord]

If feeding or adding a frame of stores you would be assisting the foragers.

 

[Hawklord]

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Jimmy, how big are your nucs. How many frames bees cover?

This is the crux of the problem as it depends how big the split was, and how many spare bees there are to go foraging.

 

[Finman]

I see the OP is listed as having 3 hives. If these are strong hives, then I'd take
Then swap the positions of those hives and the two NUCs, so that the NUCs will pick up the hive's foragers
.

Fastest way to destroy good hives.

We are on half way of June. There is good time to rear nucs in normal way and get a good yield from main hives. He wants honey from nucs but it is not possible.

 

[Finman]

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Strange...sometimes walk away nucs and sometimes feed every day.
Is it better to learn some basic solution .

 

[pargyle]

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Strange...sometimes walk away nucs and sometimes feed every day.
Is it better to learn some basic solution .

Lots of good advice from you Finman on this thread .... see ... I'm learning !