Nuc bee space

[beeboybee]

hi all is 20mm from bottom of frames to floor of nuc box ok?
or should i make less

what's the normal amount

thanks again

 

[hedgerow pete]

20 mm sounds fine, i normaly have a little less, nearer 15 mm personaly but what fits goes , some i have built have 40mm

 

[Hombre]

I'm Inviting a slightly wider discussion here, but perhaps the more knowledgeable can give guidance.

Thanks Pete, you have mentioned that you happily use 15mm through to 40mm. Am I right in saying that when it comes to that final floor-to-frame depth, that the bee space requirement is somewhat relaxed? Also the merits of having a deeper than minimum space, particularly in a nuc is beneficial insofar that frames being put into a nuc on top of bees is less likely to be a source of accidental crush damage to the bees in the bottom of the box.

Having established that bee space to 40mm is an acceptable space; are these the limits, what are the perceived merits and at what point will extra comb building be a problem?

Thinking about national frames in a 14 x 12 box, the extra comb is normally ordered and so not a real problem at all imho. it emulates the hole in the tree really.

 

[hedgerow pete]

carefull hombre, i was getting tied to trees a few days ago , by the neck , because I opened my big mouth/fingers on keyboard,

When it comes to me and nucs I only ever see them as short term accomadation and no more , bees I have installed last year , June will only stay in there till aprill/may this year and thats the far limit, some times things go to plan in which case its july/august till aprill some times a little longer but never over the 14 months mark, There are some people who use the nuc box all year round either swapping bees or queens. Why do I say this ? because it effects the answers. I am short term and as such do not have to worry about brace comb build up. Also I only use cheap and nasty ply/timber and can only work to within a few feet let alone millimetres when dealing with wood so for my own use a gap of around 15mm is fine as if any thing does drop, dead bees etc there is still room for bees to move about any thing larger than 15mm will get you brace comb build up

 

[hedgerow pete]

Ho by the way here is another one of hedgerows great foot in mouth expletives,

I dont use a full frame of wax foundation in any hive including the nucs. All my brood frames are 12 by 14 and the only foundation I ever use is super frame size. Why I hear you all shout over the din of the pitch forks being picked up again!!!!!!
I like to use a small sheet of wax for two reasons,
1 It s cheaper to buy
2 I like to get the ladies working a lot more when I set a nuc up it should have a frame of capped brood this will produce a lot of wax bees and as such by using half filled frames they have some thing to do

 

[Hombre]

A rustling of rope and sounds of pitchfork sharpening drift in with the snow . . .

I think my bees must have been coming to visit you today, because they were flying at 4pm on yellow rain missions I assume, but it seems that there were a few casualties littering the flying field. Snow, slight mist and still searching for your bee shed

I'm expecting at least one soul to return with aerial reconnaissance footage that will reveal at least one of your secure apiaries. They will be working overnight of course to process the data and give me the buzz tomorrow.

 

[hedgerow pete]

Because of the areas that we are living in the other two lads are looking after the other three plots because they are closer to them, the big issue we have had is with this snow is the tv cameras getting snowed up and the battery power sytem drained down three times as the solar panels are getting covered, we are now running with 3, 85amph batteries at each location and another three being recharged to replace them all on rotation