NUC bursting at the seams

[chalkie]

I have a 5 frame nuc thats overflowing and there now storing honey above crownboard and sticking roof down, is it to late to transfere them into a brood box, if not what would you suggest.

thanks

 

[Heather]

Tricky- here in the South I would move to a brood with restricting boards on either side.
Can you get hold of a 7 frame Nuc. I use them so maybe someone in your Assoc could help you out. Or just hang on in there- so depends on the weather

 

[Teemore]

My instinct (weather permitting) is to move to a full brood box and put a few insulated dummy boards in to make up space. Both my colonies are still drawing out comb at present and I have had to put a super on due to the heavy run of Ivy Nectar in my locality... As things stand you run a risk that the colony will choke up the brood nest with nectar so that your Queen loses laying space...

 

[hedgerow pete]

personal i would put them in a full brood box with two frames of new foundation at either end, ( one new frame per end, two in total)

and then i would make up two new frames with polystyrene in them as insulation frames to fill the gaps either end or put the frames all to one side with a piece of foam in at the one end to fill the gap off

 

[Midland Beek]

I think there is just enough time to put them in a brood box ... assuming you can make up the number with drawn combs or one ot two drawn combs and perhaps a division board. A couple of frame feeders would be good in order to reduce the space.

 

[Eyeman]

I would leave them put.
Take out one frame of stores and give this to a needy colony or put in freezer till spring and replace with frame of foundation. They are more likely to draw it out in the cosy nuc than in a full size hive. The queen will already be slowing down. If they don't draw the foundation out you can put the frame of stores back in.

 

[biglongdarren]

hey ye i moved a 5 frame nuc that was overflowing with bee's 2 saturdays ago into some sort of national hive that holds 12/13 frames(it was giving to me)..after moving them i put on 2 gallon of feed and now the whole hive is full of bee's and the queen is still laying...every frame seems to be full of stores and the bee's are going flat out on the ivy today when i was up looking..this is my first year as a bee keeper so only the spring of the year will tell me how am doing...hope yours worked out as good as minds did?well so far anyway...Darren