Nucs for spring

[beesrus]

Hi,
I am new to bee keeping this year and apart from a few newbee mistakes I am doing ok and have 1 strong colony and 2 colonies that I will be recombining in a couple of weeks leaving me with 2 which is the number I want to retain ideally.

With the swarm control measures i have done and a little luck I now have 3 nucs 2 with mated laying queens and 1 about to come into lay (fingers crossed). I am considering leaving these nucs to develop and overwinter and make 2 available for sale in the spring. I am concerned being a beginner myself that I may make critical mistakes and lose them.

Please can anyone give me advice on how best to look after them over winter - feeding, insulation etc etc.

Cheers

BeesRus

 

[Hivemaker.]

Treat for mites and nosema if needed,keep them warm strong and provisioned with stores in a sheltered spot,and keep pests out.
Mine are overwintered in 9mm ply nuc's with deep crown board, which acts as fondant tray,with 1 inch kingspan insulation in roof.

 

[MuswellMetro]

yep insulated roof...i use a peice 6" insualtion slabe use in flat roof

 

[beebreeder]

I overwinter nucs in 12 mm ply boxes with 2 inch vent in floor 4 inch air gap and no insulation and that was last winter, insulate if you feel the need, like HM says get varroa down and nosema and keep strong with lots of bees.
kev

 

[Midland Beek]

The obvious thing to say is that your nucs will inevitably grow bigger and quite quickly. How do you plan to stop that?

Left to their own devices your nucs might easily be full size colonies by the end of September, especially if you have Himalayan balsam in your neck of the woods.

 

[beesrus]

Thanks for the advice I don't suppose I can add any vents per se at this stage may have to think of something ingenious. I will be treating all my hives so I have been preparing for that although there are a lot of different options I need to wade through.

Thanks Midland that's a really good point as we have huge amounts of HB it is likely they will expand and run out of room. Any suggestions on what I could do?

BeesRus

 

[Firegazer]

Sell them this year, and make more next year?

You may have to sell them as 'small nucs' or something to cover the fact that they aren't on 5/6 frames (yet). Use the money to buy more kit to make more next year.

FG

 

[Poly Hive]

If you only have a couple of nucs you can bleed off some brood and boost your main colonies.

If you have more you can swap positions and so use the stronger foraging force to reinforce the weak ones. Something I am off to do today as I have three "hanging oot the front" which is a sure sign they are too strong.

PH

 

[tonybloke]

Hi,
I am new to bee keeping this year and apart from a few newbee mistakes I am doing ok and have 1 strong colony and 2 colonies that I will be recombining in a couple of weeks leaving me with 2 which is the number I want to retain ideally.

BeesRus

You profile indicates you have 6 colonies?

 

[Rosti]

I may be stating the obvious here but anyway ....

I have just built two additional nucs, I wanted them as an over wintering option and so included mesh floors and telescope roofs to accomodate my mini-millers, then fondant + insulation. A base eke will be used to reduce draughts.

Recognising Midlands comment on colony size as a pre-requisite, is condensation not still of a prime concern irrespective of the 'size' of the hive used?

Ironically I don't think I'll need them now!

 

[beesrus]

You profile indicates you have 6 colonies?

I currently have 6 colonies - 3 hives and 3 nucs... not sure that matters anyway.

 

[Poly Hive]

It's taken by some as an indicator of experience is all.

PH

 

[Freer4]

Treat for mites and nosema if needed,keep them warm strong and provisioned with stores in a sheltered spot,and keep pests out.
Mine are overwintered in 9mm ply nuc's with deep crown board, which acts as fondant tray,with 1 inch kingspan insulation in roof.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[beesrus]

Thanks for clarification PH i was wondering what the relevance was, i am not going to put i have only 1 hive so everyone knows i'm inept, i'm sure the questioning will reveal that.

Thanks for all the help everyone.

If anyone does need a nuc with a mated laying queen in the Cheshire area PM me.

BeesRus

 

[Midland Beek]

Thanks Midland that's a really good point as we have huge amounts of HB it is likely they will expand and run out of room. Any suggestions on what I could do?

Sell them now before they swarm out of the boxes they are in.

Expect it to get real fiddly if you try and continually take strength away from your nucs. But it is possible.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Expect it to get real fiddly if you try and continually take strength away from your nucs. But it is possible.

Easy......just keep making up more nuc's from nuc's, been shaking bee's out of mini nuc's today...getting far to strong,now surplus bee's dumped into supers of other colonys.

 

[susbees]

Ok, so can we expand on this please. Currently I have three (hopefully with now mated queen) polynucs at the mating station our group are using. They should come back in a week or so once the queens are laying. So.....if I want to effectively "bank" these in 5 frame nucs overwinter how many frames are recommended late July? We have no HB but loads of ivy around for later and was planning on feeding. Rather they didn't swarm in September.

 

[Poly Hive]

Can you define what your "polynuc" is?

To me that is a five frame nuc box. Or are you talking about a mini nuc specifically for queen rearing which is a different thing entirely?

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

Couple of frames of sealed brood well covered with bee's,frame of food,empty drawn comb and frame of foundation.....introduce your queen,if they need more bee's later add sealed brood,if they get to strong....take some away.

 

[susbees]

Can you define what your "polynuc" is?

To me that is a five frame nuc box. Or are you talking about a mini nuc specifically for queen rearing which is a different thing entirely?

PH

Keilers PH...which would have the super extensions if we could find them other than in the German catalogues ...hint, hint . Sorry, some of us have never seen a hive/full size nuc made of PS.