Overwintering Queens in mating/mini nucs

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waverider

House Bee
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Location
Nottinghamshire
Hive Type
14x12
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I currently use Kieler mating nucs for queen rearing. I noticed that Kieler manufacture 'upper body' units for winter use.

Has anyone tried overwintering using this the mating/mini nut? Surely you would need more than one upper body to have sufficient stores and brood to pass through to spring. Thoughts anyone.

bee-smillie
 
I put 36 mini-nucs into the winter, a mix of single body, double body and treble body. 28 made it to spring and all except one of the failures were from single body configuration, but I did have some singles pull through.
The double body is roughly the size of a national 5 frame nuc by my calculations.
 
Has anyone tried overwintering using this the mating/mini nut?

bee-smillie

Yes, I had two nuc's plus upper body get through the last winter. Not sure if they would have got through this one. A good 'feature' is that you can slide the upper body to get to the feeder below without opening it up.

Mike.
 
I have wintered kieler mini nucs for a few years now, I have made feeders for the top storey and added two extra bars in the lower box, this enables fondant top-up without slitting the box in winter. The lower feeder will not fit in the top as the top section is shallower than the main box. Also keep them at a reasonable height I have had them damaged by badgers this year, kielers virtually wrecked. Tried to upload images but ti would not work.
 
I've heard of people locking bees into Kielers over winter and storing them somewhere cool. Trea the inside to prevent bees from chewing their way out. Use fondant as a food reserve. Supply water.
 
I've overwintered in Kielers the last couple of years. Like beebreeder I built upper fondant feeders - effectively a frame feeder for fondant. Queens were usually mated in August or September. All mine overwinter as doubles. I've not tried a single storey.

I had one freeze solid this winter so moved others to a sheltered spot. They don't like being shut up in the Kieler for protracted periods as they start to panic as soon as the temperature increases very much.

I wish the upper and lower sections were similar depths (lower is deeper) as it makes uniting colonies before winter a bit of a pain - you have to it cut away and it's often filled with valuable brood in the build up to winter.

Again, as recommended by beebreeder, keep them at a reasonable height - not because of the badgers in is case ... it's a pain scrabbling around on your knees in mid winter adding fondant. This year mine are going to be on shelves ...
 
In our weather conditions-climate some people overwinter easily double box mating nucs with 5 half frames of lang ( 2*5), as some addition they put in it one ( or more) normal frame full of food through both boxes. But some say this is more psychological than necessity. That gap between boxes isn't problem for these nucs. This year I hope to be one of them.
Forgot, material is wood -normal 2cm thickness.

I have a pic of frames which are at normal hive for a moment, later will go hopefully into nucs..
 
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The mini plus hives are great, I have one on four brood boxes I over wintered! It is my favoutite mating hive.

Re Keilers, there are two sizes of second brood box available, one takes the feeder.....one does not.

One box Apidea / Keilers are fine in the summer but 2 or more boxes do make a very decent wintering colony....
 

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