Queen cells in nuc

[KeithFife]

Quick question re making up a nuc using queen cells from another hive. Is it better to just have one good queen cell on a frame or to leave a couple and let the bees decide? I understand the rationale for only leaving one QC and knocking down others in a larger queenless colony to reduce risk of virgin swarming but would have thought that was less likely in a nuc?

What have you found works best?

Many thanks.

 

[gp125john]

It depends how strong the nuc is; they can still swarm sometimes if quite strong. If its a 2 frame nuc, they probably wont swarm, if you have 4 frames or more with lots of brood and bees, they'll be off, particularly in good weather like we've had recently.

There is no need for a nuc to be too strong to start with, get the queen mated and then add another frame of capped brood after if you want to build them up quickly. That way you can probably leave a few cells and let the strongest queen win.

 

[KeithFife]

That makes sense. Thanks for the advice.