Why use Nuc & Mini Nuc *boxes*

[TooBee...]

Happy New Year to everyone!

I was reading this Thread about increasing your colony numbers,
https://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=38472
the suggestion is made in Message #25 to modify a Brood box.

So my question is this;
is there a reason why we make Nucs (to enlarge our apiaries, not for sale) in individual Nuc Boxes, and not just modify a Brood Box to house the two Nucs in at the end of the year, by adding an extra entrance hole at one end and place a divider between the two mini colonies? This 'modified' Brood Box could then be turned back into a normal Brood Box by closing the extra entrance and removing the divider. Or am I missing something?

Also:
In this Thread about Queen Banking over winter,
https://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=41296
this Article was linked to,
https://www.researchgate.net/public...e_climate_and_its_effect_on_queen_performance
which essentially said anything other than a Mini Mating Nuc or standard Nuc reduced the Queens chances of surviving the Winter considerably - which got me looking into Mini Mating Nucs sometimes also referred to as Apedia, which then caused me to ask myself a similar question to the one above.

Why Use Mini Mating Nucs, why not modify a standard Nuc or make a 'modified + modified' Brood Box? Mini Mating Nucs have different Frames (or Apedia do at least), if you took an eight Frame Brood Box, you could modify it to have four Mini Mating Nucs (two Frames each) with an entrance on each side.

My two questions / suggestions would reduce the different types of boxes and frames that we use and need, surely making things much simpler and cheaper for us; so what have I missed, why don't we do this?

Apologies in advance for my ignorance if the answers should be obvious.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Quote"My two questions / suggestions would reduce the different types of boxes and frames that we use and need, surely making things much simpler and cheaper for us; so what have I missed, why don't we do this?"

Most beekeepers already do!!! If you look at many professional or semi professional beekeepers, they all work to a system that works for them and to be critical of an individual system , although it may see strange, is folly!
Once you understand that every system works around individual needs and the coming and goings of individual flows in a season, you soon realise why a particular beekeeper uses a particular model. It may not be perfect, but its usually what he or she has found works well for them.
There is certainly something to be said for keeping all your frames universal, subsequent laying queens can then in turn, be transferred on same sized frames in to bigger nucs or hives with ease. It all depends on what your goals are But if your using nucs to mate queens or to make nucs after doing splits and giving them an unmated queen, some beekeepers would or might say, your using a lot of resources to get a mated queen in a hive that could be half the size, so by making smaller nucs you can achieve this reduction (yes nucs can be split in to two), but you have to be very wary of space all the time. Many professional beekeepers have a system where a strong nuc has a movable division board or division board feeder, that in the spring can be put in to place to make a strong overwintered nuc, in to two nucs for queen mating. At the end of the year the reverse is done. the division board is reverted back to its place after harvesting one queen, and the remaining queen takes over both sides.

Its a risk if she dosent mate, then that nuc becomes laying workers (possibly). If you have a mating yard and you are mating a lots of Queens nucs, you will also soon realise that your asking a lot of bees to work in the same area ( yes i know you can feed and you still need to but...), the use of a small Apidaea or mini Mating Nuc,means that the bees wouldn't need to find resources so much. Its all about getting a balance in your own area and getting to know what will work where you are!

 

[domino]

Why Use Mini Mating Nucs

Because you are using fewer bees to get the queen mated.

I use the lyson mini nucs:

Which are small hives, you can stack them up into a tower and overwinter a queen very easily in them.

You could obviously mate queens in a two or three full-size nuc if you want.

 

[Madge]

...

So my question is this;
is there a reason why we make Nucs (to enlarge our apiaries, not for sale) in individual Nuc Boxes, and not just modify a Brood Box to house the two Nucs in at the end of the year, by adding an extra entrance hole at one end and place a divider between the two mini colonies? ...

It's called a 'queen castle'. Basically, just a larger version of the Lyson mentioned by Domino. Google search results here for lots of examples.

 

[madasafish]

Last year - 2017 - I raised 17 mated queens.. all were in mini nucs of various makes/types. I had 8 occupied for about 2 months . Consider the investment in bees /frames etc for full hives divided into two - with no honey production - versus the costs of my 13 mini nucs and I recoup the mini nuc costs in under a month.

But for me the key thing is to start queen rearing mid May - and then I am always pushed to have enough bees to get a honey flow... so minimum bees for mating nucs ...= mini nucs...

It's also easier (MUCH) to find an unmarked queen in a mini nuc rather than a 5 frame hive...

 

[linoleum bonypart]

I havent used mini nucs but bees sure like half sized polys

 

[domino]

I havent used mini nucs but bees sure like half sized polys

I do all my queen rearing in nucs now, I don't use full-size hives for anything other than honey.

 

[TooBee...]

Ok, so I see that it maybe has more to do with personal preference than a physical constraint, which is what I thought it was.

It's just that I had done a calculation of the surface area for two or three National frames and it came out lower than the surface area for an Apedia's frames or other purpose built / bought mini nucs, so I thought that it might be better. But essentially I wanted to know if modifying a Brood Box into Nucs could be done; had some funny ideas that their closeness would cause the bees to drift or some other problems.

Thanks, that's helped quite a bit.

 

[Hivemaker.]

It's just that I had done a calculation of the surface area for two or three National frames and it came out lower than the surface area for an Apedia's frames

I rekon there is something wrong with your calculation, three apidea frames have a much smaller surface area than three standard national deeps or even national shallows.

 

[Uncle Betty]

It's called a 'queen castle'. Basically, just a larger version of the Lyson mentioned by Domino. Google search results here for lots of examples.

I believe it was Finman who reported poor success rates using queen castles.

Piping virgins in close proximity were taking each other out.

Found it here... https://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=535145&postcount=2

 

[Eyeman]

My 3 frame 'queen castles' are 3x3 with 3 clamped together under a standard national roof. No problems with mating or over-wintering as the colonies are within their own hive but still benefit from mutual warmth.

 

[user 6228]

The advantage of grouping only works if all of the members survive. If one dies the thermal load goes up depending on the configuration. in a group of three if the middle one dies then both of the survivors are on a loading close to being separate.

 

[Poly Hive]

A mini nuc is stocked with one mug of bees.

From that investment depending on season and location, it is possible in the UK to have 4 mated queens.

If it fails totally the loss is merely that mug of bees.

PH

 

[mbc]

A mini nuc is stocked with one mug of bees.

From that investment depending on season and location, it is possible in the UK to have 4 mated queens.

If it fails totally the loss is merely that mug of bees.

PH

There is time and feed to consider also.
Fwiw I have dozens of the mini plus hives overwintering with their last queens of the season so with any joy they'll be ready to split in the spring negating even that one cupful of bees of strength taken from production colonies.

 

[TooBee...]

I rekon there is something wrong with your calculation, three apidea frames have a much smaller surface area than three standard national deeps or even national shallows.

Sorry, now re-reading what I wrote, it isn't clear at all, (the word "frames" at the end should not have been there) I should have said "I had done a calculation of the surface area for two or three National frames and it came out lower than the surface area for an Apedia", meaning the surface area of all an Apedia's frames"


However from doing more digging I see that the Lyson mentioned by Domino is actually two mini nucs in one box, so each nuc has a total surface area of 100"sq per frame x 3 = 300 x 25 cells per sq" = 7500 cells, while two National frames are 224"sq per frame x 2 = 448 x 25 cells per sq" = 11200 cells, yes I can now see how this would be more resources, being about 50% bigger. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[For want of a better word]

A mini nuc is stocked with one mug of bees.

From that investment depending on season and location, it is possible in the UK to have 4 mated queens.

If it fails totally the loss is merely that mug of bees.

PH

4 queens from one mug of bees... no brainer IMOHO!

Nos da

 

[Hivemaker.]

Sorry, now re-reading what I wrote, it isn't clear at all, (the word "frames" at the end should not have been there) I should have said "I had done a calculation of the surface area for two or three National frames and it came out lower than the surface area for an Apedia", meaning the surface area of all an Apedia's frames"

An Apidea uses three frame for queen mating, the surface area of all three Apidea frames is about the same surface area as one side of a standard national deep, the surface area of about seven Apidea frames to both sides of one national deep.

 

[Karsal]

I split a large colony last year into a divide six frame nucleus. One frame of bees in each side with one capped queen cell on each frame and two frames with foundation to fill the gap. I did this twice. My success rate was three mated queens which have produced three reasonably good size colonies that gave me several frames of honey.
Quick and easy and no queen cells wasted. I was happy with the result being my first try.

 

[oliver90owner]

Some are forgetting that a nest is warmer if close to spherical. With a mug of bees over a deep national frame, the heat loss due to surface area (one bee deep) would be tremendous in comparison to three mini frames. So, basically fewer bees is more economical than using larger format frames.

I still prefer small nucs rather than mini frames. I am not in that much rush to develop sufficient queens -but when i used a 6 frame nuc divided into 2 compartments, the entrances were at opposite ends. Never any trouble with bees going to the wrong side.

But, nevermind, one still see advocates of plonking 5 frame nucs straight into 10/11 frame hives early in spring without any comprehension of the bees’ need for warmth....

 

[user 6228]

Some are forgetting that a nest is warmer if close to spherical. With a mug of bees over a deep national frame, the heat loss due to surface area (one bee deep) would be tremendous in comparison to three mini frames. So, basically fewer bees is more economical than using larger format frames.

I still prefer small nucs rather than mini frames. I am not in that much rush to develop sufficient queens -but when i used a 6 frame nuc divided into 2 compartments, the entrances were at opposite ends. Never any trouble with bees going to the wrong side.

But, nevermind, one still see advocates of plonking 5 frame nucs straight into 10/11 frame hives early in spring without any comprehension of the bees’ need for warmth....

I refrain from quibbling on the terminology but this in direction is correct.
You need to adjust the heat loss in proportion to the size of the colony.
This requires attention to surface area heated by the bees, material conductivity, thickness , shape and sealing.