Beekeeping- Mini mating nuc design and future plans for them
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- Опубликовано: 16 мар 2017
- My design of the mini mating nuc for hatching and holding virgin queen bees from my hives. Using basic materials, I custom built all the components and used drawn comb for a starter frame for the queens. Four other frames have starter strip foundation affixed to them. Hoping for success with these in 2017. Planning to make a future video in the summer to show if I was successful or not. Honesty matters!!
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those are cool nucs
Do you have plans for these mating nucs?
I am planning to do this exact thing this spring. Did the bees draw out the frames? Did the queens lay in the small frames?
Outside Mom - I didn’t have the best luck with these things and only had the bees draw out the comb on a few of the frames. I have now gone to the 2 frame hive that Barnyard Bees on RUclips uses. My next video that I plan to post next is about my 2 frame hives and upgrades to the feeder. The 2 frame hive uses full size frames and is easier to work with. The only construction you have is make the hives bodies themselves which is simple. Check out Barnyards 2 frame hives and my upcoming video I will have in a day or two. If you plan to build the small boxes like I did in this video, spend the time and money on the 2 frame boxes. That is what I fully suggest to you. Thanks for your comment and inquiry.
@@6acrefarmstead224 i like the idea of all equipment using same frame size, but liked the idea of these minis. Yours were so cute.... I was torn between these minis and the two framers. I'm going to go the two frame route. Thanks for your information. Probably saved me a wasted year.
How did they work for you?
These, well to be honest, i had to tweak them a bit. I had to add screen to the bottom of them which was a simple fix. As for holding queens, I had a few that worked for me. This was my first year using them and I hope to see if they will hold queens again in 2018. I don't graft queens (yet) so the only time I hope to use them is if I have extra queen cells on frames that I can easily remove and not damage. I would add one thing to this. If you make them, transport them to an out yard away from the home apiary. On some of these, the nurse bees returned back to their parent colony after loading each mini-nuc. Once I determined this, I was able to hold a few queens. If you don't have an out-yard, take them to a trusted beekeeper friend and see if they can camp there for a few weeks. This was something I did (even though I stopped by on a few occasions to check on them)and I didn't have the issue of the nurse bees flying back. They stayed with the queen cell til it hatched then assumed their duties with her.
Well they look very nice. I'm going to make a few over Christmas break. But mine won't look near that nice. Thanks for the tips