[music]
So here we are today we are going to talk about
installing a nucleus colony.
Beekeepers purchase these to replace losses
that they have had over the winter
or new beekeepers purchase them to establish
their very first colonies.
When a nuc is made up by a beekeeper
they make it up by putting two frames of capped
brood inside this well-ventilated box
with the bees that are adhering to those frames.
They put a frame of honey and pollen in there
with the bees adhering and then they put one
empty frame, it may be a drawn comb or it may be
foundation, to give the bees something to work on
a little extra space to hang out.
Prior to filling up the entire box with these frames
they will shake in one, two or three more frames
of bees to add additional bees to the nucs
the number of frames they shake in will depend
on how warm it is and how many bees are inside
the hive.
So for example if a nuc was made
up first thing in the morning there would be more bees
present and you wouldn't need to shake as
many in, but you need to have lots of bees
in the nucs so there is a large enough
population there to maintain the temperatures
in the evening when it is cooler.
So that is how the nuc is made up it will have a
queen in it.
In most cases that's a queen that's on the loose,
moving around and laying eggs inside the colony.
Occasionally the queens are sold caged inside the
the nucleus colony, my preference is to have
the free roaming queen in there with the
nucleus colony.
So what we've done in this case is we've
set this nuc up here the evening before just at
dusk and then we've opened up this entrance
down here so that the bees can come and go
as they wish, but if we do this in the evening they
don't fly that night.
First thing in the morning they come out and they do
circular orientation flights coming and going
from the hive and that way they
orient to this new location.
If you have one bee hive in your new apiary
that's not as significant, because they will
definitely find their way back to one bee hive,
but if you have multiple hives like this, the bees
can very easily get disoriented and go into
the wrong colony because they don't know where
home is yet, so I like that gradual
transition into the new location.
The alternative is to move the nuc out
and set it up right in the middle of the day time,
open it up and install it, but my preference is
to do it in two stages where you let them fly
early in the morning by opening them up the
evening before.
So now here we are in the middle of the day
and we are ready to install this nucleus colony
into an empty bee hive.
So what we'll do is we'll just shift the nuc
over here and then we'll open up this beehive
and see how it is prepared.
The nuc has four frames of bees
and we have a box that is made for ten frames
so there are six extra frames in here.
I like to have one honey and preferably pollen as
well frame inside the hive so to make sure the
bees have enough to eat, and then we have
other frames in here that have drawn comb on them.
For new bee keepers that may be, it may be
that you're dealing with foundation frames,
brand new frames, but they will work
on it it just takes them a little bit longer
when it is foundation frames.
So we're going to have two frames taken out
to give us lots of space here to install the
nucleus colony.
We'll puff a little bit of smoke at the entrance
to the colony and a little bit in the vent holes
at either end.
I should mention that if you are purchasing
a nucleus colony from a beekeeper, keep
it in a cool, preferably dark location
until you set it out in the bee yard.
They can perish because of over heating
so you want to keep them in a cool location.
Often in a garage is a good spot for that.
Then we will open up the nucleus colony
and you can see there are lots of bees in there.
We'll give them a little bit of smoke.
Because we are doing this in the middle of the day,
after they have oriented here, they are quite
calm and they are not just trying to burst
out of the hive.
As we take, we'll start from the outside, as we take
each frame out we're going to look to find
the queen.
So there you see the honey and pollen frame
with lots of adhering bees.
I don't see the queen.
We'll put that in and we're going to keep
these frames in the same location relative
to each other as we install them in the larger colony.
So there you see a nice frame of capped brood.
It's preferable to have a capped brood
in a nucleus colony because they hatch out
and the colony bursts in population.
Young brood would take longer for that to increase
the population.
So that's a nice solid frame of capped brood.
No queen as yet.
We are being very careful as we take these frames
out that we don't bump them against each other
and we are looking for the queen here.
Don't see her there.
This is the other brood frame.
OK, there is our queen.
See that?
What I am going to do now is install this frame
with the queen towards me and then just
gradually move that frame over
and snug it up.
That will keep her nice and safe for when we
are installing the other frames.
And we move the last frame over.
It's basically an empty frame.
There's a little bit of nectar, they'll move
honey around from place to place.
This was empty when it was made up,
when the nuc was made up yesterday,
but they have little bits of nectar here and there
or honey that they have moved around.
So there we go install that.
Now we can put our remaining two frames in
and I am going put this honey frame right next
to where the bees are, the honey and
pollen frame.
And then the last frame, which is a foundation
frame, will go in and then we orient the frames
so that they are nice and evenly spaced,
and we'll puff a little bit of smoke
to get some of those bees moving down there
and then we will lay the tarp down,
wiggle it around a bit to let the bees get out
of the way
and put the lid on the colony.
There are a few bees left in the box.
We have seen that the queen is already in
so we are safe to just shake those out
on the ground.
If we haven't seen the queen what I would do is
lay it on top of the hive so that she can
walk down on into the hive.
We've already found her so we can tap that out
there and we're done.
The bees have a new home, a little bit more
space to work in.
They will grow and expand and within a couple of
weeks we'll likely need to add a honey super
to that colony because they take off and grow
in population pretty quickly.
So that's all there is to it.
It's really just a matter of transferring the frames
into the new hive and welcoming them to
their new home.
Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.