Central Coast Beekeepers' Alliance

John Chesnut led a Nuc building workshop today and each participant went home with a new “hive.” We learned about setting up the queen excluder in advance, how to pick frames to populate the new nuc, how to install a queen cage, what to watch for, and some other tidbits of information. It was very informative and the bees were quite nice. Thank you John

48 hours in advance, brood is shaken free of bees and moved above a QE. The frames will be  queenless, but heavily attended by nurse bees.  Eggs above the excluder age out, so queencells won’t complicate the introduction of a mated queen.

Frames are pulled and arranged in boxes.  One open comb, one pollen frame, two brood frames, one honey frame.  Brood frames go in the center of the nuc.

Queens are pulled from a bank. Cages are kept corked for 2-3 days, and then the candy cork is opened.   A further 2 days allows the hive to open the candy. Only at day 5-6 is a passage through the candy drilled.

Ideal brood frames are mostly capped brood, so nurse bees are quickly available to tend the growing hive.

Workshop participant scanning a nuc frame for eggs and brood