Nectar Meadows Apiaries
Offering Great Honey, Honeybees, and Queens for Sale
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Located in Chippewa County Wisconsin
Creating Nucleus Colonies
A How To Guide:
A How To Guide:
Section 1: An introduction and description of what is covered this guide. Defining a nucleus colony, the purpose of nucleus colonies, and common ways of creating them.
Introduction
For the benefit of my customers and the beekeeping community as a whole, I'm providing a basic guide for creating nucleus colonies. I make nucleus colonies with caged mated queens, and with high quality queen cells from colonies that are preparing to swarm or sometimes I will use queen cells from a colony that is preparing to supersede one of my prized queens. I will provide instruction for the creation of nucleus colonies with caged mated queens only at this time. At a future date I will update this guide with the additional information needed for creating nucleus colonies with queen cells. Information pertaining to other methods of nucleus colony creation made presently is for your educational benefit only I will not be provide instruction for these methods of nucleus colony creation, only make reference to, and give my opinion of them. Any suggestions or questions about this guide are welcome via email.
What is a Nucleus Colony
A nucleus colony is essentially just a small colony of bees in a small hive. Unlike a package, they hold frames of comb that contain stores of honey, pollen, and brood of all stages. The most common size for a nucleus colony is of five deep frames but they can be three, four or more frames.
Purposes for Nucleus Colonies
Nucleus colonies can serve several purposes. They can be used for making increase, to keep spare queens on hand, to aid in re-queening a colony, to serve as a mating station, and so on. A nucleus colony can be created with a mated queen, a virgin queen, a queen cell, or be left to rear its own queen (not recommended) from an egg or larva. I typically create nucleus colonies with a young mated queen or with a queen cell. Until you have been successful in creating a few nucleus colonies with mated queens, I would not entertain the idea of creating nucleus colonies with a queen cell or a virgin queen.
Making Nucs with Mated Queens
This is the easiest and most popular way of creating nucleus colonies. All that is needed is a queen-less nucleus prepared 24 hours before you introduce a caged mated queen.
Making Nucs with Queen Cells
This is probably the second most popular method of nucleus creation and is fairly easy to create. Once a beekeeper has created nucleus colonies with mated queens they should not have to much trouble with this method. It may or may not need to be made queen-less for 24 hours depending on the circumstances of the parent colony.
Making Nucs with Virgin Queens
This method is not very ideal for the sole reason that they often have a poor success rate. A foreign queen that has not mated does not release much queen pheromone and is often rejected. Many times the colony will start raising an emergency cell because the virgin does not omit much pheromone and the colony may favor the cell over the virgin. The only reason I will ever use this method is if I want genetics from a particular source bad enough and virgins are the only available option to squire the genetics. Some times a queen source only offers expensive tested breeder queens, or all mated queens are reserved for the season but queens may be acquired if the breeder will sell virgins at a reasonable fee.
Making Nucs without a Queen or Cell
This method requires letting the nucleus raise their own queen in emergency fashion which to often results in very poor queens. The list of problems associated with emergency queens is a very long one. Some examples are a very spotty brood patterns, underdeveloped ovaries, drone layers, small colonies that do not grow, prone to disease, and so on.
Introduction
For the benefit of my customers and the beekeeping community as a whole, I'm providing a basic guide for creating nucleus colonies. I make nucleus colonies with caged mated queens, and with high quality queen cells from colonies that are preparing to swarm or sometimes I will use queen cells from a colony that is preparing to supersede one of my prized queens. I will provide instruction for the creation of nucleus colonies with caged mated queens only at this time. At a future date I will update this guide with the additional information needed for creating nucleus colonies with queen cells. Information pertaining to other methods of nucleus colony creation made presently is for your educational benefit only I will not be provide instruction for these methods of nucleus colony creation, only make reference to, and give my opinion of them. Any suggestions or questions about this guide are welcome via email.
What is a Nucleus Colony
A nucleus colony is essentially just a small colony of bees in a small hive. Unlike a package, they hold frames of comb that contain stores of honey, pollen, and brood of all stages. The most common size for a nucleus colony is of five deep frames but they can be three, four or more frames.
Purposes for Nucleus Colonies
Nucleus colonies can serve several purposes. They can be used for making increase, to keep spare queens on hand, to aid in re-queening a colony, to serve as a mating station, and so on. A nucleus colony can be created with a mated queen, a virgin queen, a queen cell, or be left to rear its own queen (not recommended) from an egg or larva. I typically create nucleus colonies with a young mated queen or with a queen cell. Until you have been successful in creating a few nucleus colonies with mated queens, I would not entertain the idea of creating nucleus colonies with a queen cell or a virgin queen.
Making Nucs with Mated Queens
This is the easiest and most popular way of creating nucleus colonies. All that is needed is a queen-less nucleus prepared 24 hours before you introduce a caged mated queen.
Making Nucs with Queen Cells
This is probably the second most popular method of nucleus creation and is fairly easy to create. Once a beekeeper has created nucleus colonies with mated queens they should not have to much trouble with this method. It may or may not need to be made queen-less for 24 hours depending on the circumstances of the parent colony.
Making Nucs with Virgin Queens
This method is not very ideal for the sole reason that they often have a poor success rate. A foreign queen that has not mated does not release much queen pheromone and is often rejected. Many times the colony will start raising an emergency cell because the virgin does not omit much pheromone and the colony may favor the cell over the virgin. The only reason I will ever use this method is if I want genetics from a particular source bad enough and virgins are the only available option to squire the genetics. Some times a queen source only offers expensive tested breeder queens, or all mated queens are reserved for the season but queens may be acquired if the breeder will sell virgins at a reasonable fee.
Making Nucs without a Queen or Cell
This method requires letting the nucleus raise their own queen in emergency fashion which to often results in very poor queens. The list of problems associated with emergency queens is a very long one. Some examples are a very spotty brood patterns, underdeveloped ovaries, drone layers, small colonies that do not grow, prone to disease, and so on.
Creating Nucleus Colonies
A How To Guide:
A How To Guide:
Section 1: An introduction and description of what is covered this guide. Defining a nucleus colony, the purpose of nucleus colonies, and common ways of creating them.
Section 2: Preparing for the creation of nucleus colonies. Equipment needed, and critical information on acquiring mated queens
Section 3: Creating the Queen-less Nucleus Colony
Section 4: Introducing the Queen
Section 5: Success or Failure, determining if queens have been accepted or rejected
Section 6: Nucleus Colony Inspections and Maintenance
Section 2: Preparing for the creation of nucleus colonies. Equipment needed, and critical information on acquiring mated queens
Section 3: Creating the Queen-less Nucleus Colony
Section 4: Introducing the Queen
Section 5: Success or Failure, determining if queens have been accepted or rejected
Section 6: Nucleus Colony Inspections and Maintenance