What is a Nuc made of?

As with anything bee-related, you may get a different answer depending on whom you ask, but a Nuc (pronounced nuke) is a small hive body that holds 5 frames. It is a starter colony – the word “Nuc” comes from “Nucleus”, as in “Nucleus Colony”. It is a small collection of bees with a laying queen that, would good fortune and a bit of work, will turn into a full-sized colony in a couple of months.

Typically, they consist of deep frames but more and more folks are using an all Medium setup, so some Nuc’s are made up of Medium frames (when ordering your Nuc, you need to be certain you are ordering the right size for your hive setup).

When is a Nuc ready to be sold (or purchased)?

A ‘mature’ Nuc (one that’s ready to be purchased) should have at least 3 frames of bees and brood, 1 or 2 frames of honey/nectar and pollen, on average. In nearly all circumstances, the critical factor is the ‘frames of bees/capped brood/eggs’. You should always be getting 3 or more. This is really critical – you want to have TONS of new bees hatching soon, to help your Nuc turn into a full Hive as soon as possible. This is something that I was personally burned on in my early years. I purchased a couple of Nuc’s from a fellow in the Richmond area with only 1 frame of capped brood (and it only took up about 30% of both frame sides.) It required so much work and frustration that I am certain that most new beekeepers would have lost them (and possibly lost interest in the hobby.) It was actually this experience that got me into the Nuc creation business (I figured I owed the hobby and the Richmond area a better experience!)

Why Are Nucs The Best Way to Start a Hive?

The Nucs that I create are a few pounds of bees that have raised a queen on their own (actually, the queen is their sister!) These bees are from colonies that have lived in central Virginia for many generations and have never received a drop of medication. This part is key, as (unless you like to medicate multiple times a year) these bees are used to the Mite and Nosema issues of the region. They can handle the general pressures of our area and they have thrived. There are never any guarantees (genetics can throw anyone a curve ball), but starting with a Nuc is the best way to improve your chances of success.

If you are purchasing, always ASK!!

Mr Beekeeper, how do you create your Nucs? This is a key question – due to the general acknowledgement that Nucs are better than Packages, some of the less scrupulous beekeepers will take a package and a purchased queen, hive them and call them a Nuc for sale (from a numbers perspective, I think they spend $100 on the out of state bees/queen and then try to sell their Nuc for $150 or more!!!) A small box of bees has value, no matter how it is created. But, if you are really just getting a package of bees that the seller has introduced the queen to, you want to know this. Your bees have probably been medicated – they are likely to require medication to survive the coming years. In addition, you should not have to pay Nuc prices for something like this.

The Nuc retail scene has become a bit of a mine field since beekeeping became popular. Just beware.

How to create a Nuc

Now, how do you create a Nuc? Again, beekeepers have differing views on this. I sometimes create Nuc’s that some folks call ‘a poor man’s nuc‘. Basically, I take frames of bees/brood/honey/pollen from my existing hives and let them create their own queen. Some will say that this is crazy, as leaving the bees to their own devices can lead to poor queens. It is much wiser to take your frames and add a queen from a queen breeder. I think that is crazy talk and have proof that it is not true. The key with starting a Nuc in this manner is giving them enough capped brood and larva to get them through the queenless period (and raise a healthy queen in the meanwhile). I believe you need two frames of brood to make this work (and one should have some eggs to let them choose a queen from.) To these two frames, I give them a frame of pollen and honey, although they do not need much. For my March Nuc’s, I always give them a solid frame of capped honey – these Nuc’s usually need it to make it through the cold. If I am creating it early in the nectar flow (early April or later in the central Virginia area), I give them a frame of foundation. If it is a late Nuc, I give them a drawn frame (that way, they do not have to spend resources on drawing out a frame in the early weeks.)

The easier way to create a Nuc is to take a single frame of brood that has a queen cell on it (the parent hive was in swarm mode.) Add a frame of honey and a frame or two of drawn comb and you get a solid Nuc. The only downside to using 1 frame of brood is that the queen has to go through 2 cycles (and working on the third) before it is ready to be judged by me for sale (or increase). This effectively adds a month to the process (which means 8 to 9 weeks before it is ready). If I give them 2 frames of brood, they are ready to be judged 6 weeks later (I have found that the second round of brood is strong enough to judge on these Nuc’s.) One possible benefit to this method is that the bees in the mother hive chose this egg to be made a queen and they have already fed it the rich food for a queen. They were not building an emergency queen, which some folks say is a risk.

Perhaps getting a queen from out of the state or out of the country will work, but it does not meet my goals. For many hundreds of thousands of years, bees have been evolving and adapting to their environment and doing just fine by ‘their own devices’. True, they have not been in North America for this period of time, but all the more reason to let Mother Nature run her course. I want bees that are born and bread here in Central Virginia. So, I am happy with my poor man’s Nuc’s!