Making Nucs

[BeeHopper]

Hi Fellow Beeks,

I am exploring the idea of making and selling Nucs in addition to Honey Sales as a Sideliner. I do not want to get involved with pollination, period. Is there an on line source or publication that helps one maximize the effort. I know raising Queens is a plus in this area and it involves a daily vigilance, but for now, I'd like to buy queens and make the splits using Nucs with the colonies that I have. What are your thoughts 


BeeHopper

[justgojumpit]

I would raise queens via the Hopkins method.  Once the queen cells are ripe, put a queen cell in a nuc box with two frames of capped brood, a frame of honey, and a frame of pollen.  You could also do a frame of open brood and a frame of capped brood if you wish.  The queen will hatch, mate, and begin to lay.  It will have the benefit of local genetics - she will breed to drones that survive in your area.  Also, you won't have the expense of buying the queens, which would make a huge dent in your profits.  The Hopkins method of queen rearing involves no grafting, produces a large number of queens, and is not labor intensive.  I will be doing this as well next year to increase my hive numbers.

justgojumpit

[TwT]

this is a topic not to for gone, read this

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,18381.0.html

[BeeHopper]

Thanks for the insight, it will do.