Boosting nucs with frames of brood and bees?

[bee-nuts]

I just made up 9 nucs.  Six were pretty weak.  I want to give them a helping hand as soon as possible.  How long should I wait after queen is accepted and laying and what is best method to do so and in what proportion.  Can you add a frame of bees and brood to a nuc with only two frames of bees?

I remember reading a book on the net called something like "? years in an apiary" in which I think the Author went from nine colonies to 52 or something by taking a couple frames of brood from strongest colonies and giving to weakest each week or something in regard.  Anybody know the title of this book?  I would like to follow his lead.  If I remember corectly the more frames from different colonies the less fighting occurred which seems odd at first.

[Michael Bush]

"A year in an out apiary" by G.M Doolittle or "Forty Years (and later Fifty Years) among the bees" by C.C. Miller.

Yes the more different colonies involved the less fighting...

[TimnEsther]

Go to books.google.com and search for 50 years among bees.

starting on page 257 tells what you are looking for.