Dealing with messy nuc.

[Yarra_Valley]

I've got my hands on a 5 frame  nuc which is completely full. one of the girls got me good and proper on the tip of the nose last night when I was closing it up ready for the move .

full. there are three frames in there, and the rest is a mess. the current plan is to put in on top of an eight frame box full of frames, and then put a board either side of the nuc to cover the gaps. I'm hoping the bees, and more importantly the queen, will to move down closer to the entrance and start building comb there. I could move the three full frames down into the 8 frame box, but they could build more comb in the empty space which would be annoying.

do they usually move down in this scenario? well they need more space and have nowhere else to go (if I leave all the frames in the top box. so I assume so. Once I get the queen in the bottom box I can but an excluder above it, wait until all the brood has hatched out, and then remove all the messy stuff. sound like a plan?

[Finsky]

.
They englarge hive downwards. So they do in nature.

But what is the problem to move frames? If frames are too full of bees, shake them in front of hive and they walk via entrance to the hive. Then shake the nuc box in front of hive.

Wait that they suck themselves full of honey. So they are easy to handle and they are calm.
They drop like ripe fruits down to ground.

[Finsky]

full. there are three frames in there, and the rest is a mess.

Now I understood. It is summer there and there are brood in the mesh somewhere. If you cut combs, you loose valuable brood.

So again........

Put Langstrot ready. Take from another hive a frame or two of emerging brood. Put brood frame and combs in and put mesh box over it.

Next day you will se the queen laying in free lower box, I suppose so.  If you get yield there, bees fill upper box with honey and they make brood area into lower box. After 3-4  weeks upper box is full of honey and no frood. So I suppose.

[Yarra_Valley]

What I mean is, they have built their own comb where there are no frames, and its all messy in there. I don't want to rip it out because I don't want to harm the brood in there. so I figured i'd let them take their time working their way into the 8 frame box, and then when the queen starts laying in there put a queen excluder on, let the messy comb in the nuc hatch out, and then crush it, strain it, melt it down, all that. well that's the plan. make more sense now?

Its the end of summer here now. luckily our winter is only about 3 months, and hopefully a little less.

[imabkpr]

yarra-valley; Your plan should work fine, just be sure the queen is in the 8 frame box before you put on the queen excluder.   Charlie

[Brian D. Bray]

The bess will move into the lower box in time.  I would recommend waiting until you have 2 full boxes of bees below the messed up nuc box.  A good pattern of brood in both lower boxes and the nuc filled with honey.  The three frames can be moved down when the nuc box is rmoved.  Then pull the nuc, adding a third box, and cut and strain the mess of comb.