In message <[log in to unmask]>, Robert Brenchley 
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>I only have UK-based information, but Wedmore gives  a general rule that
>two-thirds of the combs in a nuc should contain brood. That  would work out at
>three to three and a half frames of brood in a five-frame nuc.  I wouldn't be
>happy with less than three. I assume US practice is similar.

That may be the rule of thumb in that book but times and methods change, 
progress in materials is made, and this is now pretty out of date except 
in a committed traditionalist system. Wedmore is a fine book and still 
has a lot of sense, but it must be read with the context in which it was 
written borne in mind.

We make our nucs up in the first week of May (E.Scotland) after vacating 
the boxes by promoting the overwintered ones into full hives.

They are made with 1 bar of brood, 1 bar of stores, and enough bees to 
comfortable cover these two bars, plus 3 empty bars. Add a hatching 
point queen cell properly protected and remove to the mating apiary.

Once the queen is laying (and most are in 3 weeks) add one more bar of 
brood, preferably all sealed, and if no flow give a couple of litres of 
syrup.

By mid June the first of these are needing promoted to full boxes, and 
by the end of the month all have. Upon promotion they get the rest of 
the box filled with new combs, often foundation, and given a further 
feed if needed although many locations do not need it. By mid July these 
are almost all wall to wall and crowded in a single, and then must be 
doubled up for going to the heather. Last 2 years these nucs have 
averages over 40lb at the heather.

After the nucs are promoted the boxes are used again, with a further one 
bar nuc and a bar of stores, plus a cell or perhaps a virgin in a cage. 
These are placed in a couple of key locations with access to flowering 
balsam and just left to get on with it. Their prime function is to 
overwinter and be ready to expand fast in spring, and are never boosted 
with the extra bar of brood that the spring nucs get. A few fail, but 
not important in the grand scheme of things. This year some of these had 
grown so strong that they were hanging out all over the face of the nuc 
boxes on warm days and started congestion cells, so in late August they 
had to be split (yes bizarre, but true) and the queenless half was given 
a mated laying queen from the spare ones we had in our mating boxes left 
over from early summer management. All are now four or five seams of 
bees, heavy with stores, and looking set fair for spring at this rather 
premature time.

These winter ones go to polytunnels for strawberry and raspberry 
pollination in March and April, get fed there, and are ready for 
promotion to full boxes in April due to the warm conditions in the 
tunnels.

So, single comb nucs, 2 crops of them a year, very different from the 
traditional ways. And it works.

Incidentally, the boxes we use are made in Canada and are truly 
excellent.


-- 
Murray McGregor

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