>Hi Dean-
>
>I'm interested to hear that you have found that mini-nucs are not cost
>effective for you in the long run.  Why is that?
>
>Where I live, queen breeders often use baby nucs in the early, cool spring
to
>produce queens for the peak market.  They then gradually incorporate
>five-frame nucs as hot weather approaches and market demand decreases.
>
>
 
The reason's that we chose not to use mini-nucs are because:
 
1. The weather here in  Dade City, Florida is variable as far as temperature
is concerned
in the spring. It will range anywhere from 32 deg. F to 90 deg. F. when the
temperature gets hot the bees tend to abscound with the the virgins. With
this in mind we only get to use the small nucs one or two cycles. Then it
becomes to hot for the small nucs.
 
2. Small nucs can not take care of themselves with out the addition of bees
and feed therefore you spend a lot of time shaking bees and feeding them. for
the most part you can figure that you will have to re-make 40% to 60% of the
small nucs every time you pick queens depending on the time of year and the
weather.
 
3. mini nucs and such need special equipment, frames, boxes,nucs etc. This
equipment is specialized and therefore can't be used for anything but queen
rearing.
 
4. It is very hard to check what kind of pattern the queen has or how well
she is laying in such a small unit. About all you can really say is that she
is laying.
 
I have not found that there is any diffrence in the quality of the queen that
is produced  from a small nuc so long as it is well feed and has ample bees.
I have however, found that queens from large nucs both Instrumentally
Inseminated and naturally mated seem to be easier to introduce to a full size
colony.
 
We use three, four,or five frame 6 5/8 inch deep frames and standard suppers
that are divided. We also run about 400 five frame 6 5/8 inch nuc boxes. This
size nuc allows for ample brood rearing and colony population to take care of
themselves. We run the nucs on a  two to three week cycle and we often have
to take brood from the nucs to keep them from becoming to strong, and  to be
able to find the queens quickly. The extra brood can be used by giving it to
a hive that is short of bees due to virgin loss on mating flight etc. Another
advantage we have found is that we tend to have higher mating success from
the larger units.
 
The nucs are used after July for the production of Instrumentally Inseminated
queens for Hybri-Bees. The nucs are large enough to keeb an I.I. queen in and
evaluate her brood pattern and temper prior to shipping them to breeders in
February or March the following year. Also the suppers and frames can be used
to produce honey etc. and are standard size.