Mike Stoops wrote:

>I have never thought of using established colonies to strengthen nucs instead of going the other way.  I think it is an innovative thought.  Others may have thought of it, and tried it, so may have their experiences to bring to the discussion. 
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Hi Mike
I sell several hundred nucs in a typical year.
I take strong colonies to almonds Feb 10.
Bring 'em home usu. second week of March.  Have queen cells going when 
they arrive home.
Start splitting the strongest before they swarm.
Do "yard trashing."  Break each 2-story colony into 5  4-frame nucs.  
Catch about 2/3rds of the queens as I do.  I make about a nuc a minute 
if I have a helper.  Leave exceptionally good queens in the yard with 
two frames of brood, and a double of drawn comb to pick up the field 
forces of the colonies I nuked.  They recover immediately.  Nucs made 
with 1 frame honey, 2 brood, 1 drawn empty comb.  (I run 10 frames, if 
you're checking the math).
Move all nucs to another yard.  I often make nucs late in the day so I 
pick up more field bees.  I do not feed the nucs, since there is a 
moderate nectar flow on in my area.
Put ripe cells in the next day.
Two weeks check for eggs/brood.  Kill any poor old queens I find.  
Typically 4 out of 5 mate successfully (poorer early).  I add the frames 
from the dinks to the successful ones to fill the boxes to 5 frames. 
I sell in a few days, or leave in nuc box up until brood starts to hatch 
and they explode.  Nucs to keep I drop into singles.
Honeyflow starts mid May, and nucs fill the single.
Move to alfalfa for big flow July 5.  Put super of foundation on top of 
single.  Bees will draw and fill at least one deep of foundation.  This 
makes up the frames that I sell with the nucs, and gets my keepers ready 
for winter.  I extract several frames of honey from the keepers, and 
replace with extracted comb for fall pollen flow.
Has worked for me for nearly 20 years.  I rotate old combs out, big bees 
for almonds, good money in nucs, make a decent amount of honey.  Worked 
a lot better before the mite!  Still haven't gotten rich.
I raise about 1000 queens a year, and rarely use a queen 
cage--everything is done with nucs.
Randy Oliver
Calif

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