Hiving a Nuc

The time has come for Little Miss to be a full hive.  She has a box of bees, a box of honey, and a great laying queen.  The bees fill both 5 frame boxes so she needs the expansion.

The yellow full nuc next to the white new equipment

First i took out the honey frames from her top nuc box.  They became frames 1, 2, 3, 9, &10 of the bottom 10 frame box.  Then all the frames of the bottom nuc, the brood nest, filled the gap between 3 and 9 of the same 10 frame box.  The result is the same brood nest packed with double the honey on the ends.

To fill the new second 10 frame box (Top box) i used filled or drawn frames from previous dead outs.  In this case 6 frames filled with honey & pollen and 4 frames of empty but drawn wax.  This gives the bees plenty of stores and room to lay.  What would take them weeks to over a month to produce they have right now.  Their energy can go towards brood yet requires less work from the field bees.

New hive in place

The new hive consists of:
Telescoping cover
Inner cover
10 frame medium
10 frame medium
Slated rack
Solid bottom board

No hive top feeder for them because; 1- The spring flow is strong and these girls are known not to take spring syrup;  2- They are not an over stressed package that just got shipped across country to be dumped somewhere strange.  Other than the new equipment nothing has changed for them.  They'll keep on taking nectar like they've been doing.

Ideally i can put on a 3rd box soon.  As a hive of mediums all they need for over wintering is 3 boxes.  If they can fill their 3rd box with brood before May i can add honey supers to the hive.  Winter ran a month late in ending.  So i don't know how that will affect the flow or whether these bees will have the time to produce surplus honey.  I'm looking forward to favorable conditions.
 

Queen bee from Little Miss

Meanwhile, queen Miss is a pretty girl of moderate size with an all black thorax and non-striped, sepia abdomen.  We are in our first week of warm weather yet she already has several frames of brood from side to side and a handful of scattered Drone cells.  She'll be marked when i feel assured i can make more queens.  Maybe in a month.

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Melissa - the Fifth Hive

Nuc #3 has been doing very well.  Her 10 frame deep box is filled with bees, brood, & honey.  She has more bees and stores than Heléna.  Which tells me she should be in a full hive.  So today i put a second Deep box on Nuc #3 along with 10 foundationless frames and a Hive Top Feeder topped off with a gallon of 1:1 syrup.

This Nuc's ability to draw comb is quite good.  The bees seem preoccupied with making comb since I'm always scraping extra off the inner cover.  I don't doubt she'll have the new box nearly all drawn out by July.  Which will give her a double Deeps worth of bees going into Winter.

If she's going to be a full hive she needs a name.  We found out that in Greek, honey bee is 'Melissa'.  So that's her new name now.  Her parent hive belongs to the Neighbor.  It's name is Beatrix, after the 20th century queen.  The neighbor also made a split from the parent hive at the same time.  It also has become a full hive.  Lots of good genetics there indeed.

Melissa - formerly Nuc #3

The yellow box is on lone from Heléna.  The white box is drying from a bleaching it received to clear up the mold issue.  In a day or so I'll switch them out.  I'll do an inspection  as soon as I see the bees have drawn some comb in the top box.  I need to make a Slatted Rack and a new cover for her too now that she's a big girl.

The year is just moving right along...

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