Three nucs under one roof

Three frame nucleus

Four frame nucleus

Once a beekeeper has “mastered” the basics ie what to look for during inspections, finding the queen recognising swarm preparations, etc etc, then planning and predicting what stage a colony will be at in a week or two become more important. This is particularly so if you have more than a couple of hives to manage or hives in an out Apiary. Having brood boxes, supers and frames on hand makes life much easier and saves time. Tasks can be completed in one trip to the Apiary rather than having to return with a couple of supers or extra frames. It can help to leave some extra equipment at each apiary, a brood box full of frames and a nucleus hive will often be found to be useful.

If you have some spare equipment on hand you are often able to make the most is what the bees, or good fortune, offers you:

I found queen cells in a colony (that had been!!) headed by a particularly gentle and productive queen, one cell was sealed and I was unable to find the queen so assumed that she had lead a swarm. I had planned to raise a few queens from her this year but, because I had some boxes on hand, I was able to take advantage right away. I was able to find four frames each with a good, open queen cell. I took down all other cells. I had available, an extra hive (floor, BB, crown board, and roof) a twin five frame nuc (floor, BBs, crown boards) but no extra roof.

With a little head scratching I came up with this solution: Three hives in one. One colony was made up in the brood box and covered with the crown board. On top of this was placed the twin nucleus, arranged so that the entrances were to the left and right of the lower BB entrance. A forth colony was obviously left on the original site. I had lost a queen but been able to react quickly and by doing so I would soon have four new queens..........fingers crossed.

 I inspected these quickly last weekend, not really expecting to see any sign of a laying queen but there in the four frame nuc was a new queen looking very proud of the large patch of eggs that she had layed ;)