☀ What to Expect when you BUY a Nucleus Colony!

Hyatt's Cayman Reynolds and it's the last few days of April the honey supers are filling up on our honey production counties but what about the nucleus colonies that we are selling I want to talk about nukes what to expect when you buy one from us or maybe when you buy it from somebody else I also I want to talk about conditions after you receive the nuke what you need to do but first of all let's look at one and see what to expect so this is a Jester box right here and we have several out in this field this is what I would like for you to see when you buy bees from us I was just in this one and I would like to see two new frames for you at least sometimes there will be three don't want to see a lot of old combs in the nuke there's you know when you sell a nuke off there shouldn't be just a bunch of old you know combs in there it's usually a mixture and whenever you get a nuke you well just whenever you get in your own nukes start from this side if you're using a Jester easy nuke box you can pull that back so you don't accidentally roll these or crash the queen and so this right here is what I'd like to see on the edge one or two of these to where it's not completely drawn because if you take these bees and get them on a hot day they need some room to expand and get away from that brood and help keep it cool so here we don't really have anything except just a little bit of Honey down into here and some beads on it but they are drawing this out nicely which is really important all of our nukes are started with Queens from cell so they have to go out and mate and then they have to build the nuke up and I think that's really important because a poor Queen is not going to be able to build a nuke that looks good and that's and she's never hit a cage and I really think that that's the best way to do it if possible is to have queens that never hit a cage oh there she is right there I did Mark her earlier and so we have eggs we have larvae all down into here and this is another nice new comb and they have laid this up really good over in here as well and so that's very young brood right there so that's one frame of basically solid brood that's going to look beautiful here and less than 10 days when that's all capped or very close to it now we have some brood right here they're starting to cap this side and this is another comb that is fairly young right here this is definitely under a year and we have more brood and all that now one thing I'd like to point out people ask this a lot they see some cups like this right here and that's very normal in a large County I was talking to somebody about this the other day now if they've extended those out and they draw them and they're putting royal jelly in them that's one thing but it's very normal for colonies to have cups inside the hives those are just standard and the stronger the hive is typically the more of them that they will have so something like this I would expect to see at least half a dozen of those in there doesn't mean that they're using them but they will be there now this is something I would like to see in a nuke that I purchased as well is one good frame of capped brood if possible and that way we know that we have some bees emerging soon so we have different stages here it's a balanced nuke it's not and for us one of the balances that we have to kind of navigate is not letting them get too big so if I don't sell this nuke this weekend which I will be but if I don't and this is going to be way too strong and it's going to swarm out on me or uh swarm out on me especially this time of the year so I would actually have to come back in and pull this Frame right here and maybe a shake of bees and then put some more foundations in there to try to set them back a couple weeks so they can be sold later I really don't like to do that because it's a lot of work to keep up with the nukes like that but you have to or they will swarm out of here eventually now when folks get our nukes and here's some bread actually on this Frame too there's just a little bit on that side mostly food and Bee bread and they are finishing drawing the rest of this one out right here so this is a really nice nuke it's a little bent on the strong side if anything definitely like a nuke like this get it into the hive whenever you get a nuke from us or from anybody if it's decent like this it has a lot of bees you need to get them open so you have an entrance on this side over here and I smoke the bees down earlier when we were going through these and I thought well let's just do a video so check out this entrance right here and let me smoke the bees are kind of in the way that little entrance right there pops on out and you can look online on some of our videos on how to assemble these easy nukes and that'll be closed when you're transporting this nuke and those bees will obviously be in there we'll smoke them in or close them up the night before now when you get home though these these fees need to be able to get out so you open that up and let's say that this is your hive right here and it's empty and you're going to be putting that nuke inside these boxes we'll just set it on top with the entrance facing the entrance if you don't have time to install them that day and just open up that entrance and they'll let them get out and if it gets hot they can get out of the nuke if uh if not they just stay inside but then whenever you're ready you just move them over a little bit open up your larger Hive boxes and then just drop them in and people ask me hey it's going to be cold it's getting down to 29 tonight can I put the bees in I'm like what's the high it's well it's going to be 50 or 40. that's fine just you try to do it when it's a little bit warmer but what do you think these bees are going to be doing in this this easy nuke box the insulation on this is almost non-existent and it's definitely going to be better in your wooden Hive than the most important thing that you do is however you pull these frames out that's how you put them into your colony and just just make sure everything goes the same because they have that designed and planned in there to be able to efficiently keep that warm or cool as they need I've installed nukes and packages in the 30s and you can do it you have to be quick you don't be you know looking around going oh well let's see what we have here today it's like all right this is open one two three four five and then shut it and you're done one other important thing those of you who are from the north and may be getting nukes from us or from somebody else maybe you're getting them from someone in Alabama or wherever it is and you're hauling them up Northwood down here in Tennessee we have a flow going on so if you get our nukes and you're in Tennessee and you put two gallons of feet on them with all these awesome Blackberry blossoms going and tulip poplar and black Locus well guess what they're going to eat that and get that other stuff too they're going to plug up and they're probably going to hit the trees and so this time of the year you got to know your season in Tennessee if you get a new from us maybe a court just to kind of give them a little something when they first install them it's got to be thin but then after that just kind of keep an eye on them but if you're getting them and you're hauling them up to Illinois or Iowa or somewhere like that and we have people to do that well you might be a decent ways off from nectar and you need to get some feed on your counties and especially if they are getting down and those cool temperatures that much brood takes a lot of Honey or sugar to be able to keep that brood warm and they can do it as long as they have plenty of food so this nuke has an okay amount of food for transport but if you're not going to get a honey flow for three or four weeks where you're taking them and you don't feed them this colony is not going to be growing and it could actually starve to death so that's where you could make some one-to-one sugar syrup if you're getting some days warm enough to feed them a little bit of sugar syrup you could give them a frame of honey from one of your colonies that maybe you already have and just transfer that over that would be awesome or you can purchase fondant from like Hive alive as fondant products I'll leave a link down below if you don't know what that is and then you can make sugar bricks but these especially in cool weather when they have a lot of brood burn through a lot of stuff so this is a lot of details right here but there's a lot of details when it comes to beekeeping um this is a what we like to give you guys typically well our our saying is three frames of brood minimum so you're gonna have three good frames of brood and then you're gonna have some Combs that are being partially drawn out and you may have four frames with brood on them like this one but we wouldn't want to sell you anything stronger than this because it's just a little too strong and it could overheat another thing that we will do especially if it's going to be a hot day and we do this still a lot of times anyways is we will pull this tape and we will there's a hole right there and we will put a window screen over this and then we will tape that so they have a lot of upper ventilation because when you have nukes this strong they can overheat I would personally rather move bees in 35 degree weather fahrenheit as opposed to moving bees at 75 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit on a sunny day these healthy strong counties they're not going to chill if they're in these boxes with that many bees but they can overheat for sure and even though this jasternuke box is designed to be well ventilated when you have this closed up and you have a bunch of bees in there especially if you have a lot of foragers they're trying to get out and they will be looking at the light in these holes and they will try to get out of these holes and put their heads in them in the attempt to do so and if they get hot the more the bees are trying to find and escape to spread out and in the process they plug those holes and it's congested and then they can overheat bees have a body temperature of like 102 degrees Fahrenheit and The Brood cannot get that hot so anyways lots of details maybe you learned something if you need any nukes send me an email we have them available right now and just I'll leave a link down below for that email and all that kind of stuff thanks for watching this video we'll see you in the next one

Channel: Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees

Views: 16,715

Keywords: beekeeping, beekeeper, honeybees, bees, Kamon Reynolds, honey, How to install a package of bees, How to install a nuc, package vs nuc challenge, beehive, Tennessee beekeeping, Tennessee beekeepers, Package of bees, swarming, swarm, swarm control, queen cell, swarmtrap, swarm trapping, swarm trap, buying bees, package bees, beekeeping for beginners, buying a nuc, what is a 5 frame, what is a 5 frame nuc, nuc vs package bees

Id: SBMx35X2N-I

Length: 10min 57sec (657 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023