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The bees greet the queen, don’t rush
her back into the hive.
When she is ready, the queen returns.
Once marked leave the queen in the
cage for a minute or two.
Then release her onto the
brood frames.
Making a nucleus colony
Many beekeepers like to have a spare colony of bees that can be used
in case the main colony looses it’s queen or to boost a colony to take
advantage of a good honey flow. The spare colony can be made in the
other side of the Beehaus and recombined with the original colony at any
time. You can also make a nucleus colony in specially designed nucleus
hives which usually take a maximum of 6 frames.
When is the best time to make a nucleus?
You can divide a colony during the spring and summer but if you are going
to raise a new queen instead of buying one then you will need to make
the nucleus while there are still drones and the weather is warm enough
for the queen to mate with them. The best time is May or June and
this corresponds with the swarming season when you may well need to
artificially swarm your bees. Artificially swarming your bees and creating
a nucleus are very similar. The earlier in the season you create the nucleus,
the more time the colony will have to build in strength and be in good
shape for the winter.
What sort of colony can I divide?
You can divide any successful colony with bees on 8 frames or more. You
shouldn’t divide a colony that is less than a year old, has disease, or bad
tempered bees.
What effect does dividing the colony have.
Removing some frames of brood and nurse bees will not cause a strong
colony any problems if it is done quite early in the season and you should
still get a good honey crop. However, the more brood you take from the
colony, the fewer bees that colony will have and this will have an impact
on the amount of honey it will be able to produce.
Method
Step 1
- Smoke the bees lightly and wait 2-3 mins for the smoke to
take effect. Open the Beehaus and find the queen. You don’t want
to accidentally transfer her to the nucleus side so to make sure you can
put her in a matchbox or a queen cage on top of the frames until you
have finished.
A strong colony from with 12 frames of bees and good food stores.
Step 2
- Select 2-3 frames with a good covering of brood in all stages
but certainly some with eggs so that the bees can start a new queen cell.
Transfer these to the other side of the Beehaus and place them towards
the entrance with a dummy board behind the last frame.
Step 3
- Select one frame with a good covering of honey and pollen. The
nucleus colony will not have any older flying bees for a while and they will
need the honey and pollen for brood rearing. Place this as the first frame
in front of the brood.
Step 4
- Add the divider board. If it was not in already, put the divider
board in place to completely separate the two sides of the Beehaus
Step 5
- Open the second entrance. Put the entrance adapter in place in
the wasp guard position. All the flying bees will leave the nucleus side
and return to the other side of the Beehaus leaving only the nurse bees
on the frames.
Step 6
- Release the queen from the matchbox or queen cage back into
her side of the Beehaus.
You can check the nucleus in a weeks time. You should find queen cells
and you can then select the best one (largest and with a thick coating of
wax indicated by a rippled surface) and remove all the others. Within the
next 2-3 weeks the new queen should have mated and be laying.
The Beehaus with a nucleus should look as above. Note the feeder above the
nucleus brood frames on the right hand side.
Looking after a nucleus colony
Once you have established your nucleus colony there are few tips and
tricks to ensure that your nucleus colony does well:
1. It is a good idea to feed sugar syrup (see feeding section on
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) so
that the bees have a good amount of food.
2. Once you have a laying queen, you should ensure that they have
enough space to expand, so add more frames as necessary.
3. Finally, if you need to strengthen the number of bees in the nucleus
colony, you can add brood taken from a stronger colony. If you do add
brood from another colony, you should ensure that there are no bees on
the brood when it is moved. Either shake them off or brush them off. The
brood shouldn’t be left out of a hive for more than 5 minutes.
Queen
Open
Open
Open
Closed
Queen
