# General beekeeping > Queen raising >  Mini nuc survival rate 2014-2015

## Jon

I have 13 queenright Apideas going into winter, mostly doubles which have 8 frames and a feeder but a couple of triples which have 13 frames and a feeder.
I'll post up the losses as they occur.
I added  a cup of extra bees to most of them in September, caging the queen for a day or two for safety.
None have been treated for mites. (but in an ideal world I would have done something.)
I looked in a few this morning and the queens are still laying.
Several of them are nice and strong so I would be hopeful of getting a few through to March when there will be a need for a queen or two.

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## Castor

This is like a Soap Opera. Will they make it? Will they live or die?

Will Queenie at No 2. go the distance?

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## Jon

Had to use one queen already to requeen a hive which was trying to supersede and had a virgin queen in it.
Still 12 horses in the race. (Apisom Derby!)

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## Duncan

Are you taking bets?

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## Jon

Would need to check the long range weather forecast before setting the odds!

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## mbc

I looked into seven mini plus hives yesterday and they all seemed dandy, I have twenty three overwintering, most as single boxes but three or four as doubles.  I'll try and remember to revisit this thread in the spring to update survival rates too, that is, if Jon doesnt mind being gazumped  :Wink:

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## Jon

I was expecting a few others to throw their hat in the ring. Your mini-plus boxes need a fair handicap as they are starting with a greater number of bees.
Pete L must be the equivalent of the Aga Khan the number of horses he has in his stable - and he is warming up his runners above crownboards which will almost certainly lead to a stewards inquiry in March if they are too frisky.

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## fatshark

None here ... they all made it into 5 frame nucs this year (largely because work commitments curtailed my late-season queen rearing).

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## Castor

Queens Cup, shurely?

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## Bridget

> Would need to check the long range weather forecast before setting the odds!


Don't read the Express then
http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature...tures-forecast


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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## Jon

That story gets published every year around this time.

Edit: Just came across our regional variant of the story.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ne...-30703372.html

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## Bridget

And those of us that love to ski get all excited!  Pretty lazy reporting I suspect

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## Adam

I have one triple polystyrene mini-nuc which is quite strong.  It uses Swibine mini-nucs with 3 frames in each although the two lower feeders have comb in. The boxes are held together with gaffa tape and there's a brick on the top. They are not designed to fix together... The ventillated panels at the front are blocked up with plywood.  As the combs have been extended down and all the boxes are fixed together by the bees I have not been in there for a while - when I do it will probably be a bit messy!  For varroa treatment, I did smear some apiguard in the little hive from my hive tool. Not sure if it was enough to do much - at least they didn't abscond so I didn't put in too much!


_I also have one wooden mini-nuc. It has quite a lot of bees from various combinations, however I don't expect the queen to last as she has already been (perfectly) superceded and I plucked her off the frame after her daughter started laying; and there was a queencell in the hive last time I looked which I cut out  it's too late to faff about with anything now. What will be will be._ .

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## Adam

Apparently today is the warmest evening of hallows on record. Almost mating weather*  :Smile: 


* For bees, I wasn't talking about me personally...



Well, you never know your luck I suppose.

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## Castor

23 degrees my way. Some females in full display mode.
No mating allowed according to my wife & granddaughter. :-(

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## Poly Hive

Given last winter was at least here, East Mids dead centre, was "soft" to say the least, my survival rate was tbh the best ever. I have accidentaly, well ok a trial left some 2nd year queens banked in min nucs as a trial. I will give them fondant, but apart from that they are on ther own. What price the queens hmm?

PH

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## prakel

As usual we're overwintering a couple of dozen mini plus type hives (less than usual because we moved towards using a lot more bs nucs this year), some are Lyson brand, the rest are our home made wood (often osb) versions which have frames a few inches deeper than the usual mini plus.

So, handicaps:

Balmy South Coast locations....
Mini plus units,
Extra deep mini plus units 

and now, these too, box of mini combs, originally meant to stand on a bs nuc but now left to get on with things on their own (considerably expanded since the photo was taken). 

Think I may already be disqualified from taking part!

063.jpg060 (2).jpg

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## Castor

Tis now the ides of November and it's still 14 degrees here in cloudy Gloucestershire. My garden nuc is still pulling in pollen from somewhere..... is winter ever going to happen?

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## brecks

> Tis now the ides of November and it's still 14 degrees here in cloudy Gloucestershire. My garden nuc is still pulling in pollen from somewhere..... is winter ever going to happen?


On Ist May or thereabouts.

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## Jon

> Think I may already be disqualified from taking part!


Those look closer to nuc strength than mini nuc!

I also have a load of nucs overwintering, mostly in the 6 frame Paynes Poly boxes.

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## prakel

> Those look closer to nuc strength than mini nuc!


The empty one was a 'demonstration' photo initially sent to my nephew who's away doing other stuff at present, it's meant to convey the interchangeability of the boxes. Over-winter on a board above a bs nuc; put on a nuc to get further combs drawn in the spring (till we've got the numbers up to our goal figure) and also for filling food combs so that we can get away from using feeders in the mating boxes. 

By next winter we'll have some better examples built (as opposed to cut down derelict supers) complete with division boards so that we can transfer two mini nucs to overwinter in the one box.

But yes, the ones overwintering as single boxes are pushing things ...a bit. Although they do have a disadvantage of being shallows but even then our climate should allow them an excellent chance of getting through to spring (as long as we can keep them out of that ever present biting wind).

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## Jon

I cut 4 strips of Bayvarol into 12 pieces today to treat my 12 Apideas. Never used Bayvarol before and it is 5 years since I last used Apistan so the mites are probably not resistant. Should really have done this in August as some of them have a very obvious mite load. They are looking great numbers wise and I would hope to get a good few through to spring, weather and virus permitting.

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## Pete L

> I cut 4 strips of Bayvarol into 12 pieces today to treat my 12 Apideas.


I did the same in the mini nucs back in late August using Apistan, although i don't like what i read about Apistan, never used either Bayvarol or Apistan before, ever, so gave it a go in the mini nucs.

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## Jon

It was either Bayvarol or wait a few weeks and do Oxalic but the Oxalic is probably a slightly greater risk to the queens which is the point of overwintering them.

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## mbc

're the bayvarol, good thinking! If your overwintering them though, do you plan to discard the comb in the new season. Comb contamination being the major downside to fluvalinates, possibly migrating through wax to leach into introduced queencells?

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## Pete L

I have never used oxalic trickle on them, Jon, but have thought about giving them a very small blast of from the evaporator, may give it a go on just a few some time.

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## Jon

Was the downside not just reputed to be with possible effect on drones?

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## mbc

> Was the downside not just reputed to be with possible effect on drones?


And queens, through continual exposure due to comb contamination.

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## Jon

Must read up more on that then.
It has gone off my radar as I have not been using products like this for so long.

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## HJBee

Recently heard the SBA tour speaker Pam Hunter who was very clear on her opinions of Oxalic and she did not promote this and doesn't use herself, if I recall correctly she mentioned impact on Queens resulting in more frequent supercedure amongst other concerns. She used to be a biochemist so I think she would have a good insight to this.

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## Pete L

> if I recall correctly she mentioned impact on Queens resulting in more frequent supercedure amongst other concerns. She used to be a biochemist so I think she would have a good insight to this.


I think she is wasting her time with that message, HJ, very few seem to believe it.

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## gavin

Supersedure is often in-season supersedure, before the queen has had a chance to get exposed to oxalic.  If there is a greater frequency of queen problems then I'd blame it on N ceranae rather than oxalic.

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## Jon

There are papers which state that Oxalic is not a problem for queens. I don't have the references to hand. personally I have not seen queen losses or early supersedure after using oxalic trickle. MAQS, now that's another matter! Nosema and virus can also induce early supersedure so it would be hard to isolate any single cause.

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## HJBee

I obviously didn't pay enough attention to repeat verbatim, but it was the resulting impact in Queen laying / egg / larvae outcome in spring build up resulting in supercedure in late spring summer.

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## HJBee

I had no issues using MAQS in late spring in one hive (which was the highest yielding too), I did an A/S on the other as swarm prevention but not singular supercedure. Maybe timing if use is a factor?

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## Jon

HJ
I have had various queens live into their 4th season which had been treated with Oxalic every winter.
I think the MAQS is quite an aggressive treatment. You get a few hundred dead workers outside the front of the colony the day after treatment starts.
The Apideas were all bringing in lots of pollen today.

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## mbc

> HJ
> I have had various queens live into their 4th season which had been treated with Oxalic every winter.
> I think the MAQS is quite an aggressive treatment. You get a few hundred dead workers outside the front of the colony the day after treatment starts.
> The Apideas were all bringing in lots of pollen today.


Whereas the workers quickly carc it when repeatedly dosed, do you think this is because the queens don't directly ingest it?

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## Poly Hive

Interesting info here but.... how many mark their queens? With out that info Sup or not is problematic. 

I am pro Oxalic as it is easy, simple and seems to work very well. As posted on the poly thread I don't look for mite drop but I DO check drone brood and this last season ran drone brood combs and thoroughly checked them... not a mite to be seen. Happy days.

This Winter I started with two minis and for business reasons was late in going to check them, one gone, starvation so my fault entirely and the other going strong so they  now have a good chunk of fondant on them. we will see....

PH

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## Jon

I mark and clip all of mine so no speculation involved.

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## mbc

Checked 13 mini pluses yesterday and all but one were looking fine, the one iffy one was light on stores so I removed a frame and slipped a bag of candypoline in the gap, ill fill the feeders with syrup on my next round ~Valentine's day, and hopefully all will pull through. 
One thing of note was that the empty frame I pulled out was riddled with moth larvae, makes me concerned for some of the roomier units on double brood which have some unoccupied, empty, but warm frames, ideal breeding grounds for moth.

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## prakel

Lost one mini-plus a couple of weeks ago but only because it was drowned in a mini-flood. New site where the possibility of flooding hadn't occurred to us.

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## Jon

I think my 12 double Apideas are still alive but have not checked all of them carefully. They all had flying bees within the past fortnight.

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## prakel

Jon, are you running your correx nuc boxes again this winter or did you replace them all with poly?

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## Jon

I only have one in a correx box but it has come through the winter ok. Most of my nucs are in the Payne 6 frame boxes. I bought another 18 of those last week.
They make great mating nucs if you set them up at the start with 2 frames between a wall and an insulated dummy board. I tried this with about a dozen last summer using them like apideas removing queens as they got mated. At the end of the summer most had built up to decent strength and I left them to overwinter with the last queen to mate. Most produced two or three mated queens over the summer.

I have a couple of dozen of the correx boxes and they are great for the summer as you never run out of equipment. Also great for holding all your spare frames.
They work fine as mating nucs as well.

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## mbc

Checked a site today where four out of seven mini plus hives were dead outs. Varroa was the culprit as there has been a bit of a domino varroa collapse avalanche thing going on in that area, sad to see   :Frown: 
That's four out of twenty mini pluses I've checked so far since the big wind, another three to go at another site, I hope these are alright.

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## Jon

I cut up a few strips of Bayvarol to treat mine in November.
They are consuming quite a bit of fondant at the moment.
Pretty sure all are still alive as I have them in the garden and can monitor them quite closely.

apidea-lids-fondant-small.jpg

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## prakel

Looking like another 'beyond our control' loss although not certain of what or who is responsible this time:

242.jpg244.jpg

note the stone which had been sat on top and also the floor, still more or less in position on it's pallet.

The queen looked pleasingly robust but most of the workers had perished  (stong double box down to enough bees to cover two combs). Oddly, this is one of the colonies which survived the badger attack last summer:

247.jpg245.jpg246.jpg

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## Mellifera Crofter

That's a shocking sight, Prakel - but I'm glad the queen survived. I hope the colony recovers.
Kitta

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## prakel

> That's a shocking sight, Prakel - but I'm glad the queen survived. I hope the colony recovers.
> Kitta


Thank you. Still at a loss as to what happened, no sign of animal damage but seems totally pointless as an act of vandalism -surely any half decent vandal would have done for more than one?

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## Jon

Good activity from the Apideas this morning at about 8c.

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## Jon



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## Mellifera Crofter

I saw a bee with pollen, Jon - at .07.  I was excited to have seen one here today as well.  I think it must have foraged on snowdrops.
Kitta

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## Jon

I discovered that 2 of the 12 were queenless so down to 10 now.
I haven't checked them all yet but most seem to have a good amount of bees in them.
I pulled a frame from one of the stronger ones earlier today and saw the queen on a frame of freshly laid eggs which was an encouraging sight.

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## mbc

I'm down to 13 out of 23 of my mini pluses still going as I've used a couple of the queens elsewhere and united the mini pluses they came from. 
I presume this is my final tally as they all seem to be building up nicely now, I'm counting it as 15 out of 23 ( ~65%) as the ones I used the queens from were good.

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## Jon

Lost a couple to dwindle late on and another queen was missing so I still have 7.

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## Pete L

Not lost any mini nucs this winter, only one a bit weak, but okay, just in from topping up their jars.

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