Installing your Nucleus Colony

April 23, 2024

Nucleus Colony Installation

Your nucleus colony of bees will come with 5 frames of bees in a corrugated plastic “nuc” box.

Included will be

2 frames of food – a mixture of honey and pollen
3 frames of brood – eggs and larvae all ad different stages
1 newly hatched and laying queen bee – a Russian Hybrid queen
A mini colony of bees that have been working together and building this colony with the queen for weeks.

If the trip to your new hive site was relatively uneventful, meaning, the bees didn’t get jostled too much (like thrown around the bed off a pickup truck). You can install them immediately or they can live in the “nuc” box for a while (I would try to get them put in your new hive within 7 days).

If you want to leave them in the “nuc” box for a while, sit the box on top of your hive box and open the entrance so they can start exploring.

Installing Bees

Items you will need:

Hive box
Empty frames
Smoker/smoker fuel/lighter
Bee suite/bee veil/bee jacket
Gloves
Hive tool
Spray bottle with sugar syrup 1:1 ratio sugar to water
Hive feeder of some sort – frame feeder, top feeder, baggie feeder
- When I first started out this was something I didn’t realize I needed. I relied on a baggy feeder. It is a gallon zip lock bag filled with sugar syrup 1:1 ratio laid on top of the frames in hive with holes poked in the top so the bees can get to the syrup.
Sugar syrup 1:1 ratio sugar to water for the hive feeder and the spray bottle
Entrance reducer – something to “reduce” the entrance of the hive to a smaller opening so the growing colony can protect the entrance from other bees and rodents. You can buy these. I make mine from scrap lumber. I also use bricks or strips of corrugated plastic when in a bind. It does not need to be fancy, but does need to block the entrance and be fairly sturdy.

You will want to put the frames of the nucleus colony in the same order as they are in the “nuc” box.

Once you have the hive setup completely empty with the entrance reducer on, your smoker smoking, your spray bottle with sugar syrup handy, and your bee gear on here are the steps to installing your bees.

In all of these steps, take your time, breath, enjoy the bees, be curious and look at this crazy new world, be gentle, and move slow.

Puff smoke around the “nuc Box” – around all four sides and the top
Open the top of the nucleus colony box
Puff a little smoke into the box
Spray 1:1 sugar syrup on the bees and frames from the top
- This will coat the bees in syrup. Bees are food focused so this will calm them down and they will focus on cleaning each other up and be less worried about what all is going on with their colony
Then you will want to start removing the frames one-by-one and moving them into the new hive box. You may have to use your hive tool to “break” the propolis (bee glue) seal from the frame and the plastic box.
Set each frame in the new box (feel free to hold it and look at them) in the same order that they were in in the nuc box. Outside frames on the outside middle frame in the middle….
If there are any bees left in the box turn it over on top of the hive and tap the plastic box to get them out.
Once all the bee frames are in the new hive box you can fill the box with empty frames for them to start expanding their colony.
If you have a feeder ready go ahead and feed them
Close up the box