Installed my first nuc

Hi Eva, I really just want to take another look at my bees and see how my checkerboarding is doing.

Very variable, depending on your local nectar flow. Could be anything from a couple of weeks to a few months.

Hi dawn should I open and inspect in about a week ?

Sounds good to me. You have a reason to inspect, because people have raised some concerns about checkerboarding. It perhaps might help peace of mind to see how they are doing with that.

I think it is hard to decide how often to inspect when you are new to beekeeping. I try decide by asking myself, “what is the point of this inspection?”. If the answer is simply curiosity, I don’t do it. However, if I am looking for disease, pests, food supplies, brood pattern, storage space or swarm prevention, those are all valid reasons for me to open the hive.

In my climate zone, I know that things do not get out of hand with a new nucleus all that fast. So I do my first inspection about two weeks after installation, unless there is a reason for concern. If you have a monster nectar flow, and your nucleus was very strong at installation, you may want to wait just one week. However, I would imagine that 2 weeks would be fine for most people. Once your hive is very strong, you won’t want to wait more than a week during swarm season, otherwise you are going to lose bees and honey! :fearful:

1 Like

Hi guys and gals, I just wanted to report on my 1st week inspection of my checker boarded hive. It is fantastic, I didn’t know how fast the bees really were. They have all of my blank foundationless frames almost completely filled out and loaded with bees except for one and they are starting on it and all of the new frames are drawn as straight as a string. This checker boarding is working great you might give it a try. i will be adding my additional brood or super box for them to start working on this week. Then, hopefully, within a month, I might be adding the flow super, as fast as they are, it could happen these bees are fast.

1 Like

That’s really good news you have brood on all but one new frame drawn. I’m surprised but pleasantly. Sounds like that super could go on now

Hmmmm. I think the 80% full of brood or food, and covered with bees rule should be considered first. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Absolutely. I thought that’s what chris said he had. Sorry :neutral_face:

1 Like

Maybe I am wrong, not you. Sorry! :eyeglasses: Rereading Chris’s message, it does sound that way. However on another thread, it didn’t.

I guess I am just overly cautious about new beekeepers expanding the hive too fast, and then suffering with robbing, pests and absconding. :blush:

Thanks, and I will wait a little while before I add the next box. The bees have drawn out the come on the new frames and there are bees all over the new comb but they have not filled with brood, pollen, or honey yet but they are in the process of doing that now.

Im learning from you pros. Thank goodness you guys and gals are here. I appreciate you all very much.

1 Like

I installed my first two Flow Hives with Nucs on May 28th 2017

Verona, Ontario, Canada

3 Likes