I am picking up my 2 nucs at 9 pm eastern time, it will be dark and cold. Should I attempt to install the nuc to the flow hive at night or wait for the morning?
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Hello and welcome to the Flow forum! 
The short answer is wait until morning.
The long answer is:
- Pick up your nuclei with the entrances sealed. Consider wearing a bee suit for the transport (I always do, just in case something adverse happens).
- Bring them home, aligning the frames with the direction of travel in the vehicle , so that braking doesn’t cause the frames to swing and squash bees. Take corners very SLOWLY!
- Put the nuclei as close to the hive position as possible, but if it is very cold or windy, put them in a nearby garage/shed etc.
- If they are right by the hive location (less than 2 feet away), open the entrances about 30 minutes after you put them down if you can do that easily. If not, make sure that the nuclei have some ventilation - most transport nuclei have a way of allowing some air flow without bees escaping.
- Next day check weather.com hourly temps for the estimated warmest, sunniest, least windy time of day. For me, that is usually around 2pm. Plan to install at that time.
I just installed 2 packages this week (not nuclei), and they are doing well after a mid-afternoon installation. Your bees will need to do cleansing flights, but the later installation in the warmer part of the day is less stressful for the bees.
Just my humble opinion.
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Thank you! Your information is very helpful-I’m a total new-bee!
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