Starting a nuc in corflute nuc boxes in Perth

Connect with Locals
1

Dear Perthians,

Has anyone tried and successfully started a nuc in a corflute nuc box before? I am thinking of trying it this weekend

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

Cheers

Aaron

1 Like
2

I haven’t and I don’t live in Perth so maybe I shouldn’t have answered but here goes…
Bees do much better with decent insulation be it in a “proper” hive made of wood or poly, a tree or in somebody’s house wall. They find it much easier to keep the brood nest between 32 and 35 degrees. Fighting against temperature fluctuations causes the colony much stress.
A nucleus colony is even more susceptible to such vagaries.
Bees will live anywhere including a corflute box but there is a difference between surviving and thriving.
I’m dead against experimenting with living creatures unnecessarily

3 Likes
3

I’m not sure if all coreflute nuc boxes are the same, however the ones I recently saw had very little bee space around the frames. I wouldn’t use them to start off a nuc. Plus there’s the issue of insulation as @Dee mentioned. I use 10 frame supers in my sub-tropical climate to start off nucs.

3 Likes
4

Why not just put them in a standard eight frame box?

Cheers
Rob.

1 Like
5

Thank you for all the suggestions. Will take it into consideration and give it further thoughts.

Cheers

1 Like
7

Hello Aaron,
I captured a swarm directly into a corflute box here in Victoria, in early January. At the time, I had no spare wooden boxes. However, I did think they would do satisfactorily for a period of time, until I managed to set up a more permanent hive for them.
Well… although I did have ventilation at each end of the box, in the hot weather that prevailed shortly thereafter (and after I recaptured them again after they re-swarmed and I quite stupidly then narrowed the entrance to keep the queen inside the box), hundreds if not thousands of them literally ‘cooked’. I found dead bees everywhere outside of the box.
I have since housed this hive inside a long-langstroth hive and they have struggled. I found a couple of queen cells a few weeks ago, so it looked like the original queen was no longer and/or needed replacement. In about 7-10 days from now, I will check for eggs or larvae.
So, if I used a corflute box again, I would create more ventilation (purchase more dials to do this) and NOT narrow the entrance.
Cheers,
Simon