Hi everyone, Just wondering where to purchase nuc boxes? I would like one or so in just in case, any material, wood or core flute, plastic etc, I cant seem to find any online that easy even my local stockists dont seem to list them. I dont mind any areas over seas, Australia, Queensland, Brisbane.
Thanks
Hi Wayne, I’m sure they are available to purchase. Customers have come to me with bought nuc boxes to put bees into. You could phone Burnett Beekeeping Supplies. They may sell them even though they might not list them on their price list.
For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t bother with a nuc box in our climate. I have no problems putting a nuc size colony in an 8 or 10 frame super. When the conditions are favorable, they expand their numbers very quickly, & therefore outgrowing a nuc box in almost no time flat.
Ok Thanks Jeff, might just go that way then.
You could make your own. Plans are here http://beesource.com/build-it-yourself/5-frame-nuc-d-coates-version/
I found it a little tight, maybe in the conversion from inches to mm. I would add a little more room at the top and bottom of the box, only mm.
Also I put the hole in the middle, which meant the bees fly straight into a frame. They cope perfectly well. Just a bit of a bit crowded when the box is overflowing.
That’s the advantage of an 8 frame box. Ours are all 11 but I have a couple of home hashed 8 frame poly nuc boxes
I did a few of these out of 3/4" plywood. The only tools I used were a tape measure, circular saw and hammer. Materials were glue, nails, and the plywood. Make sure to adjust for the 3/4" plywood vs the 1/2" plywood in the plans.
We generally use broccoli boxes to collect swarms as they take 6 frames and are extremely cost effective when you need to do a lot of swarms.
If they are swarms being built up for sale I’d suggest corflute as they are sturdy and cost effective.
Wayne,
Jeff’s thots are right on for your area. Up here in the States I either build them or buy from Brushy Mountain… I’m wintering over one 5 frame double deep Nuc for transfer this coming Spring 2917 to one of my varroa mite die-outs.
I use the Nucs for swarm collection n resource production as the colonies seem to rapidly raise to triple or quads up here in our Puget Sound marine climate near Seattle…
I’m slowly going to convert all my hives to frame double deeps with either all medium honey supers n then convert all to 6 frame Flow-supers as I can afford them.
Cheers n good luck bro,
Gerald
Thanks Gerald. @RBK cardboard or poly broccoli box?
Poly.
I will get some photos together today of an extremely cost effective NUC design (now I have promised it, I will get motivated to provide it)
I built 8 nuc boxes, 4 bottoms and lids from ply the last few weeks.
Hornsby Beekeeping supplies do list a timber nuc on their site if your looking to buy.
As promised, here is a detailed tutorial on how to make a ‘King Bee Nuc Box’ from a broccoli box. It takes about 10 minutes to make.
Total cost of the box itself is about $2.00. With six frames + foundation, total cost will be about $20.00
http://www.canberrabees.com/making-nucleus-hive-bait-hive-from-broccoli-box/
If there is any feedback, or anything is unclear let me know and I will update the page
Cheers RBK, Ill take a look.
Looks great, how big do you make the ventilation cutout?
Had a bit of a play this afternoon with some scrap 19mm ply I had laying around.
1hr later I had a 4 frame flow hive that will fit straight on a 5 frame nuc
Thats really kool. I love using left over materials and diy, this is well done.
Looks good mate, I had a gap of about 3mm on one side of the Flow Frames, the bees poured through when I opened the door, now they have welded it up, the aluminium strip under the spout end could be 3mm thick, will work on that one, in time.
Heavens well done. See what fiddling about in the workshop does 
If you’re putting that on a nuc it will have to be a double decker. 5 frames of bees ain’t gonna fill a flow super. They need to grow more.
Agree no point putting it on 5 frames, I have a cut out I put into nuc boxes 6 days ago, 5x5x5x5 removed some of the damaged honey frames and added 5 frames foundation the next day. They had drawn out the majority of the foundation in 2 days and even half completed cells were filled with honey they are transferring to the new frames. Lots of bees still hanging in the stump they were in and queen was on the freshly drawn frames so added another 5 frames 2 days ago.
Will be interesting to see what they have done in the 2 days since.
Was a very strong colony I estimate they had 50kg or more of honey stored .
Once the queen is laying in fresh frames I will add the flow frames, with a bit of luck they might take to the flow frames quickly.
I am running a 3 frame Flow Box on top of 2 x 5 frame nucs- so 10 frames of brood and 3 flow frames. The bees filled in all the cracks in the flow frames within one day. They had filled most of the cracks after only a few hours! Immediately that was done they commenced filling them with nectar- they are currently about 1/3 full.
