Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
Checked around the Apideas earlier this evening and have about 18 queens laying.
I have ten Paynes poly nucs set up as mating nucs as well with a single frame of bees and brood between the wall and an insulated dummy board.
There is a frame of stores on the other side of the dummy board.
One of these I set up 2 weeks ago with a ripe queen cell now has a laying queen.
I reckon these will make decent enough mating nucs.
You start with a frame of bees and brood and keep closed up until the queen has emerged, same as with apideas.
Once the brood has emerged you have about 2 frames of bees. When most of the brood has emerged you can move the frame of stores alongside so you now have a 2 frame nuc.
When the queen starts to lay, after a few days you swap the 2 frames of eggs/larvae for 2 frames of sealed brood and you should have a 5 frame nuc about 2 weeks later when the brood has emerged.
Well done!
I'm not sure you're gaining anything with the jiggery pokery with the frame of stores and dummy board in the paynes box, I always think bees "feel more secure"* when set up with several combs, three are better than two and, not that I've tried it but I assume, two would be much better than one. If you observe bees in small units, they need quite a bit of flexibility to expand and contract their comb coverage depending on the outside temperature.

* I know its anthropomorphising, but bees that "feel secure" visibly thrive and its easy enough to observe that.