Kieler mini nucs?

[fatshark]

Yep. Got a copy here.
Not sure what's wrong with starting them with bees and a QC. Works well. I've then got a second and - very rarely - third queen (again from cells) mated from the same box in the season. The last ones would be overwintered (or attempted).
I've also let them raise a scrub queen just to keep the box going, then give it another QC later in the year ... probably not good practice, but it saves making them up again (which is always a pretty beastly job).
I think these boxes are great for getting queens mated pretty quickly at the best time of the season. However, they're high maintenance. I think one of the main reasons most people don't rear queens, or are put off from doing so, is that they think grafting is difficult and then struggle with absconding/starving/robbed mini-nucs.

[Jon]

I start off a mini nuc with a virgin queen but once she has mated and it has brood you want easy access to insert a queen cell after removal of the queen. In an ideal world I remove a mated queen and put a ripe queen cell straight in. 'Mating in Miniature' is an interesting read but is pretty dated stuff and recommends starting fresh each time. There is a big focus on a single frame mating nuc with glass sides.
If you set up mini nucs for continuous production you can get 3 or occasionally 4 queens in a season - weather permitting. Overall I would average somewhere between 2 and 3 mated queens per unit.

[fatshark]

Four is good going Jon. Never done that. The other issue with these very small boxs is that they're not ideal to check the quality of the Q.

The single frame box in Mating in Miniature would be ideal to send to an isolated mating site where quality drones are available. I know they do this sort of thing on the continent.

[busybeephilip]

The "mating in minature" by Mobus, now thats a blast from the past. I went to great bother making the little boxes as per instructions - never worked that well, just not enough bees to keep the thing going for long enough so little boxes wnet into the bin

If you want to go down the single frame route then the EWK style nuc is the way to do it. They are regularly used in europe's mating stations. All mine are home made and very cheap to make but expensive to buy. I like them cos they are mouse resistant! - As Jon knows, i use these routinely now instead of apideas and I don't have many problems - in fact much better that apideas/min nucs cos you can look at the bees night or day through the glass/perspex without having to pull frames out and expose bees. I just fill with a cup of bees, wait an hour then pop in an incubator hatched virgin or queen cell. They are strictly queen rearing not for over wintering.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... If you want to go down the single frame route then the EWK style nuc is the way to do it. ...

I Googled 'EWB nuc', and all I could find was that it stands for 'ein waben kasten' (or, a honeycomb box). What does this box look like, BBP?
Kitta

[busybeephilip]

there are lots of you tube videos - here is one link from a series of videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0CNaLvJXM

also - a half size version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oKQNnB-JlU

In german but you can see what they are doing !

[Calum]

I Googled 'EWB nuc', and all I could find was that it stands for 'ein waben kasten' (or, a honeycomb box). What does this box look like, BBP?
Kitta

https://www.holtermann-shop.de/Koeni...gt9v492p6tv083
Its a 1/3rd frame size box, with candy store (above - I prefer below so it never runs down in the heat). They are placed in a wooded housing
https://www.holtermann-shop.de/Koeni...gt9v492p6tv083
for insulation and protection from the sun (the windows are not otherwise idea).
The system is handy as you can check if the queen is : there, mated & laying without opening anything up.
you pay for it though.

Also the windows make checking for drones possible, some mating sites in Germany refuse Apideas, because they cannot check for drones, and they really do care about keeping the mating sites "clean"

[Mellifera Crofter]

... Its a 1/3rd frame size box, with candy store (above - I prefer below so it never runs down in the heat). They are placed in a wooded housing ... for insulation and protection from the sun (the windows are not otherwise idea). ...

Thanks Calum and BBP.