In this episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping, Laurence Edwards demonstrates how to convert 6‑frame National‑frame nucs into a 14 × 12 hive system. He explains the rationale—getting brood into appropriately sized boxes and preparing for summer honey flows—then walks through the step‑by‑step manipulation. The process includes inspecting each frame, removing drawn foundation, using DN1/DN4 frames with spacers, applying Hoffman self‑spacing, and arranging the frames so that the queen ends up isolated in the lower 14 × 12 box with a queen excluder on top. The upper box retains all brood, stores, and foundation. Laurence notes that the queen does not need to be located directly; the manipulation works as long as the queen remains in the lower box. He projects a four‑week timeline: the lower box will become a full brood chamber while the upper box will be cleared for honey storage, perfectly timed for the June honey flow from lime, bramble, Himalayan balsam, and other summer forage. Practical tips on tools, the decision to stop smoking, and sponsor acknowledgments are also included.
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Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today we're in the Stream apiary performing a manipulation that I'm just going to talk you through now. So what we've done in this apiary is we've taken 15, 14 or 15 6-frame nucs. They've come on a national frame, I'm moving everything over to a 14 by 12 this year. So as you would have seen on a previous video where I hived them all up, I took 6 national frames and I put them in a 14 by 12 box. I flanked them with 14 by 12 frames, um, just to get the colony going. And then what I wanted them to do is I wanted them to start to expand into those 14 by 12 frames so I can move on to the next manipulation. So what I'm doing today is I'm going through the colony, I'm I'm trying my best to find the queen. I don't need to find her, but it helps if I can. I'm then isolating the queen in the downstairs of this colony, so in the 14 by 12 box. I'll then fill the 14 by 12 box with 14 by 12 frames, queen excluder on top, everything else goes on top. So all of the national frames, all of the brood, all of the stores, and then I'll fill all the gaps like that. So then what you've got is the 14 by 12 below with the queen down there with a little bit of drawn comb. Means that she can start laying it all up, and then the colony will expand it down there. And then up top in the national brood box, I've got lots of brood in all stages, lots of stores, and some foundation. So in 4 weeks' time, that should be completely void of any brood, and then they can use that to collect their stores. And then they use the bottom box for brooding. And then I'm in the kind of position that I want to be, where I've got the brood in the correct size box and everything above it is a super. Regardless of the size. So I'll get in and I'll show you exactly how I do it. So as you can see, I mean, this was a nuc, it covered 6 frames, it's now easily covering the whole of those 10 frames. So they've expanded massively over the last week. Really, really need to do this manipulation as soon as possible or they'll try and swarm like the one next door already has done. So what I'm going to do, because I haven't done a full inspection on these nucs anyway, I'm going to go through them frame by frame. I just want to check for no swarm cells, but I also want to find the queen as well. So as you can see, and we discussed this on the previous video, they've started to draw this foundation down. Now if you were to leave that, they would fill this whole void here, and this is why I'm doing it now, because I don't want them to waste the effort doing it. So I'll just take this off and then they've kind of lost not a huge amount of effort. Again, you can see, do you know what I mean, they're drawing it down, they're drawing out this foundation really, really quick. I'll show you the other frames there, they're nearly all fully drawn. So give it a few more days, that will be completely full. So we've timed this well. So again, just take them off, they come off really easily at this stage. Shake off any bees. Just double-check the queen's not on them. It's always drone comb though, so she's rarely on there at this time. Look at that one. Like, they're just— the amount of growth in these nucs is absolutely ridiculous. Like, it's literally been a single week and they filled the box already, so there's a strong flow going on. But it's really, really nice to see such strong nucs. So anyone who's bought these nucs, you're going to be in a similar situation here. I'd either think about doubling up that brood box or getting your supers on straight away. And again, look, they're just absolutely crazy bees. Crazy, crazy bees. So then that's a frame that I put in there 6 days ago, 7 days ago, 14 by 12. It's completely drawn out. She's laid it up, it's got eggs, there's stores, all sorts going on. And you know what I mean, that's a big frame. That's a big 14 by 12 frame. It's equivalent to like a brood and a super frame completely drawn out. And then another one, I mean, another whole frame completely drawn out, going great guns. And then that's where it stops, you know. I mean, you can see that they're just starting to draw out this one now. Probably not going to find a queen on foundation. Very, very rare that she'll be running on foundation. So we haven't found the queen, but what's great with this manipulation is you don't actually need to find the queen, so you can do it without it, and I'm going to show you how. So you take a brood box And then you want to go through each frame, chuck all of the bees back into the box. You can see loads of nectar coming out there. Then what you want to do is check the frame. A, make sure there's no swarm cells. I've already checked it, there's none. Make sure the queen's not on the frame. Put that into a new box. Got a mixture of some DN1 and some DN4s in here, so whenever you get that, you just take your first DN4 frame and you put a spacer on that as well, like this. So your first frame looks like that, and then they work with each other. Mm-hmm. Got to shake the bees. Just give you a close-up of those frames working together. So you've got the spacer, spacer, spacer, and then I'm onto Hoffman self-spacing now. Absolutely dripping with nectar, these frames. Really good to see. Right, so I've got all of my frames of brood in there. I know that they're empty. They're the correct size for, for this box. It's quite heavy. And then all I've got remaining in this box is 4 4x12, 14x12 frames, and then I'm just going to fill that up with 14x12. I mean, I've shaken off every single bee, I've checked them, the queen's in there. I've never once done this and the queen's not turned up, so it's a safe bet, um, the queen will be in there. So then fill your box up with your frame of choice. Put your queen excluder on, and then this box goes on top, and then fill the void in that box with. I just want to fill this box up with the correct frame. Preferably drawn, foundation works fine. Give the top a scrape. We've got the retractable hive tool working again, such a handy thing. It's always there ready to go. Forgot my crown boards again, so I'm just going to do this without a crown board. And there you go, that's the end of the manipulation. So what you've ended up with now is in the bottom box you've got the queen, you've also got some stores Because they put some stores in the new 14 by 12, and you've got all of the correct frame sizes downstairs in that 14 by 12 box. You've then got a queen excluder which stops the queen coming back up, and then in the top box again you've got all the correct frames and you've got lots and lots of brood and lots of stores as well. So we'll fast forward like 4 weeks, um, all the bottom box will be full of brood, that top box will probably be empty, and they'll start to be backfilling it with honey, and that's the position that we want to be in. It's going to time this perfectly for the summer flows. So where are we now? We're kind of like 25th, 26th of April. Fast forward to like the 1st of June, we'll probably hit the gap, June gap, and then come the 15th of June, this colony will be ready to produce really, really good honey here. Tons of lime trees around here, so hopefully you have a good season on the lime. There's loads of bramble, there's loads of Himalayan balsam, rosebay willowherb, absolutely tons of really, really good yielding kind of summer crops. So that's what we're going to do. So that's it for today's video. Just want to say a big thank you again to our sponsors. So thank you, Abello. Thank you, BB Wear. I've stopped even bothering smoking the colonies now because I'm just not getting stung. So thanks very much for the suit. Please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.
