What You SHOULD Be Seeing in a Nuc Colony

Today I'm going to show you what to expect inside an overwintered nuc. So in this video, I'm going to go inside one of the Black Mountain Honey overwintered nucs with queens that are raised in Wales and show you what to expect. We're going to see a queen, we're going to see brood, we're going to see stores, we're definitely going to see some bees, maybe even some drones. Let's open it up and I'll show you every single bit. So first things first, when you take off the lid like this, Don't worry about any little bits of wax, but do worry about the bees that are up there. You want to study them carefully and make sure that the queen is not up there. Every single nuc comes with a queen, and it's your job to get the queen from this box into the beehive. Don't leave her on the lid and just go and put it down. Everyone makes that mistake at the beginning, but just double-check the lid, make sure the queen's not there, and then you know she is inside the box. So if you open up your colony like this and you see lots of burr wax comb on the top, Don't make the mistake that many beekeepers make here, which is they immediately smoke the bees down and try and tidy it all up before they move. Because if you add in the smoke now— and I've got the smoker just lit over there— but if you start smoking them now, the queen will run, the bees will panic, and it makes going in and doing anything that you need to do much, much harder. I'm doing a video today showing you what to expect in an overwintered nuc, but I'll also give you some tips in terms of what you should be doing for your inspections and how to transfer them out into the So first thing, don't mess around with that burr comb until the end. That's the last job. And if you can get away with it, don't smoke them if you're trying to find the queen. So it goes without saying as well, obviously put your veil up if your bees aren't really nice and chilled out. If these get a little bit spicy at any point, I'll just put my veil up as well. But you don't want to get stung, especially in the eyes. But when you come to tackle a 6-frame nuc like this, it's quite difficult to get the frames out. And a lot of beekeepers don't really think about which frame is best to get out and the prep work that you need to get in to get the frames out. So the risk here is damaging the bees, And the biggest risk is damaging the queen. Lots of people pull the frames out really haphazardly, squish the queen, and then wonder why everything's going wrong. So I'll generally assess the colony and say, I think this frame is the best one to get out. I don't like to go for the ones directly on the edge unless they're really presenting themselves quite well. I'll either go for frame 2 or frame 5. So you'll see exactly what I mean here. This frame looks like quite a good one to get out, but if you can see, there's— See how the wax is actually connected to the wall? And if you pull that out, you could maybe rip some bees off. Similarly, we've got a bit of brace comb here that needs breaking up before you take any ones out. But as I said, don't go in here smoking all the bees down because then they just start running. If anything, see how there's fewer bees on this frame and there's not that much bracing going on? So I am actually going to go for frame 1 here. So all I do is I just break the seal like that. See how we can get the frame moving? And then that becomes a very good frame for Getting it out. So this is the first frame that I pulled out of the overwintered nuc. This section up here is capped overwintered stores, and then this section here is space. Now it's really important that you have a decent amount of space like this in a nucleus. If it was all just stores and eggs and brood, the bees would want to swarm immediately. So a bit of buffer space like this is good. Same on that side over there, a really nice heavy weighty frame. And if we just uncap a little bit there, you can see it's still liquid, so still very accessible stores. The bees will just come in and use this as and when they need. So first frame out, we've got a frame of stores. Don't put the frame back in because then you're just going to make it really cramped inside. You can just rest it up on the side like that, even if it's got some bees on it. Make sure it's not got the queen and then you can just rest it up. And then it's just a case of going through the frames one by one. So this one here is probably, I would say, about average. It's not too small, it's not too big. And that's the next frame along. So same again, we've got capped stores on that side and a little bit of space. And then we're into the action here. So this one is completely full of bees. There's tons of nectar coming in, there's lots of pollen, and you can see we've got lots of happy, happy bees on this frame. So I've got space to work now to put that frame back in. And that's 2 frames of stores we've got now. I'm expecting on the next frame we're going to hopefully see some brood, brood in all stages, and maybe a bit of capped brood. And there we go, that is exactly what I wanted to see here, Zane. So, so much to tell you about on this frame. First one, if you come right around here. So our queen there presenting right in the middle of the frame, obviously proud of all of this capped brood that she's on. But she is a blue-marked F1 Buckfast queen from 2025, so overwintered. And because this is one of our overwintered nucs, this one here was raised in the UK. Perfectly adapted to overwinter. And just look how chilled out and calm these bees are, Zane. So super calm bees, we've seen the queen, and the rest of that frame there is capped brood. There's a few eggs on the outer edges, but I'm sure I can find a better egg frame to show you. But 2 frames of stores, 1 queen, 1 frame of brood. Let's see what we've got on the next frame. So you can see here, Zane, that's the next frame. We've got another frame Lots of capped brood. This nuc here really is due to burst over the next couple of weeks because each one of these frames here with capped brood should emerge into about 2 to 3 frames of bees. So although it might not look like there's tons of bees on the frames, believe me, these nucs grow super, super quick and you need to give them the respect and the space that they deserve. Now we're on to the 5th frame and it's another frame fully capped over pretty much. Again, a few eggs around the edges, but this queen has been very, very Look. Oh, it's really painful. Ow. So it is an important lesson, this one. I'll say it often that the bees don't sting and I've got the calmest bees, and these bees are really, really calm, but it doesn't mean that they're not going to sting you. And I'll probably take that as a warning sign now and put my veil up, but I think it's really important to address that in videos like this, that although we do everything we possibly can to get the bees to be as calm as they can be, The risk of stinging is always there and you should always use the protection. Luckily for me, I'm pretty much immune to bee stings, so I'll put my veil up now. Sorry, bees, I took that one too far. We still got one more frame to do. So whenever you take a sting like that, the pheromone from that sting will be on my finger and it'll be on my face. So a little bit of smoke just over like that tends to mask it and it means that I can go back in. We've already seen the queen, so I can actually give them a really gentle puff now. And that's all I do. I don't go in and kind of like aggressively puff the bees, just a couple of whiffy puffs like that, and it will really calm them down. But don't do it before you've found your queen if you need to see her. So it is important to note that bit, and you can put this in, that if I'd have gone like, ah, and jumped around and stuff, I'd have probably taken 5 or 6 more stings there. But because I knew it was just one bee stinging me— there's another one there— just taking the sting and then talking, doing it all relaxed and stuff, Means that you don't get that many more. I can see a few more coming up now, so I am going to put my veil up. You see how they fly up like that? Just warning signs. Okay, so final frame, and depending on the time of year, this could either be a frame of brood, or it could be a frame of stores, or it could just be this one here, which is a frame that's got not that much going on in it at all. It's strange, this one, because this is probably the frame that we get the most complaints about, which is Oh, there's a frame that's just completely empty in there. And what that could mean is that over the past 24 or 48 hours, the bees have just consumed all of those stores. Or this could have been put in strategically to give the bees additional space. You've got 3 full capped frames of brood in there, which means in 3 weeks this box here will be at least 9 to 12 frames big once you account for all of the additional bees that are going to be in there. And without frames like this, the bees will swarm. So what should you expect in an overwintered nuc? Maybe between 3 and 4 frames of brood in all stages, between 2 and 3 frames of stores, both open and capped if you've got it, and then also a bit of dead space just knocking around on some of those frames. Even having a frame like this, which is lots of open nectar on one side and then some dead space on the other, is actually a really useful frame, and I'm going to show you what to do if you open up and you find a frame like this. This one here is probably the best frame out of the So what we have at the moment is 1, 2, 3 frames of very well-capped brood. Not that much space, not that much eggs, and we've got a queen that's laying eggs like it's going out of fashion. We've also got this frame here which is just perfect for that queen to go and lay in, and at the moment it's in this slot which is kind of away from where the queen is operating. So we're going to do a super simple manipulation here which is a bit of checkerboarding. We're just going to slide these 2 over. So this is capped brood, this is capped brood, this is capped brood. And we're gonna take our frame here with the additional space and we're gonna place it here. We always push all of these frames back together 'cause they're self-spacing and they dictate how far away these bars should be from each other. And then I'm gonna take my frame of capped stores from over there. Ensure I've got enough space to put it in. And then this is a really nice new configuration, which is stores, capped brood, space, capped brood, capped brood, stores. I'd give the bees in here maybe one more week to work in this box, but then they would definitely need an upgrade into a full-size brood box or else they will swarm. So there we go. If you're buying a nucleus colony from Black Mountain Honey, I would say that's the minimum that you should expect. Sometimes that frame with the space will have a little bit more brood, sometimes it'll have a little bit more But this is exactly what we aim for in order to get the bees safely to you through the post. You will see from my videos over the next few weeks a nucleus like this, and I'll track along with this one here, and we'll link it out at the end of the video. But you'll see a colony like this will expand very, very quickly, and you do need to make sure that you stay ahead of them or else they will swarm. And if you want to get the very best out of your bees, check out our online course, 14-Day Beekeeper, which will turn you from a beginner to a competent beekeeper in just 14 days.