In this instructional video, the presenter walks viewers through the proper feeding regimen for very small nucleus (nuc) colonies created in early spring, specifically 2‑frame splits consisting of one frame of brood and one frame of stores. He emphasizes waiting about three days after making the split before any supplemental feeding to allow the bees to balance themselves and avoid robbing. When feeding, he recommends starting with a generous initial dose of 1:1 sugar syrup (which mimics natural nectar and stimulates queen laying) and then shifting to a "little and often" approach, typically no more than about one litre per week, adjusting based on feeder activity. The speaker warns against both under‑feeding and over‑feeding, explaining the space‑stores conundrum: too much food without enough space can trigger swarming, while too little food jeopardizes colony survival. He outlines a target colony development of roughly 4–5 frames of brood with 1–2 frames of stores, and advises regular monitoring of the feeder and colony progress to keep the nuc on track. The video also includes a brief plug for an online beekeeping course, "14‑Day Beekeeper," for beginners.
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In this video, I'm going to show you how to feed your small splits to make sure they get all the way throughout the season. So I've done a separate video here showing just how small you can make up nucs in the spring. It's the 1st of May today. I've got a 2-frame split, 1 frame of brood, 1 frame of stores, and I've given the bees a really good feed a few days after having made the split. Never split your bees in the same apiary and immediately feed, as you will just come back to lots and lots of robbing. You need to make the splits, let the bees balance themselves, and then after a few days you can come back in and feed. But this feeding of small splits, I see so many people getting this wrong, and I see people neglecting to give them what they need. Now, as always with beekeeping, the space stores conundrum comes into play again. You need to make sure that you give your bees enough food. They need to have enough stores to survive, but if you don't give them sufficient space alongside that, then the colony is going to go ahead and swarm, and half of your bees and the queen will go off and find themselves a new home. So you don't want to give your bees unlimited But you also don't want to give your bees unlimited food. Giving them too much food is almost just as damaging as giving them not enough food if you're not supplementing it with additional space. So my advice to you is really simple when it comes to making up small 2-frame splits early on in the season. Make up the splits, wait a few days for the bees to balance, go ahead, give them a couple of litres of syrup. You can use any syrup here, invert works well, 2:1 works well, but it is spring, so what the bees will expect at this time of the year is nice 1-to-1 syrup, because that mimics the nectar, and it does help turbocharge the queen as well, 'cause she thinks that there's a really good flow on. After that, I just kind of leave the bees to it, and it's up to me then to make sure that I'm monitoring and giving them feed if and when they need it. Now look at the sky. Today's a beautiful blue sunny day here in North Wales, really nice and warm. There's definitely a flow on, tons of nectar coming in, but even then I go ahead and I feed my nucs, because growing and expanding at that rate is incredibly energy intensive. The speed in which they grow is gonna be directly proportionate to the amount of nectar coming in, obviously up to a limit. And I know that they have to draw out 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 massive big Langstroth frames. And I know just how much energy is gonna go into doing that. Now I've been through this colony here today. It started off as a 2-frame split, a frame of brood and a frame of stores. But as I went in a few days later, I noticed that there was a huge amount of dead space. And that is because what's going on in here, the expansion and creation of this big brood nest is very energy intensive. So my first bit of advice to you is wait 3 days before you feed. The second bit of advice is give them a really good head start. Give them a good glug of 1:1 sugar syrup. And then I would say it's a case of little and often until you get to the point where they're filling this box, maybe covering 5 frames. And when I say little and often, I mean if you can get away with it, don't feed. If you can't get away with it, maybe giving them about a litre per week maximum. The last thing you want to do here is completely backfill all of these frames. So you go in at any point and there's 4 frames of stores and 2 frames of brood. If you find that, you've fed them way too much. You want to try and get this colony built up to about 4 to 5 frames of brood with 1 to 2 frames of stores. So whilst feeding them big amounts of syrup will give them the capacity and the ability to go as quick as they can, it reaches a point where it doesn't matter how much syrup or help you give them, they can't go any faster. But you know your endpoint. Your endpoint is that you want your box full, 4 to 5 frames of brood, 1 to 2 frames of stores. And the way to get there is by regular monitoring of What's going in the feeder. So that's my plan with this nuc here. I've rimmed the feeder, they're going to build it all out. I'll probably come back next week, they'll be on 3 frames. I'll leave them to it and hopefully get them to the point where they're covering the 5 or 6 frames without any further feeding. That is exactly what I'm going to do with this nucleus colony here, and I'll be back later on in the season to give you an update. Now, if you're interested in learning everything there is to know about beekeeping, check out our online course, 14-Day Beekeeper, that will turn you from a beginner to a competent beekeeper in just 2 weeks.
