Kurt Merrill's Talk on Nucs

August 2, 2007 - Kurt Merrill spoke to the MBA on how to create summer nucleus colonies. Kurt uses a modified bottom board and a "true" division board feeder to create two nucs in one ten frame hive body. You can see all of the pictures from the talk here.

This picture shows a ten frame hive body stapled to a bottom board. There are entrances on both ends of the the bottom board (one for each nuc). Kurt inserts a spine (seen in the middle) so that the two colonies are separated below the feeder.	A hive body with the feeder inserted. The feeder has holes on both sides that allow the bees to access syrup. The feeder takes the space of two frames, leaving room for two four frame nucs on either side.
A picture of one four frame nuc, a feeder, and the start of a second nuc. Kurt usually makes the nuc from a frame of open eggs, a frame of brood and at least one frame of honey/pollen. The nuc will create its own queen and she should be laying in about six weeks.	This is a picture of some jigs Kurt made to make the frame feeders. One jig is to make the feeder for the 4-frame nucs and the other is to make feeders to divide a deep into 4 mini queen nucs - each with their own feeder. The feeders are a little harder to make without a jig to hold everything square.
This is a picture of a Yankee Frame Nailing Jig that Kurt sent. He writes "I haven't had time to draw-up plans but people should be able to figure it out from the picture. The two slats pin the frame ends against the end of the jig holding them square and plumb. You glue and nail the tops, flip it over and glue and nail the bottom (I use 1 1/4 crown stapler). Pull out the two slats and the frames and you can then pull out the 10 frames. It should be built with a snug fit but one could shim the slats with cardboard if the fit is a bit sloppy.