Wood Nuc box vs. Wax Cardboard Box – Growing Nucs

Time to go back to the lumber yard!  I thought I was done with seeing the guys at my lumber yard for this season…  Due to a high demand of bee orders, thus far this season, Julie and I made the decision to build an extra 100 nuc boxes. This will allow us to make an additional 200 nucs this coming season.  I appreciate Tommy helping us build these new nucs!

Wood nuc boxes are the most natural way to raise bees. Wood is good for absorbing moisture and is a more natural form of beekeeping.  Recently, I have seen some sideliner beekeepers raising nucs in wax corrugated card board boxes, in pictures on their websites. The problem with wax corrugated boxes is they retain moisture, promote bacteria, and fungus. In some cases, “Chalk Brood” is the end result.

New beekeepers, this is an important question to ask anyone that you are purchasing bees from, ask them, “what type of box do you raise your nucs in?”  Quality beekeeping requires the beekeeper to invest money to produce high quality bees.  Budget beekeeping equals low quality bees.  Some fundamentals cannot be ignored.

Wax corrugated boxes are designed for taking your nuc from the bee farm to your home.  It is not meant to house the bees for a period of a week or more.