Hello from another central iowa beek. I have over the years asked your dad questions as i was beginning. Ieven visited your mating yard 100yd behind his house. Do you ever have much problems with newly mated queens not getting back to the correct nuc or drifting problems with workers. It seemed to me your nucs were plenty close together. Thanks for your response.

Dan

Thanks for the comment Dan. I still have the mating yard in the pasture behind the house. It's true that I have the nucs very close together. I sit three four-frame nucs on grocery pallets that have been cut in half, although I do make the entrance of the middle nuc face the opposite direction from the other two. I'll take a couple of pictures to put in my next post to make the layout more clear.

Overall, I've found that the virgins are much better at finding their homes after their mating flights than I might have suspected. I've read that 75-80% successful mating is reasonable, and that's what I usually manage with decent weather. So, I put them close together for easier management instead of spacing them widely. I might lose a few queens but I save a lot of time.

As for drifting, it's hard for me to really gauge because the brood cycles in the nucs vary quite a bit. If a virgin doesn't take in one of the nucs, it means that there is a longer break in egg-laying. I always end up walking around balancing the nucs, but I suppose it seems to have more to do with mating issues. Successful matings mean the nuc gets recharged with fresh brood on its own, otherwise I often have to do it through my redistributions in the nuc yard.