Wood strips frame for Kieler nuc

01 · THE GROOVE GUIDES THE WAX

A Kieler takes a strip, not a full sheet

The central groove is the whole mechanism of the piece: it holds the strip of foundation straight while you fix it, which is what you appreciate when preparing several frames in a row for a mating run. A mini-nucleus is not after a full comb — it is after the colony drawing just enough, quickly and in the right place, with as few bees as possible. A tidy build helps that; the outcome of the mating, by contrast, depends on the queen, the drones, the weather, the population and your management, not on the bar.

02 · BAR, WOODEN FRAME OR PLASTIC?

Three ways to fill the same slot

Worth knowing there are alternatives before ordering a hundred bars. This is the loose part, for anyone assembling the frame themselves and wanting the lowest cost. If you would rather not assemble anything, we stock the complete wooden frame and the plastic frame, both at a little over three times the price but ready to fit. With the whole Kieler system in the catalogue — nucleus and super included — the choice is purely time against money: building them yourself costs a third, and building them takes a while.

03 · BEFORE YOU BUY

Count how many frames your Kieler holds and multiply: it is sold by the unit and at this price the temptation is to come up short. The indicated size is 170 × 25 × 10 mm approximately; if you need the exact figure for your own joinery, ask us and we will measure it. And if you build several, do them all to the same pattern — in a mating run, checking twenty identical nuclei is quick and checking twenty different ones is not.