When I moved here, the garage contained a waterlogged, rotten old plywood workbench that I ripped out right away. It was super gross, but there were still a few pieces of wood that looked salvageable. I let it dry out really well and was able to turn what was left into two lovely little nuc boxes!

Since I don’t have any nucleus colonies to house in them right now, I’ve set them up as swarm traps. They each contain five medium frames that have been worked on by my bees last year (so they smell good to scout bees), and a lure, which is just a drop or two of lemongrass oil on a q-tip, in a small plastic bag.

They’re a bit small to be ideal swarm traps at 20 litres, as bees prefer a volume of about 40 litres (the size of a deep brood box), but it can’t hurt to try! Ideally, you want them in a sunny location at least ten feet up off the ground. I check mine every day and I love that I can make something useful out of something that seemed destined for the burn pile! I’ll post the exact measurements and instructions on how to build this nuc box at a later date, stay tuned!