Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Bee yard growth rate.  (Read 4610 times)

Offline greg zechman

  • New Bee
  • *
  • Posts: 4
Re: Bee yard growth rate.
« Reply #20 on: April 12, 2013, 11:56:51 am »
RAY ..THAT SOUNDS GREAT ABOUT THE EXPANSION.....IT SOUNDS LIKE THE PLAN HAS GONE INTO GEAR....GREG

Offline rubeehaven2

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 56
Re: Bee yard growth rate.
« Reply #21 on: April 13, 2013, 09:19:04 am »
That is some fast growing!  Now you have caused me to re-think splitting my hives.  I started with two packages last year and both survived their first winter, and look strong going into the spring.  Though, spring hasn't exactly sprung here in NY yet!

But, I was told if I want honey this year, NOT to split.  If I split the hives, the hives will essentially be building stores to survive the next winter.  So, they probably won't have any surplus honey.  This seems to make sense, but the hives are starting out much stronger and much earlier than they did last year as packages.  (And, they had more than enough stores for the winter)  So, now I am thinking they should be able to do both, be split AND be able to harvest honey.


Thanks, Rich

Offline Finski

  • Galactic Bee
  • ******
  • Posts: 3928
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bee yard growth rate.
« Reply #22 on: April 13, 2013, 09:32:45 am »


But, I was told if I want honey this year, NOT to split.  If I split the hives, the hives will essentially be building stores to survive the next winter.  So, they probably won't have any surplus honey.  This seems to make sense, but the hives are starting out much stronger and much earlier than they did last year as packages.  (And, they had more than enough stores for the winter)  So, now I am thinking they should be able to do both, be split AND be able to harvest honey.


I have nursed bees 50 years, and I can say that no one can learn beekeeping so fast that next year you are able to evaluate what is strong, and what is not.

Let the two hives grow to full size that you can learn what normal hive does during one year. When you have learned that, you are able to foresee, what bees are going to do next. They are wild animals and they do what ever.

Your duty as beekeeper is to try lead them to some direction, but inside the limits of their natural instincts.

Package hive is like a small swarm. It does not teach much.

In normal hive nursing you must learn how

- the colony builds up in spring
- how long it takes to be ready to forage
- how handle swarming time
- how expand the hive and make frames and foundations
- how handle honey yield
- how prepare them to wintering
- how handle mites and diseases
- how to sell honey and how to handle yield for selling

You may be greedy and then you loose everything.
It happens even in better families.

It would be good if you get an experienced beekeeper friend nearby. You save a lot with that friendship.


If you have several hives, it teaches more because hives do not react  same way


« Last Edit: April 13, 2013, 11:03:40 am by Finski »
.
Language barrier NOT included

Offline tefer2

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 2318
  • Gender: Male
Re: Bee yard growth rate.
« Reply #23 on: April 13, 2013, 09:38:21 am »
That's a great post Finski!   :goodpost:

Offline RHBee

  • Queen Bee
  • ****
  • Posts: 1095
  • Gender: Male
  • That's my pooch.
Re: Re: Bee yard growth rate.
« Reply #24 on: April 13, 2013, 01:09:37 pm »
Bravo Finski, That was well put. You are right all around. I am hard pushed to keep up with this growth in numbers. I seriously considered your advice about selling or even giving away a few colonies just so I  wouldn't neglect to properly care for these wonderful creatures. I don't want anyone to misunderstand when I first posted this thread I was in the "Holy Crap" mode.
That day there were 5 swarms in my back yard of those I was able to only catch 3. I was in a mad scramble to distribute the resources that I had on hand to house the increase. If you guys reread that post in light of what I've just told you it is almost comical. To add to the mayhem, one of my neighbors walked over, through a cloud of bees, and got stung twice.  Once on the arm and once under his right eye. Lucky for me he was a really good sport and pretty tough. I think he's 75 yrs old he said something about that he probably shouldn't have done that.
Now that everyone has had a good chuckle. I have come to grips with what I have to do. My friends this means work and time management. I finish my last graveyard shift tonight and do my first inspections in 4 different locations in a 30 mile loop. I couldn't keep all those bees in my backyard there were just to many. It truly is a labor of love but it's still labor. Some of these colonies are pretty small just like a 3lb package so if I'm gonna build them up their going to need extra care. I still have 5 hives in the back yard. Two strong and the three weakest I have two Russian queens coming from Charley Harper next week so this should be fun.
 Guys I found that making splits is just as easy as everyone says. Wait until you have mature drones then split your hives in half giving both halves resources to raise a queen. They do the rest. If you keep them in the same yard you have to do a couple more manipulations to equal out population. Temperature and weather can really mess you up so make sure to look ahead as much as possible and wait until things are kinda stable. I hope I didn't say anything to incredibly stupid this is just my second year you know.

Sent from my SPH-L300 using Tapatalk 2
Later,
Ray

 

anything