Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => RAPID BEEYARD GROWTH => Topic started by: giant pumpkin peep on August 24, 2009, 10:31:51 pm
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Ok... I only have one hive. My plan is to grow to 5 next year considering I can make a split if my current hive survives. Then I plan to make up 8 or so styrofoam nucs. there was a presentation on them at the bee club meeting. Take a frame of brood and either introduce a mated queen or put in a soo to hatch queen cell a few weeks earlier. I might be able to get deeps from a beek who was too many for cheap. 8-)
Like the forum mod said. everything is relative. I wouldn't mind being to 20 hives in 2 years.
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Yes, all possible -- I would count on some losses, especially being new at it. :)
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If your planning on making your 1 hive into 5 in one year by splitting it, I believe you are being a little optimistic.
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1 hive into 5 in one year
That isn't my plan. I was thinking of starting 3 new packages next year. If ( a bif "if") my hive survives I will make a split of it. then I would have my origanal hive, the split and 3 packages. Of course there will be losses.
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That sounds like a very reasonable plan then. If your current hive survives the winter I would highly suggest waiting until after the honey flow to do the split. That way you can get some honey and still get your split. A lot of folks do splits as soon as the hive builds up and ruin their chances of a honey crop. I use polystyrene nucs to over winter and really like them. They really retain the heat, and the bees build up much better. good luck...
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That sounds like a very reasonable plan then. If your current hive survives the winter I would highly suggest waiting until after the honey flow to do the split. That way you can get some honey and still get your split. a lot of folks do splits as soon as the hive builds up and ruin their chances of a honey crop. I use polystyrene nucs to over winter and really like them. They really retain the heat, and the bees build up much better. good luck...
I'm starting to think that keeping lots of nucs is a good strategy for a sustainable bee yard. I would be interested in hearing input from you and others who actually do it as to why you keep lots of nucs.
Do you keep nucs mostly for backup against loss, a basis for comparison of different queens, source of brood and other resources, general increase - or other strategies?
I know that you rear queens, so I assume that you populate your nucs with the best offspring of your best queens.
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It's best to let the bees decide. A stronger split will build up faster. So actually making an even split several times often has better results than several small splits earlier.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#accountfordrift