**Continue to super as needed (wishful thinking most likely. Will be happy to get them up to 3 deeps.)
5. Come July purchase a carniolan queen. Take an Italian queen and put in nuc. Put carni in original hive.**
How you going to accomplish your goals in the time frame --starting package when -may 1---july
the way i read this you already got bees for splits and surplus honey---in two maybe three months
need to fine tune plan 8-)--what are your goals?? are you hopping to make lots of increase of colonies
or are you hopping for a honey crop-- drawn comb is a big limiting factor-must have plenty drawn comb
:) heres some ideas for increase--overzealous in my book but theory has merit
http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf :)RDY-B
Ya I am certain it is. Again I would rather be aware of what my procedure is going to be if I get to that point. I am trying to get my plan set for his year, but also trying to tease out what my standard procedure will be. So if things seem a bit off as far as expectations please don't think that I am completely clueless. I do understand that my goals are lofty, but I do hope that giving each hive about a box and a half of already drawn comb and some capped honey will give them a good head start. Others in my area told me that a new nuc in the spring have the potential to give me a 100 lb harvest. Maybe that's on drawn comb, but the gentleman knew that I was new.
Just because it keeps coming up about what my goals are I will prioritize them in descending order from most important to least important.
- have 8 strong colonies going into October with low mite counts
-build up my 8 packages to 3 deeps.
-get maybe a medium or two of honey total not per hive
- get one or two nucs made before August started with bought in mated queens
- rear queens If nothing else just to learn
Again I understand that not all of these things will happen. Since these are of varying importance to me I will make sure the top goal is sure to be accomplished before I move down to the next. If I don't even manage to attain the first goal I would still like to set some goals and priorities. Rearing queens seems practically unattainable as does making nucs, but I would do it if I had the ability.
So another question, how strong would a colony have to be to pull a frame of brood and bees off of it? Two full 8 frame deeps? Three full 8 frame deeps?
Also as to the three deep tower, the way I figure it is if I use three 8 frame deeps I will have 24 combs. If I use two 10 frame deeps I have 20. If I only use two 8 frame deeps I only have 16 frames. I would rather have the extra 4 combs than be short 4 compared to others in the area. I also figure it would give me more spring flexibility. I have the ability to give bees two directions to expand their brood nest, above and below. They can expand as they wish, but will have plenty of space to do so.
Then next year my goals assuming some winter survivability would look like this.
-have 10 strong colonies going into october with low mite counts.
-build up hives to three deeps.
-2-4 mediums of honey total.
-rear queens using cloake board
- use queens to create 4-6 nucs.
- get more honey than allotted above
This will surely depend on the quality and quantity of hives that make it through the next winter. If they all die I will likely revert to my previous goals. If I only have one or two hives make it I will have to change my quantity of hives going into winter decreased as I am not sure I could convince my wife that buying this many packages every year is economically feasible, but would still be able to rear queens and make splits from wintered stock.