Thanks,  Bob.  I have a few additional questions.

>>7 hives made it to spring in great shape.

Do you overwinter in singles or doubles?

>>By the time we left for a  
visit to Ireland in late April they had grown to 3 deeps each. 

Do you feed pollen/syrup or is the build-up natural?  Do you super at this time?

>>Before we left I had to split 3 because they would have swarmed by  
the time we returned 2 weeks later.  I gave each a deep box of  
foundation to replace the box of bees and brood I took away for the  
"walk away splits".

Do you get good drones in your area this early?  Are you satisfied with your early queens?

>>Later in May I used queen cells to make 8 nucs...

Would these be swarm cells?

>>...and 3 full box splits out of 6 of the 7 hives leaving 4 as singles  
and 3 doubles with their original queens.

When you reduce from 3 deeps down to 1 or 2, do you then use queen excluders or not?

>>At the end of the basswood/ sweet clover flow 2 weeks ago the 7 original hives had 43 medium  
supers on(several with 7 each).

Did some of the 43 supers come off of the splits, too?

>>I extracted 20 this past weekend  
producing 235kg (518#) of liquid and 12 kg (26#) of cut comb.

So your extracted supers averaged about 27 lbs each.  Assuming the other supers have about the same, you'll yield some 1,200 lbs of honey.  That's very good.  Is this all from a stationary apiary or do you move your hives?

>>If the autumn is as good as the spring and summer have been, this year looks  
to be a great year for honey production here.  Except the last 2  
rainy years my annual average is 150# per producing hive with one or  
more hives each year topping 300# mostly singles

How much swarming drive do you see with your singles?  I assume you use queen excluders.

Waldemar

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