Hi All
 
On the topic of gaining rapid increase through splits there have been
a lot of really good posts and cautionary advice.
 
Speaking as a beekeeper who is at that stage where attempting to
increase rapidly is a possible choice, and I have a lot less to lose
here in the warm south (if my bees die, swarms will move into the
bodies for free next spring at no extra cost) but have some other
perspectives.
 
There are two places where this approach will come seriously short.
No wax and no drones for mating queens.
 
In a beehive, in my opinion, the most difficult and expensive thing
to get as a starter is drawn comb - at present I have ten hives that
I feed extensively for the single purpose of comb production. Once
one has comb, increase is simple if one has good queens.
 
Now to draw wax, bees have an exponential ability to make the stuff
the more bees there are (I think it's to do with heat generation and
some other things).
 
Little nucs make bad comb manufacturers. A two body hive with 15-17
frames brood will draw a frame in a day if it is being fed. The same
hives queen can easily fill such a frame in a day and a half. A nuc
will take a week or more to draw a frame - thats a weeks eggs lost
because no laying space.
 
So my strategy for increase is to have a number of good hives
producing brood frames and then to do full hive body split and add a
reared queen. A full hive body split will be able to move into two
bodies far faster than a nuc into a single even. (It helps of course
if you have a large supply of dirty honey to feed your bees from bee
removals as is my case - note this is not such a good idea if
diseases are prevalent in your area)
 
Secondly, if you are rearing queens in an area with only weak nucs
lying around, your queens will have access to few drones. Before one
begins queen rearing, one needs to give a few good hives about a
month and a bits good feeding to get them rearing drones. If you can
lift out the end frame on each side of the hive and it is covered
with a layer 2cm deep of drones, you will have a better chance of
producing good queens. (In my area there are so many feral clonies
drone availability is no problem, but I want to skew the natural
population with 'desireable traits') Drones take ages to rear.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
Eastern Cape Prov.
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
If parents taught kids about the birds and bees, guys would believe they were half the women they used to be!!
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