Hello Keith
Thanks for the input and I agree completely that beekeeping has changed 180 degrees.   We do invest much time effort and dollars into the average hive and have never prepared as hard for the trip as this fall.   But things are just different environmentally between California and everything east of the Sierras clear to the east coast if you are as far North as Kansas.   We have had to choose in the past, when pollination prices were below $75.00 whether we would go to almonds or just stay here and make a honey crop.   If I can stay here, we can accomplish the task of prividing honey to our customers and maybe selling nucs and run the whole gamut for a package production total of well in excess of $ 75.00 per hive.   The trip to California is not without its costs and when you face the loss of 2/3 rds of your production units, there is no replacing those lost dollars.   We do not have the weather to produce large booming hives in the fall no matter the amount of syrup and pollen that are put into the equation.   Our wintering bees are raised in August and September and after October 15th when the bottom falls out of our Average Daily Temps, you can't bribe a Russian Queen or Carniolan and most Italians to go against their instinctual guidelines and continue rearing brood.   Yes, we always have a few Italians that go on and maybe we need to be breeding from these for future pollinators but these have their problems as well in that they make treating for mites a continual battle.    Often times these monster hives crash during the first month of warm weather and will often dissappoint you the most.   I've seen small clusters deal with the mites and viruses much better that build up and surpass these large overwintering hives due to the queens just not reinitiating egg laying functions after the winter solstice, due to the large numbers of old bees in the boxes, bees that will be dying in mass in February.  We don't go out to the area where our bees were placed in November due to the cold weather there.  Most of December and January it was warmer in southern Kansas than it was in Sacramento and Modesto.   Last year would have been a nightmare wintering there.  If wintering in California, I wouldn't do it much farther North than just North of Bakersfield.  But we could talk of the difficulties and strategies for the next few years and not resolve this issue.  
 Nobody was expecting just to drop, run and collect 150 dollars for the effort. 
 Nobody I knew with enough hives to send, spent a minute less than what we felt necessary to keep the bees in    their best condition possible.  This is how we make a living and we hope to continue doing so.
 Nobody I knew was expecting the bar being set so high that there just was no way an out of state colony would make the grade.  We did what we had to do, since the bees were arriving daily and that was to combine like crazy and this undid much hard work and the costs are horrendous.    I now have  work to do that would never have been required in years past.   In stead of working here getting ready for the return of the bees in late March, I am trying to find the right time to book another flight back to help manage  these combined units that will be hanging in the trees by mid-March if we don't work to prevent it.    You used to be able to come out of the almonds and go to Texas, make 3 to 1 splits and still make it home for the nectar flow.   But now that's all changed and splits will have to be made in the almonds.  So were spending lots of dollars on the bees this year and the returns aren't there to justify the Investment of Equity.   If I had to sell this program to a banker he'd split a side laughing and I'd probably join in.    Wish I had some dollars left so you could shake some bees for me and fill my empties sitting out there, but you probably wouldn't do that just now!  Do you take Discover?  
Tim

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---