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Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:14:59 -0500 |
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>I can easily make four 10-frame honey producers full of
>brood by late May out of one hive coming back from almonds in mid March.
> So your figure of 10 is certainly realistic as far as simply making
>increase.
In the south, but in the north it is different due to a shorter splitting season
and also the longer, tougher winters. Where splits are wintered inside, the
latter can be mitigated a bit, but nothing can compensate for the shorter
and less predictable growing season, except possibly the longer days in
the far north, and in that case, the risks of late and early frost outweigh
the benefit.
As we move north the season shortens considerably. Southern Ontario and
Upper New York State have almost two more months of bee season than
Southern Alberta and that allows for one extra round of splitting. Moreover
the wintered bees there are younger and stronger in the first place. And
even then many beekeepers take their bees south where they can get even
more splitting cycles in with less risk.
The joker in our deck is that we never know whether our season ends in the
third week of August or the end of October -- until after it is over.
A late frost can destroy splits made too small one year while other years they
do fine.
We have to ask, "Do we feel lucky?" Picking up dead splits the following spring is
depressing, especially when we know that if we had been a little less daring,
we would have had more bees. Getting greedy can pay sometimes, but it can
also cost, big time.
So, the risk of large losses tends to make northern beekeepers somewhat
conservative when it come to splits.
The rule of thumb I have observed over time in my region is that the successful
producers arrange to either buy a number of packages equal to 10% of their
producing hives each year or make up and winter that number of splits the
previous year. Otherwise splitting impacts the production too much.
This applies to those who winter in place. Those who migrate to warmer
climes for winter and spring tend to have an excess of bees.
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