On 8/27/2011 9:38 PM, Richard Stewart wrote:
> My question is, can a bee keeper run an operation that accepts the loss, assuming a three year cycle of mite free to collapse and replace its losses with non-purchased splits.  I think it can.
>    


I've been looking at what other beekeepers do to run sustainable 
apiaries, and comparing that to what I do. I hope this helps to give you 
some good ideas.

  I make nucleus colonies in mid summer and winter them. They never need 
to be treated for varroa, and become the building blocks for the 
following season. They can be used to re-stock deadouts, expand the 
apiary. Each spring, a number are held back to be expanded onto 
additional brood combs. These become what I call "brood factories". This 
harvested brood can be used for stocking cell builders, boosting slow 
production colonies, and then be divided into nucleus colonies to be 
wintered over. Nucs providing the nucs for the following season. I raise 
all my own queens from colonies that have performed at the top of their 
class.

Others approach the management a bit differently.

A Pennsylvania beekeeper....

 >>Mike,

I received the queens in good shape and had them installed by 3PM.  I 
heard from the others in the study and they received theirs as well, 
thanks again.

I have found that very few beekeepers actually raise their own stock.  
It seems there are many who are great beekeepers in the meetings, but, 
in the field is a different story.

For the past 11 years I have been doing exactly what you have 
described.  About 6 or 7 years ago I began to "Palmerize" my weaker 
hives in the spring to make my mating nucs and for the past 6 or 7 years 
have raised between 150 and 200 queens per season.  I use these queens 
for my own use as well as sell some to local beekeepers.  I will 
generally buy a dozen or so queens each year from a select group to keep 
diversity in my stock.  You may have read the June ABJ article where it 
describes how I have removed the queens during the start of the honey 
flow to break the brood cycle of the mites and have been chemical free 
since 1999.  I no longer worry much about mite as my stock seems to be 
able to keep them in check on their own.

My typical season I double the State average for production but find 
extracting honey to be a real pain but I have built a decent following 
and if it is not on the self my phone starts to ring.

In the fall I convert my mating nucs into five on five nucs and will 
feed syrup, if necessary, to build the population and stores.

I run about 75 colonies into the winter and my losses have been 
averaging about 15-20% for the past 5+ years.  I typically will have 
about 25 colonies I use for honey/drone production each season and 
produce 2500-3000 lbs.<<

A North Carolina beekeeper...

Hey Mike,

Basically it's this.  I describe it with 6, but 3, or 12 or any multiple 
of 6 would work:

Six full hives and six nucs (in my area a deep AND a medium brood 
chamber with a top feeder for each) - nucs produced from reverse splits 
(one from each hive) after the honey flow in late summer go thru the 
winter.  The strong hive (with the new queen) makes the wax to replace 
the donated frames that fall with sugar syrup feeding. During the 
broodless period right after the new queens have mated (after she starts 
laying but before capped brood) a single Dowda sugar dusting can drop a 
lot of mites from that colony and very few mites are transferred into 
the nuc with the old girl (personally I don't do anything for Varroa - 
or treat for anything at all ever but I've thought that broodless period 
in the parent colony would be a great time if you were so inclined). The 
nuc isn't attacked by SHBs because it's queenright and the queen rearing 
hive is too strong with bees.  And both the nucs and the original colony 
have at least two brood sets prior to winter to expand the overwintering 
bees population.  I feed dry MegaBee as SHBs don't lay eggs on it like 
moist pollen patties.

If 4 hives and 2 or 3 nucs survive (average winter), expand the 
surviving nucs in the early spring to remake the 6 hives.  Then make and 
sell/share more nucs from the strong survivors to neighboring beekeepers 
that spring (utilizing the other survivors as drone providers).

If more colonies make it thru the winter you have more splits to make 
and sell so that you stay at your original number (6).

With a devastating winter, say only 2 hives and 2 nucs make it, you 
expand the 2 nucs and split each of the two hives to get to 6, but you 
won't have any nucs to sell.

One spring, after the horrible winter of 2009-2010 (almost 80% loss), I 
begged the previous year's nuc recipients for a frame or two of 
eggs/brood to make my spring nucs from and kind of "kept it in the 
family" if you will...  (They were happy to oblige as the bees I sold 
them were busting out)

I also like to incorporate 1 or 2 locally-purchased queens per year in 
addition to the ones I rear via splits.  I like a constant slow influx 
of free-mated Carni VSHs.  These queens can be used to replace poorly 
functioning queens in the middle of the season or mating failures in the 
reverse split colonies in the fall.

Hey Mike,
I'm sorry.  I knew it wouldn't be understandable.  What I call a reverse 
split is removing the old queen, a fair amount of empty drawn comb, a 
little nectar/honey, some bee bread, some open brood and clinging nurse 
bees, and very little capped brood on 5 or 10 frames (either 5 deep or 5 
medium initially and then add another 5 frames from the same donor 
colony later or all 10 frames right up front) into the split and letting 
the original donor colony both raise the new queen AND build the new 
comb (10 no foundation frames).  Thus the split has an established 
queen, all the resources to build up her nuc to get thru the winter, 
very few varroa mites, and can't be overcome by SHBs during feeding. The 
original donor colony has all the resources to build comb, rear a queen, 
and goes thru a capped-broodless period wherein the bees can deal with 
the varroa mites.

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