Hi all

What is left out of these calculations is the total honey gotten and also the amount of labor getting it. By dividing the colonies in the spring and requeening them, one can increase the total amount of honey obtained compared to not dividing nor requeening. 

Just letting the colonies take off sometimes works and sometimes leads to swarming and/or duds, hence the longstanding recommendation to requeen annually. 

This year my bees overwintered well, had an awesome spring flow, and a so-so summer. We got an average of about 220#. Now, if I had split the hives after the spring flow and requeened I wager I would have done better. 

They spent a lot of the summer sitting there whereas had I doubled the count and introduced new queens, that could have built up and made the same average on the fall flow, yielding twice as much honey in the fall. Ie., a lower average, but a higher total.

PLB

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