Cam wrote: 
>I guess I am in a minority, but I quit early packages as few years back. That year was a late spring [like this one] and I had about 20 late March >packages. They were just sitting there for a few weeks, basically doing very little besides raising a little brood and eating my sugar and patties. I >bought about 15 late April packages and I found them to build up very fast, and actually some of them outperformed the early packages in >honey. That will much less sugar and pollen sub [and much less work]. So now I get them and late April and am very happy with the results. I >like the packages to come around dandelion bloom. Seems to work best for me.

Don’t know, if you are in the minority or not, Cam.  In years past, when I got packages, they were almost always not available until the second half of April or even later, depending on the weather, so I had no choice.  They usually did OK, but often missed the first real flow and didn’t produce very much the first year (although I have had strong packages produce three medium supers by fall in a good year).  After the bear attacks last year (quick recap: broke my foot in August, on crutches, didn’t maintain electric fence, brush grew up and shorted fence, first successful bear attacks (2) in almost 15 years), I realized late in the season that the hives that had been hit were in trouble with some, apparently, queenless and others with what appeared to be dysentery.  So, as a precaution, I ordered a few packages as soon as they became available after the New Year (and I did lose colonies, so am glad I planned ahead).  This guy had the earliest delivery date I could find.  I figured that the date would probably slip, as it often does, and so would not see packages until April, anyway.  As it turns out, the bees were on time in a year with one of those never-ending winters (looking at more accumulating snow this Friday).  

It’s all good.  Didn’t want to have to do any spring splits to build back up, and now I’m where I want to be count-wise.  Will be interesting to see, if the hives from packages build up early, or, as you experienced, just sort of languish for a while.  Beekeeping for me, I’ve come to realize over the years, is just one, long experiment.

Bill
Claremont, NH US
New England perspective: Visitor, "Lived in this town all your life?”  Local, “No, not yet.”

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html