>If the population is stable (which it is for the most part)  and a split at least once every year,  you have to almost count that as 50% loss don’t you??


Charles - Can you explain what you mean by splits being counted as a loss?  

Well that’s the tricky part!  Not sure the best way to count!

Every year I split my hives  In my case usually twice,  but I can do a third if I forgo honey,

So  like this year roughly 350 from almonds returning,  I will shake 200 packages or so to sell,  then I will split each hive in half a week or two later,(as brood hatches)   so now I sold 200 packages,  and I have 700 hives.  I will let those sit thru April and may and 350 will get split again.  So now I am at roughly 1000.  512 go to cranberries,  the rest honey production.  But I am right around that 1000 number by mid June


Come fall,  1/2 thoise cranberry hives are gone.  And I am back to about 600 hives,  by almond time I am down to 450 enough for a load to CA again.  By the time they move 2 times  I am back to 3-400  so what is my loss???  You could say zero since I am back where I started,  or you could claim 60% depending on how you want to view it.  Is it a loss if I knew it was not going to survive all the stress?

If it were not for these losses,  you couldn’t give bees away.  There would be so many!    This is typical of what many of us do In some form or another.  The pictures vary a lot, and of course some years we have really bad numbers where that  low number dies off bigger than we planned.

Yes,  I COULD keep my numbers up,  spend more money on them,  give up cranberries,  nurse the weak ones,  and re queen more, but it doesn’t fit the model I really want.  I don’t want 3 guys working year round on my bees,  and that’s about all I can handle.

Charles

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