Dave

We do what I can best describe as a mini yard trashing using those bee brief nuc boxes to do 4 frames splits.  We let them produce their own queens, all with mixed results.  Data gets shaky here as I will admit that I have dropped the ball keeping on on accurate data.  We have a roughly 60 to 70% natural queen product.

We also harvest  swarm and supercedure cells rather than cull them and do 2 frame "nucs" in those Queen castles.  Again mixed success here.  It controls swarming and we get 50% to 60% return on the effort so far there.  This is where we get into an area that I am still lacking any skill at all in.  Part of the problem is that I doing a bee operation a PART of an entire business model and sometimes getting 3 thousand pounds of potatoes harvested that day interferes.  I am changing how we do labor on our farm by hiring two people to help, one in bees and one in produce so I am hoping that I rectify this issue and get better at this.  I think we have a good working, very rough model.

I've bought batches of queens twice with an almost similar success rate.  Again, this could be attributed to my experience more than anything else.  I am completely honest to recognize that.

I think its important to understand that my goal is to develop a small scale local honey and pollen business and that is manageable as PART of a diversified business plan.

I am not in an isolated location being with yards stretching from diversified mixed use land (park and agriculture to inner city of Cincinnati).  I am also in a county with probably the highest or second number of beekeepers in the State.  Of course, with no bee inspector any more (county budget cuts and an Ohio Department of AG that cares little about bees...unless it gets Federal dollars as a result).

On a side note, I am wondering is there has been any research done in overwinter hives and height of overhead honey stores vs survival rate.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com
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On Jan 23, 2011, at 12:52 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Richard,  What do you do about queens?  Do you let the splits  raise their 
> own queen or do you purchase mated queens or queen cells?  What  number of 
> colonies did you start with and what number do you have now after how  many 
> years.  When you split, how many frames (deeps?) do you use to make  the 
> splits?
> 
> I am in an "isolated"  location.  
> 
> 
> Dave MacFawn
> 
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