Really in West Virginia I have found lots of SURPLUS honey and just need
more
>surplus time to work my hives.
>Russ Dean


Then I believe you could have more colonies per yard, and yards closer than
4 - 5 miles apart. I feel that since you state that you make "lots of
surplus" that with such small yards (12 colonies) and so far apart, that
lack of surplus would be a beekeeping problem, not an available forage
problem. I would think you should increase the number of colonies per yard
to take advantage of the resource available. Adding 10 more colonies would
have no effect on per colony average, and would make your operation more
efficient by eliminating driving time between yards.

         That said, I must admit that really large yards are sometimes a
pain. The drive between yards can be a welcome diversion from being in the
same location all day...ie the yard I had with 400 colonies in the spring
of 1999. These bees came back from Florida at the end of April, and had to
be got ready for the orchard by bloom time. While I could inspect many
colonies a day...equalizing, making splits, etc...I was sure ready for a
change by the end of the week.

Mike






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