Allen requested a bit more history and context on subject bees.

I was forced into keeping bees because the area South of McAlester 
was void of bees, including bumble bees, in 2003 and 2004 requiring 
me to hand pollinate squash and cucumber plants.  I joined a local 
beekeeping club in January 2005 and found a mentor who sold me two 
bee colonies in April headed by recently purchased Wilbanks' 
queens.  In August, my mentor determined that one of the Wilbanks' 
queen was failing and replaced her with his survivor queen propagated 
from a colony removed from a tree in 2000.  The original cut-out 
colony and subsequent split were not treated for mites during the 
five year period because the colonies always produced 3-4 medium 
supers of honey, annually.  My mentor treats colonies for varroa 
mites with Apistan or Checkmite strips in late July and early August 
when a colony fails to produce 2 supers of honey.

In February of 2006, the survivor colony was moved to my cattle 
ranch, 25 miles North of McAlester and 3.5 miles West of Indianola 
about 1/2 mile from the South Canadian River.  Later, in early April 
about 3 days before Black Locust trees bloomed, the colony was split 
using the cut-down method whereby the queen, open brood, pollen and 
some honey are moved to another stand about 10 feet away and the 
capped brood, workers and remaining honey remained on the original 
stand.  The colony on the original stand reared a queen and filled a 
second deep hivebody along with producing 3 medium supers of 
honey.  The colony with the old queen filled a second deep hivebody 
and produced 2 medium supers of honey.  Also, in February 2006, I 
worked a deal with my mentor to acquire 10 of his colonies which I 
took to my Indianola cattle ranch.  A cut-down split was performed on 
these 10 hives in early April with the old queens, open brood, pollen 
and some honey returning to the mentor's apiary; and the remaining 
splits with the worker bees, capped brood and remaining honey stayed 
at my ranch to rear new queens.  None of these hives were treated for 
varroa mites after they were moved to my ranch.  Two of the 10 hives 
were very aggressive; and, in April 2007, I decided to requeen 
them.  However, I wasn't able to find the queens because the bees 
covered my veil obscuring my vision. Since each hive had two deep 
hivebodies and a super filled with brood, each box of brood was moved 
about 10 feet away and placed on an individual bottom board with a 
top cover.  A deep hivebody with foundation, a frame of eggs from the 
survivor colony and top cover was placed on the bottom board where 
each aggressive colony sat, requiring the field workers to rear a new 
gentle queen.  After a week, queen cells were destroyed in each box 
of brood from the aggressive hives, with the medium super being 
combined with a deep hivebody and given a frame of eggs from the 
survivor colony.  The two aggressive queens were killed in remaining 
two boxes; and, after a week the capped queen cells were destroyed 
whereby each box was given a frame of eggs from the survivor colony.

In the Spring of 2007, the deephive bodies were reversed and a honey 
super added on top to deter swarming. In May and June 2007, I used 
Dave Cushman's method for making increases using one of the survivor 
queens and the remaining 8 hives from my mentor plus the second survivor hive.
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman/method1.html
However, the learning curve was steep; but, I managed to produce 17 
nucs headed by a new survivor queen. These survivor colony nucs were 
given to my mentor to replace some of his hive losses.   The parent 
hives produced very little honey requiring 2:1 sugar water to survive 
the Winter and early Spring.  Two of the 8 remaining mentor hives 
died over the winter.  The 8 survivor colonies survived the winter.

Again in 2008, hivebodies were reversed and honey supers added to 
deter swarming.  Each of the 8 survivor colonies produced 3-4 supers 
of honey and the remaining 6 mentor colonies produced fewer supers of 
honey.  No splits were made.  If there were any swarms or 
supercedures, all virgin queens were mated and returned to their 
hives. All colonies went into Winter with adequate honey stores and 
did not require any sugar water.  Two more of the mentor hives died 
during the Winter; however, the 8 survivor hives survived the winter.

Again in 2009, hivebodies were reversed and honey supers added to 
deter swarming.  More rainfall than normal fell from May through 
October resulting in very little honey production for all 
colonies.  One survivor colony hive lost their queen resulting in 
drone layers. Only good part about the year was an abundant hay crop, 
9 tons of  bermudagrass hay per acre.  Two of the mentor colonies 
were requeened with two of the survivor queens and allowing the two 
survivor colonies to rear queens. Majority of the hives were light on 
Winter stores requiring 4-5 gallons of 2-1 sugar water per hive.

In 2010, hivebodies were reversed and honey supers added to deter 
swarming.  One survivor colony chimneyed up through the two honey 
super to the top, freezing to death head-first in cells with frames 
of honey on both sides.  One survivor hive was split three-ways in 
late March, resulting in an increase of two survivor hives.  Three of 
the survivor colonies were taken out of honey production to produce 
queen cells for nucs.  The learning curve was again steep until I got 
a handle on the math of queen cell production using a cell builder 
hive.  I finally managed to cut-out 6 queen cells for placement in 6 
nucs which each successfully resulting in a mated queen.  Two of nucs 
were added to my ranch apiary and four were sold to other 
beekeepers.  Hopefully, in 2011, a greater number of queen cells can 
be produced to sell to local beekeepers.  The survivor colonies 
remaining in honey production produced either 3 or 4 medium supers of 
honey.  One super of honey was left on each hive incase El Nino 
produces a warmer and drier Winter than normal resulting in the 
colonies consuming more winter stores than normal.  Except for the 
nucs, all colonies have about 100 pounds of winter stores and should 
not require any sugar water.  Only one of the mentor hives continues 
to survive after 4 years without any mite treatment.

The nearest beekeeper to my ranch is 4 miles South.

Mike, if I can get up to speed on producing and mailing queens, I'll 
contact you.

Jim Young 

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