Evening Randy

Are you responsible for the above average temps and the Santa Ana winds 
we're getting on the northern prairies?  Enjoying the temps, but you 
could have left the winds in California.

>What is (are) the limiting factor?

Biggest one, is length of season. Our window for splitting is at most 6 weeks, most years less than that.  Assuming that the parent colony is to remain a producer,  you're not going to have much surplus brood until the 3rd - 4th week of May.  On years with a cold spring, the 1st week of June.   Main honey flow starts 1st - 7th July.  Sooner, if farmers got the conola in early.  Window just got smaller.We have had killing frost the first week of Aug. Usually get it by the first of Sept., but has been know to stay away until the end of that month.  Even if the flow is waning in early Aug. we don't know how much time we have then.

June is the time for splitting and you only have so much brood if the parent is still going to make a crop.

>Is it simply that they can't put on
enough stores for overwintering, or what?


Most years a bigger problem is keeping them from jamming out the queen.  If you are trying to maximize (Say starting a nuc with a single frame of brood) the number of splits from whats available, you need to keep units light (stimulus feeding if necessary) so they make bees and then give them winter feed in mid-late September.

Dave Tharle
Ardmore, AB
Canada
+54 16720
-110 29289


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