I run about 15 hives for honey, and about 15 for nuc/queen production. Some yards have 5-8 colonies for honey, some have 2.
This year, to be efficient, I'm going to do the following management practices for my honeymakers.
0. Be on top of the bee population increases (so, I have to add supers about 2 weeks before the flow even starts to hold the bees), be on top of the mites, look for information that may refute your hypothesis that things are going well, prevent colonies from becoming honeybound... the deets on this will vary with the region but some form will be done by all. Kind of "duh" stuff but worth mentioning.
1. Equalize (but note who was weak and deal with it later by judicious requeening). Then all steps above post equalizing should be the same mental operation and require similar equipment. That's huge; I really find that having each hive be on its own track to be so taxing.
2. Have a "doing this operation" day and a separate "fix this problem" day. So, if I'm harvesting honey and checking for a queen, and I find evidence there isn't a queen, I'll add a frame of eggs as a interim fix and devote a day to probing/fixing later.
3. Possibly queenless hives are my biggest time suck. Using either a frame of eggs or a grafted queen cell is HUGE for minimizing time it take to diagnose the problem. I'd rather come back and have a clear answer than spend 45 min probing fruitlessly and come up with a maybe. So, identify your timesuck operation!
4. For my possibly queenless hives, dealing with them is a 2 step operation: day 0 they get eggs/grafted queen cell, day 7-11 they get a follow up visit, queen in hand (not literally) just in case I can pop the queen in cuz the queen cells got drawn out, indicating no queen. I can easily pop that queen back into one of my nucs when I return, if I didn't need her.
5. New this year: in my outyards, swarming is absolutely NOT ALLOWED. So, I will make it impossible! I am removing queens for 10 days, from about end of April to 2nd week of may. They will go in a nuc, stay warm, probably fall down on the "making brood" job due to lack of foragers but oh well. So, one visit pulls queen, up to 10 days later I come back, pop all queen cells, return the queen (or pop in a frame with eggs - nice weather means foragers will die and need replaced; poor weather means foragers clog the hive and they will swarm with little provocation).
Bees need drawn comb in spring to make honey, not a queen.
6. Also new this year: obligatory requeening. I had a queenless hive this spring; they had a 1.5 yr old queen going into winter. Never again. I can do that operation as late as August, so it's at my convenience, but an extra step I will commit to. I can't afford to have a honeymaker fall down on the job; gotta cover my farmer's market!
7. And last new this year: 5 spare hives, overwintered as singles. I'll be ready to baby them with feed, it's just 5 in the home yard, but those spares are valuable this time of year. Ensures I can fill my nuc orders, or replace a dead honeymaker, or even sell as a very early nuc for someone with drawn comb in March...
Some optimization thoughts I've had, and will implement. Gosh, these were good. I better put them in my notes so I remember them! ;)
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