Reply to Allen:

I don't think it is a common practice.  Other beekeepers seem to order 3- or
4-pound packages for the spring.  Several years ago, our local bee equipment
supplier mentioned to me that she hived 9-pound packages and had great luck
with rapid buildup and a quick start on the early big leaf maple honeyflow
(one of two main honeyflows in this area. So I decided to give it a try and
have been happy with the results.

The nine pounds is comprised of two 3-pound packages without queens and one
3-pound package with a queen. So my six 9-pound new hives meant that I
picked up eighteen 3-pound packages in mid-April, six of which had queens.
I then hived one queen with her 3-pound box+ two more 3-pound boxes of
queenless bees in two deeps of drawn comb and let the bees release the queen
from her cage in the 2nd deep in the usual manner.  Lots of sugar syrup and
pollen-substitute patties made with honey until no longer needed.

These nine-pound startups have been successful for me in the past two
years--a very rapid drawing out of undrawn comb, very rapid release of the
queen, big brood patterns, a jumpstart on an early honeyflow that I missed
before, and, most importantly, significantly fewer problems than I had with
smaller packages, splits, or nukes. Ironically, everyone warns me about the
inevitability of swarms with these large startup hives; but I had a lot of
swarms with 3-pound packages and have had none so far in two years with
these 9-pounders.  Why, I don't know.  But, as Winnie the Pooh said so
aptly: "You can never tell about bees . . . "

maj