52 Hives from 13 hives in two years?

[Some Day]

If a guy wanted to have 52 hives going into fall of 2020 and he was starting with 13 hives in the fall of 2018 how would you go about it?

Purchasing package bees is not an option for this exercise.

Purchasing local mated queens or queen cells could be an option.

Any ideas?

[neillsayers]

 Theoretically it can be done in two years. Depends on the strength of the colony. Place pollen supplement early at the end of winter season and split every hive at the beginning of spring. Feed all hives until the main flow. Next year repeat. You now have 52 hives.

 Introducing a queen at the beginning would give them a serious boost. You can rear your own or buy. 

[Some Day]

Thanks for playing Neil.  It looks like that theory has a 100% survival rate and a 100% acceptance rate on the splits.  I have not seen that in the real world yet.

Has any one had 100% success?  If so , how did you do it and on how many hives?

[neillsayers]

Some Day,

One must always account for Murphy and his annoying law.

[Riverrat]

Feed early build up early you can split a hive twice in the year if you stay on top of them keeping feed on also if you have drawn comb helps.  you could make the 52 by end of year

[tedh]

Not sure how realistic this is, but here goes nothing.  If you could make up three - 5 frame nucs out of each hive you're up to thirtynine nucs.  Do that early spring after adding pollen patties to increase brood production.  If you continue making up nucs, pulling a frame or two from here, a frame or two from there, throughout the summer you'd be pretty close.  Josh and i are going to start a few nucs in the next week or two.  Implying that you could too, getting an earlier start.  You mentioned having honey frames on hand, that'd really help and would probably be vital with nucs made now.  We'll be making a trip to Lappes Apiary to purchase Saskatraz queens for these nucs sometime soon.  If you're intrested let me know as I'd gladly bring extra queens back for you.  I think they were $34 or $35, something like that.

The above assumes you'd be okay with going into the spring of 2020 with a mixture of full hives and five over five nucs and is offered only as an alternative plan, not necessarily the best plan.  Ted

[Lburou]

Some Day, you may wish to pick Neill's brain about his continuing education about honey bees.  You will do well to spend some time increasing your knowledge base as you make plans to increase your hive count.  I've read more than one account of new beekeepers building hive count faster than their knowledge base, and losing hives for lack of knowledge and/or experience.  Apologies if my words come off as glib or critical, I don't mean to sound that way.  I teach new beekeepers that a commitment to lifelong learning about the bees is the best, most direct, path to success.  HTH   

[Some Day]

Neil,  I have met Murphy and I think he was an optimist.

Riverrat,  Yes I think feeding early in spring would help with splitting.  I am not trying to get to 52 hives in one year, I am shooting for two years.  But do you think it can be realistically done in one year?  I am not sure I have enough drawn comb to make it in one year.  Especially if we have the continued drought of the last 3 years.

Ted,  Yes, I think the nuc plan is a good one for spring build ups.  Are you sure you have enough time to make nucs in Iowa this late in the year?  Have you tried it in the past?  If I were to try it this fall I would probably use 6 frame nucs that have at least 4 frames of capped brood.

Lburou,  This is why I am starting this thread is to gain ideas and advice from experienced bee keepers.  In my second year of bee keeping I knew everything about bees, in my 3rd year I only knew half of what there is to know, in my 4th year of bee keeping I knew a little bit, and now in my 5th year I don't know anything.  But I do have some goals in mind and am trying to achieve them.

[Bakersdozen]

I'll be Debbie Downer and add this:  Don't plan on any honey or very little. 
This quote is from Keith Delaplane. "The more you know, the more there is to know."
Any colonies that are weak going into fall can be combined and then split again in the spring, should they be really strong.  My colony numbers seem to be fluid through the beekeeping year.

[Riverrat]

If you have the knowledge and work ethic it can be done in a year,  I jumped from about 25 to 80 in a year picking up a few swarms and with splits.  Had great success but figured out after a year of working a full time job and running 80 hives your going to get tired wore out burn out and wondering what you was thinking.  You will also notice your honey production average per hive drops as you are spread thin.  Now if your not working another job you are good to go

[tedh]

Nope. We haven't tried this in the past, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.  We have (usually) untill mid Novmber before weather shuts us down, 3 months.  If we create the nucs using two or three frames of mixed brood, two or three frames of capped brood, an empty drawn frame, the rest honey frames and add a mated queen, essentially building a five over five nuc, I think the chances are good.  Good enough for me to try at least.  We'll make two of these and I'll let you know next spring how it turns out.  I think the worst that could happen is we end up recombining, losing the cost of two queens or combing the two nucs losing only one queen.  Interesting dilema and great for getting a conversation going.

I dig the knowledge decreasing.  Reminds me of when my parents didn't have a clue.  Ted

[Lburou]

Neil,  I have met Murphy and I think he was an optimist...

...In my second year of bee keeping I knew everything about bees, in my 3rd year I only knew half of what there is to know, in my 4th year of bee keeping I knew a little bit, and now in my 5th year I don't know anything.  But I do have some goals in mind and am trying to achieve them.

You have a good start Some Day 

[Some Day]

Riverrat,  I am retired so I do not have a job to compete for my time.  I think you are correct in saying honey average per hive will be lower.  I think you can either make bees or make honey with your hives until you have a number of hives that can be dedicated to just honey and some to just bee making. You have also hit on one of the factors for increase that I have been using and that is swarm captures.

Ted,  You have me thinking about the late summer nucs.  With plenty of resources; meaning bees, brood, pollen, honey, and drawn comb a new queen might really "go to town" before winter.  The mid to late summer queens may actually be better bred with more drones than the early spring queens.  This could lead to a very vigorous hive, hmmmm.  To be Devils advocate, what if the bred queens you get have been caged for 4 to 6 weeks before you get them?  Will they still be up to par?

No one has mentioned the 500 pound gorilla in the room and how it should be handled.  Ted may have stumbled onto a method of handling with the late summer nucs.

[tedh]

We called Lappes Saturday regarding Saskatraz queens (they don't raise their own) and they said they were currently out of Saskatraz but would have more this week.  If my memory is right those queens come from California.  That still doesn't answer the question of how long they've been in the cage but a phone call might.

The problem we've run into with spring queens is availability.  If we wait to make nucs when queens are available the hives are in swarm mode or have already swarmed.  I know,  make nucs with the swarm cells, but i don't want my hives to get to that point.  I prefer to pull nucs to AVOID the swarming conditions while keeping strong colonies for honey production.  Having mated queens lets the nucs get rolling right away. Where as letting the nucs make their own queen works, they kind of dawdle along most of the summer.  We made up 5 five frame nucs (5 over 5) early this past spring and installe mated queens from Georgia.
  When the queens were accepted (which seems to work more often with smaller colonies than stronger colonies) we dropped them into 10 frame boxes and threw 10 frame deeps from winter dead outs on top.  Those are among the strongest colonies we have and they were the best honey producers and those colonies is were we plan to pull the upcoming nucs from.  What the heck though. It's all a gamble.  Might work this year and not next.  Ted

[tedh]

[tedh]

The above are two of those colonies a week ago yesterday.  Also a good shot of our breast cancer awareness boxes.  Ted

We had 4 supers on each of them and should have put a fifth on but would have needed a ladder.

[Some Day]

Are those two hives Sakatraz queens or are they Italian?

I think you should try splitting them and adding new queens and seeing if they make it through winter.  If they don't make it, I'll know not to do that.

[Some Day]

B13,  How do you determine if a hive is weak?  Is there a number of frames of brood or frames of bees that you use to say a hive is weak?  For example, 2 frames is weak, 4 frames is fair, 8 frames is booming?

Do you take a weak hive of 2 frames of bees/brood and newspaper combine with a strong 8 frame hive?  What do you do with the extra queen?  Does she meet the hive tool guillotine or do you just let the bees sort them out?

I have one more question on this combining of hives, but I am waiting for some one to address that pesky 500 pound gorilla I mentioned in an earlier post.

[tedh]

Itallian queens.  Okay.  I give up.  Which 500 pound gorilla?

[Some Day]

The 500 pound gorilla no one mentions: