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Author Topic: Plans for next year?  (Read 5205 times)

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #20 on: December 06, 2018, 12:53:04 pm »
Problem is if I steal too many frames of bees from a production hive, I no longer have a production hive.
This year I did pretty well with the half frames for mating. Unfortunately I tried to move the half frames to nucs and they did poor. Where I pulled the queens to a cage and marshmellow and put in a queenless hive (pinch) they did well. I need to be on track to get the next round of queen cells to the 1/2 frames and I was not that organized.
Do you do the 1/2 frames?

Advise:
- Do not take resources from the production hives.  Take resources from the nucs. If you do not not have resource nucs to do so, then you have too many hives and not enough nucs.  Take a hive apart and make-up the nucs. The nucs are there to support the hives, not the other way round.
- You found a time and money pit ... mismatching of equipment.  Do not do that.  Select what your standard hive equipment will be and stick with that for everything so the resources can be transferred wherever needed.  No 1/2 frames, such is folly. - fyi all equipment here is langstroth deep frames. Brood chambers, nucleus, honey supers ... all of it.  100% interchangeable and moveable from one part of the operation to another.  Pick a size you want to work with (deep, medium, shallow, 8, 10, whatever) and make that your standard for everything.
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline beepro

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #21 on: December 07, 2018, 02:46:50 am »
In preparation for the cyclic 3rd year bust, make up some nucs in your 2nd year from all of your bee yards so that they can overcome this hurdle.  Whenever there is an obstacle in the way you must overcome it somehow.  In your 2nd year bee cycle you must consolidate some hives so that managing them will not be too time consuming.  Preserve the core of the bees and then expand again after the 3rd year when condition is favorable again.  You might lose some honey harvest in the process but at least you still have some hives to expand in the future. 

Offline minz

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #22 on: December 08, 2018, 09:01:36 pm »

Advise:
- Do not take resources from the production hives.  Take resources from the nucs. If you do not not have resource nucs to do so, then you have too many hives and not enough nucs.  Take a hive apart and make-up the nucs. The nucs are there to support the hives, not the other way round.
- You found a time and money pit ... mismatching of equipment.  Do not do that.  Select what your standard hive equipment will be and stick with that for everything so the resources can be transferred wherever needed.  No 1/2 frames, such is folly. - fyi all equipment here is langstroth deep frames. Brood chambers, nucleus, honey supers ... all of it.  100% interchangeable and moveable from one part of the operation to another.  Pick a size you want to work with (deep, medium, shallow, 8, 10, whatever) and make that your standard for everything.

Come spring any nuc still alive is typically a 4 over 4 or a 5 over 5, with a fresh queen from the previous summer. The new queens will be in a double deep faster than the last years queens will fill out their own. Using this for a nuc resource would be folly.  There needs to be a starting point of robbing a hive in each yard to break down into mating nucs (at a minimum). So breaking up a big hive that is giving me QC's into mating nucs makes sense. 
Then the mated queens can make up a nuc almost twice as fast by adding a frame of mixed brood from a hive.
So lets look at the math using full deeps on a small operation.
Keep the math easy say 10 double deeps, 10 frames of bees (100 frames resources, 10 queens)
5 nucs 5 frames of brood (25 frames of resources, 5 queens)
First round of grafting say I get a full 12 cells for 3 queen castles. That requires 36 frames, half with brood. Where do I take them from?
By using drawn half frames I drop a cup of bees in each section with a feeder and the hives don't even feel it. Last year I did not have drawn half frames. now I have about 60.
now comes spring flow. Do I dump a deep on the double deep for a super? spring is tricky. I dump a single medium or possibly a shallow on it. I get a full frame drawn and capped even on a bad year and do not give them too much space that they 'stall'
help me to pencil this out with the above assumptions.
Poor decisions make the best stories.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Plans for next year?
« Reply #23 on: December 09, 2018, 04:41:57 am »
4/4 - 5/5 .... in spring that is not a nuc, that is a hive.  Move them into 10 frame boxes soon as reasonable. Those are the main hives for the season.

It is the oldest queens hives and resources that come apart in the spring towards making up mating nucs, sales nucs, resource hives, and the cell builder.

Mating nuc is 1 frame drawn with resources + 1 frame drawn empty + 2 to 3 cups of bees.  In other words, mating nuc is 2 frames. You can makeup 2 frame nuc boxes or you can put these into a 5 frame box if you want but only 2 frames are actually needed and active. Do not use 5 frames of resources, only 1 plus empty combs. Once mated and growing outward over the two frames, they are are to be moved into single 10 frame hive body. That is the startup of your new colonies for the coming winter, they become your next year hives. Not all cells nor mating will be successful, so look to combine the resources and bees from the failed ones with the successes as are moved into the 10 framers. Because not all cells make it to queens, raise 30 to 40% more queens than you need for maintaining the rotation in your operation. When have extras and you apiary is stable, sell them.

Put a few of the best old queens into designated resource hives to support the main production hives for the summer. The are the old ones that are due to be cycled out but are still rockin' - it having built big colonies at start of spring. One per bee yard. Give her 1 frame of brood, 1 frame of resources and 3 frames of bees, the rest empty drawn comb. The rest of her hive bees and resources goto making up the nucs. These resource hives can be in 10 frame equipment or 4/4 - 5/5 if preferred. Draw from them all summer. Use them for brood, drawing out new comb, booster frames of honey/pollen for the new hives being nursed. You might even chose the best one of those old queens to be your breeder that you will graft from. Just leave her in the resource hive and go graft from her when needed. These hives will probably supercede themselves over the summer. Just let that happen. If they do not then kill those old queens at end of the season and take those resource hives apart using them to boost and level the rest of the hives in the fall to make ready for winter.

Decide on if the frames are going to be deeps or mediums. Pick ONE size. The entire operation is built out around that one standard.  Brood boxes, supers, nucs, pallets, extracting line, frame storage racks, foundation, etc etc.  Once you pick, stick with it.  Sell or give away any equipment you have in the other frame sizes. (Imho). You need to be able to put a frame anywhere you need to, any box, any rack, any where, at any time.

Operations: 
10 frame production hives
2 frame mating nuts
10 frame resource hives, or 4/4 - 5/5 if you wish.

Sales:
4 frame boxes, deposit/exchange


PENCIL OUT THE NUMBERS; based on target of 20 production hives, 4 beeyards,

End of spring 2019 Each beeyard has
.   5 production hives
.   1 resource hive. Oldest best queens. One of them is selected as the breeder to graft from.
.   3 mating nucs.  Makeup more more if you are increasing apiary size or raising extras to sell.
.   + one of the yards also has the cell builder in it. When all the mating nucs have a cell, leave two cells in the builder and let it become queenrite.
.   + the excess strength (extra hives and swarm control) has been stripped out and sold off as nucs with good 1.5-2 yr old queens to stay at the target apiary size

End of summer 2019 each beeyard has
.   4 to 5 production hives. Next spring 1/2 of them (the 1.5 year old queens) will be production and 1/2 (the 2+ year old queens) will be taken apart for mating nucs, resource hives, and sales.
.   0 resource hive. As been taken apart and distributed to the other hives in the yard and the new hives.
.   2 to 3 new hives, over the summer the mating nucs have been emptied and moved into standard hive bodies. Next spring these become production hives making up for the old 1/2 that you will be taking apart.

Total going into winter. 24-32 colonies

Winter 2019/2020
20-30 % losses

Spring 2020
17 - 25 colonies left after losses. Start the 2020 season, do it all over again.

** Scale these numbers (multiply) up or down if your target is more or less than the 20 target given.

Note 1: there is actually no re-queening at all in this annual plan. The nucs start as mating boxes and build out to become new hives by the fall which become production hives the following season. The old queens are cycled out in the spring to makeup resource hives and nuc sales.  Re-queening is an exception, not part of the normal ops once the apiary is established.

Note 2: this a SELF SUSTAINING plan. If you are a buyer type who prefers to cash outlay for packages/nucs or queens rather than building your own, then your plan will look different from this framework. See previous post on timing of planned requeening with bought queens.

There really nothing more to it than this post along with the information in prior posts above. I will have nothing further to add to the guiding framework presented. What follows is taking that all in while sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee/donut and some paper to write down the details documenting your 2019/2020 plan and schedule.

Ultimately specific methods, preferences, and levels of success will vary by beekeeper. Do what works for you and have fun with it.
****-->  Most importantly; have a plan, adequately resource the plan, apply a schedule to the plan, Follow the plan.
Planning delivers efficiency and consistency
Planning minimizes the impact of bad luck.
Planning maximizes the potential of good luck.

Hope that helps! Take what you will from it.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2018, 08:49:02 am by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Online Ben Framed

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #24 on: December 09, 2018, 06:27:47 am »
Yes Mr Claude, Helps Tremendously!! Thanks for your educational reply s .. very much appreciated!!
Phillip
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #25 on: December 09, 2018, 02:42:55 pm »
Yes Mr Claude, Helps Tremendously!! Thanks for your educational reply s .. very much appreciated!!
Phillip

Most welcome Philip et all.
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline van from Arkansas

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #26 on: December 11, 2018, 02:36:16 pm »
This is a very informative thread, subject.  I believe I have read every post 3 times and I am going to read again, 4th time.  There is so much logical information, useful info.  I had pondered many times how a commercial breeder maintains thousands of hives and I did not have answers until now with this thread.
Blessings
I have been around bees a long time, since birth.  I am a hobbyist so my answers often reflect this fact.  I concentrate on genetics, raise my own queens by wet graft, nicot, with natural or II breeding.  I do not sell queens, I will give queens  for free but no shipping.

Online BeeMaster2

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #27 on: December 11, 2018, 07:51:44 pm »
Stinger,
Troutdog, here on BeeMaster, uses dousing rods to find out which hives need attention and then only works on those hives.
What a time saver.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #28 on: April 09, 2020, 07:25:12 pm »
I am giving the thread a BUMP as I have recently been seeing quite a few posts and threads of folks being behind and chasing bees in trees and eaves rather than being comfortably ahead of them.   Please review.   Check your plans.  If you don't have a plan, make one.

Leave the Winging-It to the bees.  They have the wings, we don't.  ;)
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Online Ben Framed

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #29 on: April 09, 2020, 10:29:49 pm »
I am giving the thread a BUMP as I have recently been seeing quite a few posts and threads of folks being behind and chasing bees in trees and eaves rather than being comfortably ahead of them.   Please review.   Check your plans.  If you don't have a plan, make one.

Leave the Winging-It to the bees.  They have the wings, we don't.  ;)

I am seconding your bump because I am the first in line that needs to study this again. Thank You very much.

Phillip Hall
2 Chronicles 7:14
14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Offline Seeb

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Re: Plans for next year?
« Reply #30 on: April 10, 2020, 08:13:54 am »
Same here - thanks for taking the time to share this information

 

anything