What is everyones goals for this year.

[stanisr]

Last year I trapped two swarms, but lost one due to the drought. So I have wintered one and plan to increase to 4 hive this year. I have aquired 3 that I will be moving as soon as they begin building up.

[Vance G]

I have 12 hives wintering so far sucessfully.  I have five five frame nucs ordered.  I have 15 queens ordered and I plan to both make splits for the purchased queens and do the MEl Disselkoehn On the spot queenrearing described on mdasplitter.com.  My goal is to end the season with thirtysome to fortysome colonies and nucs to overwinter.  Any honey crop I get will be purely incidental this year though I expect some.   I have too many plans for my resources and hope to learn a lot and have a good time doing it. 

[MTWIBadger]

Vance
Sounds like you are planning on a serious bee business venture from your post.  Are you planning on honey production eventually paying for your investment because 30-40 hives gets expensive?

[Vance G]

I sell honey and next spring I may sell nucs.   I just bought the used equipment from an old gentleman winding down to run maybe fifty.  I am more worried about my physical ability to handle it than expense.  So far it is still cheaper than golf and seems to me to have more of a purpose.  But on a lighter note, when I read the original question of goals for the year, I wanted to say World Peace, the end of Global Warming Mythology and training my body to turn toxic waste into pennicillian.

[syphon1]

To go from 40 to 75 or 80 hives,  have them as strong as possible without swarming to maximize honey production.
  And also have 20 - 25 extra nucs going into winter.

[Jim134]

More importantly for my wife and I wake up every morning!  :yippiechick: And be able to have a few bee hives.




     BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

[gardeningfireman]

Well, I have already passed my goal! Right now I am at 19 hives and nucs. Mostly from removals and swarms. Still have several removals lined up. Even gave a couple swarms away!

[ronwhite3030]

That is very nice to here gardening. have they been easy swarms to get too?

[gardeningfireman]

Mostly. Had to climb two spruce trees about 10 feet above the 24' ext. ladder and use my swarm bucket with one section of pole to reach them. Luckily, spruce trees are easy to climb with all the branches! Wouldn't have done it if they were in a deciduous tree. Five were in swarm traps, and the rest ranged from ground level to just needing a stepladder. Also smoked/Bee-Quicked one out of a stone pillar a day after they moved in.

[Brother Dave]

I want to get my hives onto stands and try to rear a few queens.


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[BeeMaster2]

A good friend of mine had all of her bees poisoned last month while she was on vacation for a week. She came back and her 30 hives were dead or too far gone to survive. The person even left the container of poison next to a hive. The police have it for finger printing/evidence.
My plan is to work with her, she is great at producing queens, let her produce queens from my bees and then make splits from my hives and get her started again. I figure about 10 hives will be a good start.
I will be working alone so I do not plan on growing my apiary next year.
Jim

[Big Bear]

I lost most of my packages 10 out of 12 and lost 2 feral out of 13. Leaves me with 11 to work with for this year and I'm excited. I want to raise queens this year and like to build up to 30 or 40 hives.

[chux]

Big Bear, those are heavy losses from your packages. Any idea why??? Are the 13 ferals, cutouts you did and swarms you captured this year? Looks like you would be better off not buying packages, and spending that money on building swarm traps or buying gas to do more cutouts.

[BeeMaster2]

I agree. All of my hives are ferals. They were all swarms removals from 2 years ago. They had to pick a queen that has the genetics to handle the mites, virus' and the SHB's with out our intervention. It shows because my mites and SHB levels are low or non existant in my hives.
Jim

[Edgy]

To soak in all the information I can from all of you.  Also to catch as many feral colonies as I can.

[Billy B]

I've not outlined specific goals in the past, but have always liked reading the goals of others.   So this year, I began with the goal of having goals.

I've captured the goals with a bit more detail here:

http://billybsbees.blogspot.com/2014/02/2014-goals.html

But at a high level:

1)  Re-establish a hive yard.    Having moved from Maryland to Washington, I had to rehome my bees.  So this year I'm starting fresh.

2)  Build a Top Bar Hive

3)  Obtain Apprentice level in the WSBA Master Beekeeper Program and begin on Journeyman level.

4)  Maintain a Beekeeping Journal

5)  Maintain The Blog

6)  Bait a Swarm

7) Take a Class in Queen Rearing


Edited to make link clickable: Buzzbee   (not sure why it didn't hyperlink first time)

[edward]

My goal is the same this year as last year  :angel: :cheer: :devilbanana: :piano: :pinkelephant: :yippiechick: I'm hoping to have a lot of fun with my bees  :-D


mvh Edward  :-P