Questioning beekeeping aims!

[jeff33]

I started the season with 20 hives and nucs and had made a range of plans. Fast forward 2.5 months into the season, I am left with 14 hives in all sizes, including a pitiful 4 production hives, 4 hives with newly mated queens (following re-queening and AS) which are now throwing several Qcs with queen present in 2 and vanished in the other 2, and the rest is a mixed bag of smaller hives that will bring nothing in terms of honey. I also have 2x 3 frames nuc with virgin waiting to mate and a round of 8 Qcs following a small grafting session on Sunday.

I do feel deflated considering the amount of work and investment that has been required to get to the 20 hives I wanted for the start of the season and where I end-up by mid-June! Anyone else gets that amount of ups and downs in a single season or Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Curly green finger's]

I feel ya Jeff, maybe it's just down to the season the way it started but I've had to remove now 6 queen's to nucs because of swarm preps I've had to split others because I've lost 4 swarms. Now up over 50 colonys and I only have 20 or so production hives I've had a run around a bit, don't be down I know how you feel..

 

[drex]

As a hobbyist I have found I have to prioritise. You cannot get everything all of the time.
My production hives are for that purpose only. Others will be brood factories for stocking nucs etc. Will I rear some queens this year? Will I collect pollen?
Then of course the bees have their own plans.
I am usually grateful for what I get given- even the poor Spring harvest this year.

 

[Murox]

If “no plan survives contact with the enemy”, the vagaries of weather and bees, then a series of options for 'battle' instead of a single plan might be helpful.

 

[drdrday]

Only my third year, but I've already learnt quickly that the bees dash my plans for the season just a couple of weeks in!
I assumed that was the norm. Beekeepers make plans, bees do the opposite.
Of course, the year everything goes to plan will probably be incredibly boring.

 

[B+.]

The weather is bound to put a dampener on things. Everyones season is bound to be "different" this year. I remember a couple of years ago people saying my plans to start grafting on 1st May were late. They all said they were starting much earlier. This year I didn't start until 17th May - but June has proven to be anything but a "gap" month. I grafted another 60 larvae last night. I weighed the colonies on 15th June - the heaviest was 90.00 Kg - lower than normal for Spring but there's still time to gather summer honey.
The downside or me is that one of my test queens swarmed - one that I had high hopes for too (mated on Norderney to C-VarroaToleranz drones). I caught the swarm but lost the queen. Life is like that though - sh*t happens. You just have to deal with it and move on. My 2021 test group went to Vlieland on Sunday so I'll see how the new post-Brexit system works (or not). I also have micro-pipettes of drone semen coming from NL (which is why I need so many virgins in ~ 3 weeks).
I suppose what I am saying is that the weather has messed all of our plans up this year Jeff. We just have to pick ourselves up and try to do better next year.

 

[Erichalfbee]

If they make swarm preps on the cusp of a flow it slows things down. My answer has been to Demaree as many as I can and if the queens that are nuc’d feedback capped brood to the original colony to keep it strong.

 

[jeff33]

Thanks all, perhaps I had too many expectations for this year and need to regroup to make the most out of the rest of the season.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It's been a weird season Jeff, nothing has gone to plan and around here the summer flow has yet to really start. Just looking at a seven foot stack of boxes full of brood frames earlier and thinking 'will I actually need them this year?'

 

[Curly green finger's]

If they make swarm preps on the cusp of a flow it slows things down. My answer has been to Demaree as many as I can and if the queens that are nuc’d feedback capped brood to the original colony to keep it strong.

I'm with you dani I wished I had demareed more they have performed well and out of 9 I have two extra queen's.
Edit : after today one has gone into swarm mode and hasn't worked

 

[jeff33]

Yes the demaree works well. The 4 production hives I have were demaree mid-May I think and got 3 queens. I think 2 didn't work and the queen had vanished.

 

[GuyNir]

Don’t be too hard on yourself Jeff. Most of the time, plans and reality don’t align and adjustment is needed.
Weather has been challenging this year + I got hit with EFB for the 2nd year in a row (shook swarmed 6 colonies last year and destroyed 2 this year - this wasn’t part of my plans this year and had a sizeable impact).
We can all try and do the best we can and hope everything else will play ball…

 

[jeff33]

EFB 2 years in a row is very harsh, sorry to hear especially when you need to destroy colonies.

 

[Swarm]

You have to take the rough with the smooth, remember 2018?
Some of my plans were 'changed' but all we can do is make sure they are healthy and fit for whatever nature throws at them next year.

 

[Brian Bush]

I started the season with 20 hives and nucs and had made a range of plans. Fast forward 2.5 months into the season, I am left with 14 hives in all sizes, including a pitiful 4 production hives, 4 hives with newly mated queens (following re-queening and AS) which are now throwing several Qcs with queen present in 2 and vanished in the other 2, and the rest is a mixed bag of smaller hives that will bring nothing in terms of honey. I also have 2x 3 frames nuc with virgin waiting to mate and a round of 8 Qcs following a small grafting session on Sunday.

I do feel deflated considering the amount of work and investment that has been required to get to the 20 hives I wanted for the start of the season and where I end-up by mid-June! Anyone else gets that amount of ups and downs in a single season or Am I doing something wrong?

Hi Jeff
Your season pretty much mirrors my own. My early splits have drone layers, NUCs keep throwing cast swarms. Of my 20 hives I would say only 7 are doing well and 5 will produce a honey crop.
Also got 12 grafts as sealed queen cells. I am going to seek bees to make up mating NUCs today.
The wet weather in May messed everything up and now they think it is Autumn.
Somebody needs to remind the "2 hive owners" who run the BBKA of the importance of imported queens in a year like this!!!!

 

[B+.]

Hi Jeff
Your season pretty much mirrors my own. My early splits have drone layers, NUCs keep throwing cast swarms. Of my 20 hives I would say only 7 are doing well and 5 will produce a honey crop.
Also got 12 grafts as sealed queen cells. I am going to seek bees to make up mating NUCs today.
The wet weather in May messed everything up and now they think it is Autumn.
Somebody needs to remind the "2 hive owners" who run the BBKA of the importance of imported queens in a year like this!!!!

They wouldn't hear it all the way up in their ivory tower Brian.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

They wouldn't hear it all the way up in their ivory tower Brian.

It's very hard to hear anything when your head is firmly wedged up your own backside

 

[IndiBee]

End of season - note lessons learnt
Start of season - make plans
During season - change plans
During inspections - bees change your plans and you have to think on your feet
End of season - note lessons learnt

Is it worth planning? Yes. Just don't expect things to work out that way.

 

[B+.]

End of season - note lessons learnt
Start of season - make plans
During season - change plans
During inspections - bees change your plans and you have to think on your feet
End of season - note lessons learnt

Is it worth planning? Yes. Just don't expect things to work out that way.

"No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy"

 

[Wilco]

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
Eisenhower.

Essentially, if you're coming up with a plan, assume it will likely change, as per the Moltke quote others have made above, but all the work you've done in planning means that you are able to adapt to the change(s) and still prevail. Have a (realistic) overall aim for the season given current capabilities, work out what you have and what you need to achieve it, work out what the variables you can affect are, what the variables you cannot affect are and what changes you might be able to effect to counter those. Things rarely work out how we'd like but we can steer things in roughly the right direction.