Splits

[foghornleghorn]

To increase hive numbers, I should be @ 100 odd hives 2 years ago, but I have been losing nearly 50% of hives for the last 3 years, I thought it was poor b/king on my part ! ...I have since found that other b/kers are in the same boat, which turns out to be poor mating ....

https://www.beeworks.com/slow-hives/ ...maybe ?

Do you feed any pollen/sub?

If it was just inbreeding you or other beekeepers would surely have sorted that fairly easily

 

[mbc]

That is very important thing in colony build up. The bigger the cluster, the more it can make brood.

3 frame nuc can do practically one full frame of brood. The Queen can lay a frame full in couple of days, and the it can do nothing during next 3 weeks.

Not quite, once the first brood is sealed it's in the bank as it were and the colony can move on to care for a little more open brood.

 

[Finman]

Not quite, once the first brood is sealed it's in the bank as it were and the colony can move on to care for a little more open brood.

That I do not understand at all. I know that. I have so much experience about hive build up in short summer.
Nucs as a brood bank! I use biggest hives in that meaning.
My aim is to take all advance from queens' laying in spring.

If you have a 2 box colony, it can brood according its resources. Let's say 15 frames of brood. After that brood cycle the colony has 4 boxes.

If you want to sacrifice you honey yield, you may split that to 2 + 2 box hive.
And soon you have again 4+ 4 box hives. But such do not get yield.







.

 

[Finman]

Not quite, once the first brood is sealed .

Sorry, but I do not start to play with one by one brood frames, when I try to get 2 boxes brood to the hive.

I prefer to take 2 emerging brood frames from big hives, and after a week the nuc gas whole boc brood. But because of its history it does not have pollen foragers. It needs pollen frames too.

But if you milk too much brood frames, you take off the foragers of the future.
.

 

[ladaok]

Do you feed any pollen/sub?

If it was just inbreeding you or other beekeepers would surely have sorted that fairly easily

NO on the pollen ....... how would this affect hive loss ?

In breeding .... mmmm anything is possible, but I have 15 apiaries and they all suffer losses

Varroa .... again possible, but pretty much get down on the little baskets

EYEMAN ... Ta

 

[foghornleghorn]

NO on the pollen ....... how would this affect hive loss ?

In breeding .... mmmm anything is possible, but I have 15 apiaries and they all suffer losses

Varroa .... again possible, but pretty much get down on the little baskets

EYEMAN ... Ta

Better fed bees through an autumn dearth and into winter, maybe some of you're late season pollens mightn't be good enough quality especially when you add varroa into the mix. Worth trying I'd say.