Who's up / Who's down?????

[MartinL]

I started the 2011 with one overwintered colony that I moved into a new 14X 12.

By August, I had four colonies;

The original in a 14X12, that I started the year with.
An AS in a standard national.
A captured swarm (national)
And a nuc containing my own cherished home grown Queen+3 full frames.

After being ravaged by wasps in September, I am now going into winter with the 14X 12, the swarm and a large quantity of frames in my freezer!

What has 2011 left you with?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I started in May with a 5 frame nuc, not overwintered but with 2011 Argentinian queen on her own brood in all stages, this nuc has developed into two hives and a strong 6 frame nuc.

 

[DorsetB]

I started the year with three hives this year, and through requeening, keeping the brood nest open, and working the bees a little harder than usual, ended up with 12, and that's after selling some nucs as well.

 

[dpearce4]

I started the year with three hives this year, and through requeening, keeping the brood nest open, and working the bees a little harder than usual, ended up with 12, and that's after selling some nucs as well.

Im impressed.

 

[simonf]

Started the season with 2 overwintered hives, AS both and caught 3 swarms all doing well

 

[kevboab]

Came out of winter with one strong stock and two playing catch-up. Experimented with various methods of queen rearing with varying amounts of success/failure and have put seven colonies into winter.

 

[oliver90owner]

Im impressed.

Don't be. No need.

Doubling up should be very easy; quadrupling generally means some greater loss of potential harvest; any further expansion depends on other factors - buying in laying queens makes a huge difference to amount of expansion achievable and to the crop.

There is no free lunch - apart from arriving swarms - really.

Now, once you get to a 'critical mass', expansion in droves is easy as only a relatively smaller proportion of the colonies is used for starting new ones - and over-wintered nucs come in handy, as does queen rearing.

RAB

RAB

 

[Black Comb]

So what do you reckon the critical mass point is in terms of number of colonies?

 

[Poly Hive]

A great subject for discussion but I say 10.

PH

 

[For want of a better word]

There is no free lunch - apart from arriving swarms - really.


Nice one Tractor Man !
One of my catches were pussy cats... the others bitches from hell... only the Three Hungry Boys.. got a free lunch off that lot... however they did get to weed the community allotments !

 

[DorsetB]

Im impressed.

Thanks, not that hard, just being organised & methodical (for once) & forcing myself to keep a proper diary with timings in (also for once & hopefully for good) as opposed to gathering scraps of paper & post-it notes into a folder.

"No need" = no need to belittle other people's efforts either is there.

 

[mbc]

Experienced beekeepers see beginners go through different progressions, and I dont think RAB was belittling anyone's efforts, just that many beginners measure success initially by increase but tend,as the seasons pass, to learn to avoid unplanned increase in favour of productive, profitable beekeeping with the equipment they already have.

 

[Suzi Q]

Martin L
Give or take a few details, that was and is my situation! Wasn't wasps though, united.

 

[Baggyone]

Started with 5, lost a swarm on the day after I went on holiday. Spent the rest of the summer trying to get a laying queen in that hive but got 2 others in the process.

Finished at 5, my ideal number of productive hives with enough kit to AS them all into 10 5 frame nucs with another full hive for queen rearing.

All next years plan.

Baggy

 

[Mike a]

Started 2011 with 6 full + 1 small colony.
Considering I was meant to be recovering from a spinal fusion op from July onwards I was surprised my bait hives worked very well, I collected a few swarms and I was given 3 colonies. I now have 15.

2012 - see how many make it through Winter, combine the weaker colonies and requeen most of them over the course of the season.

 

[Queens59]

Started with 1:

=1 nuc as a gift from R. Ball
=2 both swarms collected (1 Sidmouth, I Ottery St Mary)

Total 4 hives.

 

[flytrapman]

Started my first year with bees with 2 commercial hives with bees in April
Bought 2 Nationals, 1 with bees from a member of my local club who had to give up due to becoming allergic
Offered 3 National hives, 2 with bees, extractor and loads of equipment from a forum member for £150 how could I refuse
Collected numerous swarms most have been given away
Going into winter with 3 commercial hives-1 commercial nuc-6 national hives-1 national nuc
Having bought timber and poly 14 x 12 recently I intend to keep the commercials and change the deep nationals to 14 x 12 next year

 

[peteinwilts]

started with 9, bought 10, passed 6 on, caught 3, collected 4, ended up with 40, reduced to 28 because of the crap summer.

 

[peteinwilts]

A great subject for discussion but I say 10.

PH

not trolling, but how do you quantify 10?? surely this is too subjective and everyones point of view would be different... (you DID say it was a great subject for discussion!)

if it is personal time which is the critical point, then it would depend on circumstances.

if it is managability, then that would be related to personal time and\or enthusiasm

if it is forage, then it depends on the environment.

then... why the person keeps bees. is it for the honey, to breed bees, the environment or\and for the fun of it.

or a combination of all of the above.

interested why you think 10??

 

[newportbuzz]

not trolling, but how do you quantify 10?? surely this is too subjective and everyones point of view would be different... (you DID say it was a great subject for discussion!)

wouldnt mind knowing how you landed at 10 aswell. anytime i have asked more experianced people than me they said it was 6. asked why and they usualy say either frame a week from each hive and queens brought in. or just enough to raise a lot of your own queens and do a couple of major splits

forgot to say went from one strong overwintered hive to 5 and a honey crop aswell.