Crazy, lost, and wanting to get bigger

[Kaz]

I am a first year bee person . I have read three books and have purchased three packaged be colonies. I want to expand my operation as quickly and inexpensively as possible. Being brave i will try anything once. I need advice or comments on dividing a hive. The hive has three deep hive bodies that are full of eggs, capped brood, and honey. Since i do not know how to evaluate a situation from expierience, i feel that i have a tremdious population of bees in this hive. They cover the front lower portion in several layers nightly. I feed these bees two quarts of a fifty percent sugar water solution daily. Can this hive be split? If so how many divisions and what do i need to do. Perhaps i am just lost and misguided with this notion. Can someone offer input, good or bad?:

[ParanoidBeek]

Just trying to clear things up, you bought 3 packages of bees, yet you only speak of one 3 deep hive. Do you have 3 dif hives or did you put all 3 packages in one hive? I'm pretty sure others that know more than me will want to know before answering. You say they cover the outside while bearding at night, I think whats more important is how many frames do they cover during the day.

[Kaz]

I purchased one three pound package of bees in april and two additional in may. The early colony is the one i am speaking of. The other two colonies have not done that well. I lost a queen in one and the other is not doing aswell as my first colony. But to answer your question, sorry for getting off topic i have three seperate hives.

[AR Beekeeper]

Don't grow too big too fast, it is easy to grow past your knowledge and ability to manage your colonies. Keep only as many as you can and still do what must be done and when it needs to be done. You can make more honey with properly managed colonies.

[MJuric]

Don't grow too big too fast, it is easy to grow past your knowledge and ability to manage your colonies.

I think this is good advice for any endeavor. Why have 20 hives fail because you screwed up their over wintering because you had never done it before when you could have only lost 4.

I'm in manufacturing and this is why we often make prototypes.

You make one complete and then you figure out...."Oops, that's not a good idea" or "That doesn't work".

Same with hives. Go thru an entire cycle and then try something new. That way you can go into with the knowledge of "Well that worked" and with something to fall back on.

Split a hive now and if it doesn't make it thru the winter was it because of the split or something else you did. Every new thing you try is another variable. The more variables you have the more difficult it is to trouble shoot problems.

~Matt

[toekneepea]

why would you split your strong colony? why not split the struggling one into Nucs and/or requeen?

Tony P.

[beyondthesidewalks]

Looks like Kaz has the bee fever. I remember when I first started. I wanted 100 hives. When I got up to 20, I realized how much work it was and settled down. Not laughing at you, Kaz, but reminiscing on my younger bee days. Take it slow and easy. Work on managing your three hives to the best of your ability and grow by a hive or two until you find your upper limit. As you get more experience swarms and cutout opportunities will come your way. Always keep enough wooden ware ready for a hive or two and you'll be ready for increase.

[Kaz]

it is true that i have bee fever. prior to this spring i had never seen a bee hive. it is true that i have zero knowledge; but, a person has to start somewhere. a bee colony is a wonderful machine. i hope to grow into 300 hives in the next few years. i told you that i was crazy.

[Peaches]

The most inexpensive way to grow is to keep your three hives through the winter and if all survive then you can split each hive into two.That will give you six hives and have the possibility to catch some swarms to add to your base.

Don't get in a big hurry. Unless you are 80+ years old, then you have a lot of time to grow to your 300 colonies. Take your time and learn what you are doing. Have you joined a bee association in your area? There will be lots of beekeepers there that can answer questions and maybe be a mentor that can show you some tricks.

[SpeckledPup]

Kaz
I have the same fever. I have 2 hives already, ordered a Nuc waiting to find out when I can pick that one up. My goal is to eventually have enough hives to replace my income.

[RayMarler]

I would suggest reading 3 more books...
Larry Connor: Bee Sex Essentials.
Larry Connor: Increase Essentials
Larry Connor: Queen Rearing Essentials

They can be found here...
http://www.wicwas.com/paypal/shop.html

And then if you have time read this page with links...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm

And then go for it.

And by the way, if you keep feeding that big one that much that fast, you better split it or be prepared for swarms. I would suggest using your strong one to raise a few queens to requeen your slower ones or split them up into nucs with queen cells that you raise from your own. If you want to increase, I would suggest to start out by raising your own queens from your best to improve the ones that are not performing. Then get them over wintered in good shape. Once you can raise a few quality queens then you will be better prepared to make fast increase next year as you wish.

[LtlWilli]

In one way, we all have the fever, and I don't think we are ever free of it. I have only four hives, but I want many more... I have toned down my original plans in light of the quantity vs. quality thoughts. I believe that once it becomes a full-time job, some of the magic goes away. I don't want that to ever happen here.
Best of luck with your plans

[sqkcrk]

it is true that i have bee fever. prior to this spring i had never seen a bee hive. it is true that i have zero knowledge; but, a person has to start somewhere. a bee colony is a wonderful machine. i hope to grow into 300 hives in the next few years. i told you that i was crazy.

How old are you? What's the rush? If you really want more hives of bees, buy them. People sell them all the time. Othertwise, take some time and learn. Bees aren't going anywhere. They'll always be around.

Crazy or not, you are dreaming way beyond your abilities. Cut the dreams back some. Reality bites and education is expensive.

[tommyt]

The hive has three deep hive bodies that are full of eggs, capped brood, and honey.
I lost a queen in one and the other is not doing as well as my first colony

If you want to Build
I would beef up the lost queen hive and other one thats not doing so well.
I would take a one frame of brood for each of these hives,
maybe that little boost will put them in the "Giddy up go mode"
If so you will have 3 strong hives come winter.

all the best

tommyt

[Dr/B]

Don't grow too big too fast, it is easy to grow past your knowledge and ability to manage your colonies. Keep only as many as you can and still do what must be done and when it needs to be done. You can make more honey with properly managed colonies.

This is very good advice! What good would 100 or more hives be if you couldn't manage them well? Take your time and learn everything you can about bees. Read everything you can on this and other forums. Go to beekeeper meetings. Subscribe to the bee keeping journals, etc... Go thru a few "cycles" with your bees and see how each season of the year effects them and how you should manage them. I've made plenty of mistakes in the 6-7 years I've kept bees. I know the zeal you have for bees, as I have it too. It's just after making mistakes over the years, I don't get in too big a hurry. Bees are not predicatable as so many variables will effect them and this changes from year to year, as with any agriculture livestock. In the past I've bought two identical packages of bees from the same apiary. One package filled my nuc box in a month, busting out with bees, the other package barely filling one frame & eventually had to be combined with another to survive.

A few well maintained hives can out perform alot of poorly managed any day. I've seen a few beekeepers that took a few years to get going, but once they learned how to produce queens, they expanded their operations tremendously in just a couple of years. Get the basics down good, and then just repeat that process. If you really learn beekeeping, once you get going nothing can stop you. It is a very satisfying hobbie for me.

:-)

[Mbeck]

I say go for it! Just because others have failed at growing quickly doesn't mean you will. You may be smarter, work harder and luckier.
Its only money and you don't seem to be afraid to lay some out.

I would think (with my limited experience) that a better way to go would be to start with 150 hives not 300 hives. I would guess that hives are worth about $200.00 each.
You now have an extra $30,000.00 to work with. Find a experienced local beekeeper and offer him $15,000.00 per year plus all the honey and splits he can make to teach you how to run
your hives. If you do this for a couple of years while taking some classes/seminars you should be in a better than average position to make a go of it. With in a couple of years of working on your own you might be well past 300 hives.

I don't have the experience to say that this will work for sure.
Its not how I would spend $60,000.00 but if I wanted a hard job with no promise of good return on my money that is how I think I would start.
Good Luck!

[sqkcrk]

Mbeck, you slay me.

[Mbeck]

“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” Mark Twain

[Dr/B]

Just speaking for myself, I would want to grow into a big business, rather than buy it, but now I'm cheap. I don't have 30k to drop on a bee business, and I don't know any beekeeper that's not too busy with their own bees, that would work for me. In the past, I have placed ads in local papers before advertising free swarm removal, for simple to reach swarms. I never would cut into a structure to get a hive, but probably have had 30 swarms over the years caught this way. Free bees....yeah! Anyway if you really wanted to get aggressive you could do the math.

Split 3 hives you've got. Let them build their own queens. You're now up to 6 hives.

Split again in 6 weeks. You're now up to 12 hives. And in theory you could double every 6 weeks or so. Now this is assuming the bees would build up adequate bees in each split and queen production would be unhindered. Feed feed feed sugar syrup, pollen patties, and the like.... Keep catching wild swarms and doing swarm removal. If you like construction then do the hard to remove swarms in walls, sheds, attics, etc...charging for this service, getting free bees.. and keep building your numbers. The splits that don't thrive, just combine back to the stronger hives before winter. Next spring, start all over again. Build your own boxes or order the kits and put them together. Buy used beekeeping equipment and/or build your own. Foundation can be expensive and shipping is sometimes even more than the foundation, so , I have went to foundationless for easier use. Not to get off topic, and I realize there's pros and cons for doing this, and alot of opinions, but it's cheap. Doesnt cost much at all to let them build their own foundations. Winterize, and do it all over next year.

providing the bees cooperate... :-)

[KQ6AR]

Why not do one split, so you can learn how its done. It will give you good experience for next season.