Whats your goals for this coming year?

[throrope]

Clear a spot in the brush row behind work and set up a small bee yard from splits without asking.

[schmism]

make splits of my existing 2 hives (i went into winter with 3) and hopefully catch a swarm, perhaps 2. maybee do a cutout... between splits, swarms etc make it to 5-6 hives.

double the honey production (100 lbs this year) and go into winter with 4-6 strong hives and roll into 2014 with at least 5, (then double again)

3 year plan is 10 hives and 500lbs+ of honey.

[fin]

1- at least 3/4 hives survive
2- kill the nasty queen re-queen with brood from the hive with the occasional greenish bees
3- avoid loss from swarming
4- get the top bar hive going
5- no beetles
6 catch a swarm or 2

[Charlie B]

Ollie, Scut and I are going to try to raise queens in San Mateo. I figure with Ollie's experience, Scut's back and my stunning good looks, we should be just fine. I've aquired more yards to fill with hives so I will be doing splits using my own queens. Swarm captures from BG's and KQ6AR's yards should be a good start as well! I wish Ben would move his operation here. He's got to be tired of those boring winters by now. Bring some of those bottom boards with you Ben!

I want to go from 30 to 50 hives by fall.

[Luterra]

1. Get all five hives through the winter (so far so good).
2. Successfully prevent swarming in all five hives without splitting (don't have money or room to expand). I'm planning to try MB's "opening the brood nest" trick.
3. Catch 4+ swarms in traps; offer them to friends who want bees or have suffered winter losses. (OK, I *could* have a sixth hive...)
4. Harvest 200+ lbs of honey.
5. Feed less than 100 lbs of sugar.
6. Find a summer mite treatment that is more effective and less hard on bees than Apiguard.

[shannonswyatt]

I forgot one, requeen my dad's hot hive without him noticing!

[Charlie B]

Successfully prevent swarming in all five hives without splitting (don't have money or room to expand). I'm planning to try MB's "opening the brood nest" trick.

This works well by the way along with odfranks method of hive manipulation. You'll have to ask odfrank about it if you want to know more, I don't want to speak for him.

[ajs32]

get my four hives healthy through the winter, maybe add another one and have a good harvest this year, i have alot of orders already coming in

[garys520]

My main goal is to split my strong hives before they swarm late May
Move my new hives into all day sun, right now they have shade all afternoon.
Move my swarm traps to better locations. No luck with the old places.

[BeeGhost]

Swarm captures from BG's and KQ6AR's yards should be a good start as well!
I want to go from 30 to 50 hives by fall.

Ive got a special swarm for you, I picked the hive up last year on the Mexico/Texas border..........sweet little ladies, when I pop the top I don't just get a couple greeters, the whole hive comes out to say hello, and boy are they clingy, just like an old great Aunt that doesn't get much company!!

[captaintat2]

1. Split the one hive I have from a feral capture.
2. Try my hand at various methods of queen rearing to make splits with.
3. Split my one hive and the resulting splits to increase my yard to 20 hives.
4. Produce 4,000 pounds of honey for the year.
5. Secure an outlet to sell all that honey.

I may be a dreamer but, dreams are only plans not yet fulfilled.

[lazy shooter]

I have three mature hives, and I am going to make some splits this year. I have three small nucs and I intend to introduce some VSH queens to these nucs in the spring. Of course, I am waiting to see if the nucs make the winter. They look good at this point in time.

Garys520:

One of my hives superceded their queen last year and I too have a hot hive like you are describing. My bees are less than 200 miles from the Mexican border. My bees have the same behavior characteristics as do yours. I will add that my bee crawl on the ground. I am going to bring them another queen. By the way, they are a good hive of bees, but they are just too much to deal with.

[DRAKOS]

Survive my 8 hives the winter.
Get some honey from them.
Requeen all this 8 hives.
Catch some swarms in my bait hives to increase my number.

[jwbee]

Assuming my two current hives make it thru winter , split into four this spring.

Set out bait hives in our valley and hopefully catch a swarm or two.

Try my hand at raising queens this year.

Oh yeah , purchase the motor kit for my six frame extractor , I get too agressive on the old hand crank sometimes and blow the frames apart , not good.

[Mr.Beeman]

Keep a closer eye on the hives as they mature.
Try a couple of splits.
Educate myself more on treatment options.
Become a bee mentor to someone (youth group) who has the nads to allow me to try. lol

[D Semple]

If the drought continues (which looks highly probable) my goals are to just be able to maintain the 40 hives I have.

Steps I'm going to take:

- more yards with fewer hives each, located to capitalize on our early flow floral sources, with the hives set very close to perminent water sources
- requeen the few Italian type hives with more thrifty feral stock
- agressive swarm management to maximize what little flow we may have this spring
- no cutouts, or swarm captures after May 15th (I don't want any extra bees that will require feeding)
- no harvesting

Don

[shannonswyatt]

Couldn't you just do combines into weak hives with the late season swarms?

[WWW]

My goals for this year are:

1. Swarm prevention
2. Reasonable honey crop with as much new drawn comb as possible
3. Learning how to graft for my two year re-queen program
4. Better record keeping

That should be enough goals for one year. The last several years has been devoted to learning how to keep the bees healthy, and building up from one hive to 6 strong production hives. This year I launch all 6 hives into their fist year of honey production.

[cg3]

Find a spot a few miles down the road so I can capture some of WWWs swarms

[Lauri]

1. Figure out how to sip my morning coffee through my veil!

2. Do more herb plantings around the hives to increase the essential oils and hopefully mite repelling scents going into the hives. These smell amazing and I would do it just for my pleasure if nothing else. My customers love it too, makes them want to come back and bring their freinds.

3. Buy a car/flatbed trailer and turn it into a permanent, bear proof platform for my larger production hives. Then I can take it into the mountains when my flow here is over and not have to lift any hives. Just unhook it and walk away until late fall. Give them the chance to make enough honey to also feed queen production hives here at home. This leads to my # 4 goal..

4. Not have to buy much sugar..except to occasionally feed mating nucs during a darth.

5. Remember all the things I learned in 2012 and stay ahead of seasonal changes in the hives, not just behind them.

6. Reinvent the wheel and make a better mouse trap! LOL, or do more Monkey Frogging, as Ace puts it

7. I'd really at some point like to invite the Wounded/disabled Vets from Ft. Lewis/McChord to come over and learn beekeeping, gardening and horse related stuff. My place is close to the base and wheelchair accessable. As soon as I can get some things accomplished and organized I am going to pursue this idea. On a small scale at first and see how it goes. I'm use to being alone here, but have a lot I can share with a few folks.
Just spending a little time with this little guy and all seems right with the world.
His name is Fabio, by the way. See? I already made you smile.