Nothing but expanding

[HBBF]

Currently have 5 hives that are overwintering good so far. Two of them I overwintered with three deeps and the other two with two deeps. Candy board on all five. Planning on starting syrup and pollen patties at the end of the month. Have three 5 frame nucs on reserve that are true Overwintered queens and nucs that I will pick up as soon as weather breaks for thorough inspections. I might end up buying more nucs still. I’m planning on expanding as hard as I can with no intentions of harvesting any honey. I’m debating splitting everything I can into as many splits as possible and continuing to do so up until about July and feeding this entire time up until winter preparations are done.
Going to try grafting my first queens this year to do all of this. I’m debating if I should buy the first round of queens for my first initial split of all hives and then raising queens and making splits the rest of the year as queens are ready.
My end goal is to start selling over wintered nucs and queens in three years maybe two.
Any body have any advice or words of wisdom. If I eventually ended up with hives to start pollination rentals that wouldn’t be bad either?
But whereever I end up I’m growing into it instead of buying in. And decide where to continue as I go.

[cbay]

Pretty much mirrors our plans. Except we're going to leave a few as production hives so that we have enough "political honey" lol, neighbors, etc..
Of course the bees will dictate the exact plans...

[Hayden01]

Any number of hives you are trying or expecting to reach this year?

[yotebuster1200]

I have 20 4x4 nucs going into winter. So far they are all alive and look good. I won't be able to start feeding until April so I still have a little winter to deal with. I am planning on turning my 20 nucs into 80 this summer. I will buy some queens but for the most part i will be raising my own.

[HBBF]

>Any number of hives you are trying or expecting to reach this year?

It would be nice to get to 40 production hives. Right now my plan is to establish apiaries with 40 full strength colonies each that I use each year to build nucs off of to overwinter and sell the following spring. I’m just gonna be my own customer for a few years until I get a feel of how many yards I’m comfortable with. And possibly build 50 nucs to overwinter in each yard from each of the 40 production hives. I’m not set on numbers yet but these are a baseline that I’m thinking. 40 production hives per yard might end up not feasible or 50 nucs from each yard might not be feasible. But it’s somewhere to start thinking from and adjusting.

[HBBF]

Yotebuster >I have 20 4x4 nucs going into winter. So far they are all alive and look good.

Ok so did you actually split down everything you had and make as many 4x4 nucs that you could to overwinter? That’s what I was thinking.

[HBBF]

cbay >Pretty much mirrors our plans.

How many hives are you gonna split down from?
And what are you gonna split them down into, 3 framers, 5, 4x4’s?

[msl]

50 nucs is a massive amount of resources manged right
look in to brood factory's
"In the Spring of 2011, I set up 50 nice over wintered, four over four, two-story nucleus colonies in double nucleus boxes. Each nucleus was given a nucleus super with four additional combs, for a total of 12 combs each. Beginning in early May, I began removing sealed brood with adhering bees to strengthen my cell building colonies. Every four days, starting with the first nucleus, I removed two or three frames of brood from each nucleus until the day’s brood requirement was filled. Four days later, I repeated the process, harvesting brood from the nuclei next in line. My intention was to remove enough brood from each to fill my needs, but not enough to significantly weaken the colonies. I needed them to be strong enough to fill combs of brood quickly, but not so strong they would swarm before I returned for another harvest. From May 9 until June 19 I harvested 245 combs of brood to set up my 35 cell builders, each receiving seven combs of sealed brood and two of honey. Then, after the last cell builders had been set up, I switched the focus of my brood harvest to making the Summer’s nucleus colonies. Those 50 nuclei gave me enough additional combs of brood and bees to establish 330 more nucleus colonies. Think of it! More than 900 combs of brood and bees harvested from only 50 over-wintered nucs."- http://hcbeekeepers.org/a-better-way-by-mike-palmer/

[clyderoad]

50 nucs is a massive amount of resources manged right
look in to brood factory's ................

Necessary to mention is MP did this with decades of experience running multiple hundreds of colonies in a good production area.

[Saltybee]

You are pushing your bees out of their natural season by feeding. Are you going to have a bubble of brood before mating is possible? Your first QCs may be swarm not grafted.
Without a big stack of empty drawn comb, (drawing new comb in the spring= not going to happen much), bought gives you time insurance and more time to work on grafting before you absolutely need good queens..

[cbay]

cbay >Pretty much mirrors our plans.

How many hives are you gonna split down from?
And what are you gonna split them down into, 3 framers, 5, 4x4’s?

Using 5 frame nucs and 10 frame, both deeps.
Got a general idea what i can get by with based on last year (14 from 4 spring nucs).
Just going to have to see how everything looks and go from there. Seems that strong hives begat strong hives so won't make them too weak.
Not sure about the saying "frame of brood and frame of food". Used two frames of brood last year. Going to raise queens and plan to use all the equipment i made this winter...

[Bee Havin]

I'm not the one that should be giving advice, but that's never stopped me before.
If it was me, I would buy my first round of queens as it takes a month more or less to get a new laying queen from scratch. This is time lost to do the things you want to do. I too think your next queens will come from forced queen cells as you learn to graft. Another problem I see is coming is a shortage of drawn comb. None of these things can not be over come, but are challenges.
I may not be right, but it is what I would do if it was me. GOOD LUCK!!!

[Marcin]

OP,
your growth will depend on how you approach it. If you're looking to raise your own queens from overwintered stock to promote those genetics, then it'll take more time and resources to achieve that goal. If you're going to purchase mated laying queens, then you can split healthy populous hives into at least 3 additional colonies, probably more. If you're willing to feed the colonies regularly, then you can achieve more growth quicker. It's like everything else; the more you put into it at the beginning, the quicker you'll get to the goal. Weather, time and drawn comb will be your biggest obstacles. Keep us posted on your progress.

[msl]

Necessary to mention is MP did this with decades of experience running multiple hundreds of colonies in a good production area.

Even with simple methods like OTS or FBS (fly back splits) its not unreasonable for the average 2nd/3rd year beekeeper to take a overwintered nuc and have 6-8 strong nucs by fall.
Sure that kind of grouth may take a lot of skill in MP's zone 3, but many of us are warmer, the OPs zone 5 likely gives them a month+ more brood rearing and that gives the bees more time to fix the keepers mistakes...

[yotebuster1200]

Yotebuster >I have 20 4x4 nucs going into winter. So far they are all alive and look good.

Ok so did you actually split down everything you had and make as many 4x4 nucs that you could to overwinter? That’s what I was thinking.

So I had 4 overwintered 4x4 nucs spring of 2017 that I pulled 16 frames of brood for raising a couple rounds of queens. At the same time I was raising queens I was able to pull enough brood to make a few more nucs. When I was done raising queens I broke the 4 overwintered nucs down and split the brood frames giving 2 to each new nucs and left 2 frames with the original nucs. This was done on July 17th. By the end of the season I had 20 nucs. 4 were overwintered, 4 were made from 2 packages I split and 12 were made from splitting the original 4. My 4 overwintered nucs ended up donating 40 frames of brood last summer. (16 for queens and 24 for nucs)

I plan on doing something similar this year. I don't have as much drawn comb this year so I think turning 20 into 80 will push them but I still think it is possible. We will see.

[JRG13]

Necessary to mention is MP did this with decades of experience running multiple hundreds of colonies in a good production area.

and they were 12 frame 'nucs'

[aran]

So I had 4 overwintered 4x4 nucs spring of 2017 that I pulled 16 frames of brood for raising a couple rounds of queens. At the same time I was raising queens I was able to pull enough brood to make a few more nucs. When I was done raising queens I broke the 4 overwintered nucs down and split the brood frames giving 2 to each new nucs and left 2 frames with the original nucs. This was done on July 17th. By the end of the season I had 20 nucs. 4 were overwintered, 4 were made from 2 packages I split and 12 were made from splitting the original 4. My 4 overwintered nucs ended up donating 40 frames of brood last summer. (16 for queens and 24 for nucs)

I plan on doing something similar this year. I don't have as much drawn comb this year so I think turning 20 into 80 will push them but I still think it is possible. We will see.

So how did your plans turn out for 2018?
Can you spell out how you turned ur 4 overwintering nucs into 20?
I have 11 overwintering nucs 4/4/4 going at the moment and 15 double/triple 10F deep larger hives . Im hoping to graft 50 queens next year (2019) and between fly back splits/swarm captures etc am hoping to be at 40-50 total colonies in addition to selling 20 nucs in 2019. Dunno if thats feasible but thats my plan.

[couesbro]

Following for answers.

[e-spice]

>Any number of hives you are trying or expecting to reach this year?

It would be nice to get to 40 production hives. Right now my plan is to establish apiaries with 40 full strength colonies each that I use each year to build nucs off of to overwinter and sell the following spring. I’m just gonna be my own customer for a few years until I get a feel of how many yards I’m comfortable with. And possibly build 50 nucs to overwinter in each yard from each of the 40 production hives. I’m not set on numbers yet but these are a baseline that I’m thinking. 40 production hives per yard might end up not feasible or 50 nucs from each yard might not be feasible. But it’s somewhere to start thinking from and adjusting.

That's a huge step up. Learning to manage that many hives is a huge challenge even if you could somehow get to 40 production hives starting with 5 in a single season.

Also, keep in mind we have a long way to go to get through the winter. I think the early spring is the toughest to get through. If mite counts are great, you have strong queens, and plenty of bees and stores you can make it through with no winter losses. I've done that before but I usually lose some.

[Gray Goose]

Adding in to see the updates
Let us know how you progress