1) If you want lots of bee come fall/winter, don't split them too thin. This changes the division of labor in the hive away from the activities that build up a colony rapidly.
There's a reason that package bees come with 3 to 5 lbs. of workers - let them build up, then split them. Not the other way around.
2) Don't start from package bees! These almost always take longer to start that over-wintered nucleus colonies, or splitting up a large, healthy colony and introducing queens in Laidlaw cages. This slower start can cause them to miss several critical weeks of the main nectar flow, leaving them smaller in population when the nectar flow shuts off.
5) Read Dr. Lawrence John Connor's book, Increase Essentials! It explains the mathematics of build-up very clearly.
Keeping stronger colonies and waiting until next year to split often ends up with more bees than splitting them up into 1- or 2-framers and hoping for the best. This approach lends toward splitting much earlier next year, and the possibility of making more than one split on the year. As you gain experience reading the rainfall and the nectar flows by the year, you can get aggressive when the signs all read, "Wet year with lots of flowers!" Meanwhile, grow conservatively until you have enough bees to make up both thick and thin splits, and knowing how many colonies each bee yard can support.
The opposite approach - split into many tiny nucs and re-combine in the fall - can severely cut into your honey and pollen resources, making wintering rather traumatic. Good luck!
Our spring nuc production was intended to make nucs and queens to sell. My original projected numbers based upon last years actual results where. 250 queen cells from 12 production colonies and 10 over wintered nucs. Actual number was 283 cells from those hives plus an attempt at grafting. The actual number of cells produced without the grafting was 249. not a bad estimate given it was based on one hives swarm attempt the year before.
From 250 cells I expected 125 mated queens. We did not even get 125 emerged queens. We have removed cells from hives in the past with nearly 100% emergence rates. The only thing I can think of that is different is that we had some pretty cold days during this time. Otherwise no idea why we lost so many queens in their cells.
Of the expected 125 queens I intended to sell 85 of them and make the remaining 40 into nucs. In this same period of time the 10 overwintered nucs where to be expanded into full size colonies.
This giving us 22 production size colonies and 40 nucs.
Actual results.
283 queen cells
roughly 140 virgin queens emerged from those cells
Approx 37 of those virgin queens where sold as virgins.
Of the remaining 103 or so virgins we got 32 or so mated queens.
I am putting down numbers from memory and did not take the time to actually look it up in my records.
Mainly what was lost was the 85 or so mated queens I expected to be able to sell.
Even with that I am seeing much of the effect Charlie speaks of with colonies that are two small being slow to build up.
I am attempting to get 16 of these 40 nucs to increase rapidly so I have been noticing even if not with clarity some of the issues with rapid build up. I would not be concerned with how fast they build up except these nucs I need to sell. They are not progressing fast enough to be sold this year.
My original goal was to build up from 22 colonies to 207 this year. So far we are at 54. And none of what I have done so far was intended to be part of our build up.
Originally I intended that the 40 queens form the nucs would build up and return all the lost work force to there parent colonies. this has not happened as of yet.
We started with 12 production size colonies and are now at 25. Nearly all I woudl evaluate at a moderate population. it is my intent to let these colonies build up through the flow. and then once again split them up into nucleus colonies to over winter. We need and additional 150 or so nucs from all of these hives. The build up on the honey flow is not so far looking that good but we are still early in the flow for our area.
I am looking to boost all 40 nucs with brood from other colonies in an attempt to get them to expand faster.
The failure to get queens to sell as well as not having sold the nucs has also caused a cash flow problem. In order to make our increase I still need to purchase the equipment.
In all I am very interested in this Increase Essential sort of information. I am not as concerned about slow build up in nucs we will over winter. Small nucs do fine here given we have mild winters. But for nucs to sell I need them to increase at a much faster rate. Or make them up in the previous fall.
You touch on a lot of things for me to think about and look into Charlie. Much of it my mind is already resistant to. I am attempting massive increase. On that note I have already had fairly dismal results. I got a little over 75% of the nucs I was looking to get but none of the additional mated queens. I suspect the loss of those queens was due to unrelated factors such as weather. some is related to factors we need to improve on.
I was not prepared for the heavy losses of bee population in the queen rearing attempt. Again something I think can be improved on.
I will be a while sorting it all out. right now I am a bit disoriented with the mad scramble spring always seems to be. We have done a good job of keepign records on it all. and as fall approaches I will have the time to slow down and look it all over. Hopefully by next spring I will have found some answers and developed some better strategies for next year.
I still see ti can be done. By it I mean a 20 fold increase in an apiary in a single year. Call it my wild and crazy project. I will have to tone it down after this year given I cannot possibly increase a 50 hive yard in a single year. just to much work for me. But I am determined to figure out how to increase a yard say of 10 colonies by that much.
Some improvement may lie in the idea of less increase earlier in the season allowing more queens to produce at maximum ability. More queens being more productive increases bee population more rapidly. this allowing additional increase sooner.
One problem is that the 20 fold increase in queen production happens in the swarming season.
I am thinking out loud now so will drop it for now.
I will say this take away our heavy losses of both queen cells and virgin queens. Give me the equipment to have housed all of them. I very well could have made half that 20 fold increase during the swarm season alone. Given a mated queen rate of better than 50% and that would have been even higher. In a good year of 80% of all virgins gettign mated and I would have had over 100% of that increase.
It is not easy. but I still see most of what is needed to do it has already been proven it can be done. Bees will consistently and predictably produce the queen cells. Near 100% Emergence of queen cells is not unusual. If I cannot get it but cutting out queen cells I will get it by grafting cells. I have seen mated queen rates as high as 80%. I am looking for our actual 50%. So am not even asking for a bulls eye on virgins getting mated.
I can reliably build up colonies to 40 frames of bees in the spring. they then consistently produce 19 queen cells each. with the original queen this allows me to split those 40 frames into 20 compartments and keep all 20 queens. 19 of them to get mated. At a 50% mating rate this allows me to then move the bees to 5 frame nucs each queen getting 4 frames of bees. I am at 50% of my 20 fold increase.
In reality it is much different. cells did not produce virgin queens. Virgin queens did not get mated. and those that did there was barely enough frames of bees remaining to get them started. Our actual final result was slightly over 25% of my target increase.
I need better emergence rates on cells. better return on mated queens. and to improve the survival of the bees through it all.
Other than that it is easy
I don't think I would have any interest if it was easy.