Hi, Very frustrated and discouraged today. Seems no matter how much time I put in my bees, I get the same result
2012: started beekeeping, lost a couple of queens over the season (probably bumped or rolled them), got a little bit of honey. Ended the season with 5 hives total
2013 All made it through the winter, decided to be a little more hands off, and that I had been in my hives too much the year before causing queen losses. Well, this approach didn't work, I added supers, flipped deeps and every hive swarmed except one and swarmed multiple times. I ended the season with 10 hives and about 5 gallons of honey.
2014: Was thrilled I only lost one nuc that was started in August. Thought this was great given the winter. I was now going to get it right this year!!! Because after all, I am a veteran beekeeper now!!!! (ha). I pulled my good queens from the hives around the first of May, erroneously thinking this would prevent swarming, flipped the deeps, added slatted bottom boards. Well, my biggest hive failed to requeen, then failed again and now has laying workers. Most of the other hives returned to swarm mode within a week or two of their new queens starting to lay. So I pulled those new queens. Now I have a mess. I got in two hives today that had not swarmed yet and found a virgin and about 10 qc's hatched out or destroyed. The other hive has capped queen cells and no queen. So of my big hives now I have 1 with laying workers, 1 with a virgin, 1 with queen cells, 4 queen right double deeps, 1 queen right single deep, 2 nucs from queens I pulled, 2 populous nucs I am letting requeen because they both had 3 year old queens in the hives and a retirement queen apartment for my 2, 3 year old queens on one frame of comb.
I know the "big boys" cant be messing with their hives this much, I am spending a TON of time and now feel like I have nothing to show for it. I should have just let them swarm this May. Now I feel like it's too late in the year to get these guys in good shape again. Is this normal learning curve???? Very frustrated. Thanks for any advice. Todd
2012: started beekeeping, lost a couple of queens over the season (probably bumped or rolled them), got a little bit of honey. Ended the season with 5 hives total
2013 All made it through the winter, decided to be a little more hands off, and that I had been in my hives too much the year before causing queen losses. Well, this approach didn't work, I added supers, flipped deeps and every hive swarmed except one and swarmed multiple times. I ended the season with 10 hives and about 5 gallons of honey.
2014: Was thrilled I only lost one nuc that was started in August. Thought this was great given the winter. I was now going to get it right this year!!! Because after all, I am a veteran beekeeper now!!!! (ha). I pulled my good queens from the hives around the first of May, erroneously thinking this would prevent swarming, flipped the deeps, added slatted bottom boards. Well, my biggest hive failed to requeen, then failed again and now has laying workers. Most of the other hives returned to swarm mode within a week or two of their new queens starting to lay. So I pulled those new queens. Now I have a mess. I got in two hives today that had not swarmed yet and found a virgin and about 10 qc's hatched out or destroyed. The other hive has capped queen cells and no queen. So of my big hives now I have 1 with laying workers, 1 with a virgin, 1 with queen cells, 4 queen right double deeps, 1 queen right single deep, 2 nucs from queens I pulled, 2 populous nucs I am letting requeen because they both had 3 year old queens in the hives and a retirement queen apartment for my 2, 3 year old queens on one frame of comb.
I know the "big boys" cant be messing with their hives this much, I am spending a TON of time and now feel like I have nothing to show for it. I should have just let them swarm this May. Now I feel like it's too late in the year to get these guys in good shape again. Is this normal learning curve???? Very frustrated. Thanks for any advice. Todd