Overlooking the fact that it's April 15th and snowing like crazy - AGAIN - it seems that I have successfully gotten my three, first year, hives through The Winter From Hell. They seem to be doing just fine and happily occupying themselves with Spring bee-work.
So I met my first year goal - being better for the bees than my barn wall cavities. It's probably mostly beginner's luck and attributable, in part, to the fact that I started only with swarms, at least some of which may be feral survivior in origin. All three obviously have some strong survival traits because they survived my newbee ignorance and often-clumsy efforts to manage them.
But it brings me face to face with the next dilemma. I do understand that the goal of the bees themselves is to grow big enough to cast a reproductive swarm. And I understand that one of the most effective ways to manage this is to do splits. And I understand that at any point I could suffer some catastrope to the queen(s) so having splits or nucs on hand would allow me a hope of both sustainable beekeeping and maintaining my three colonies.
But unlike most beekeepers I read about here on BS I'm not particularly interested in growing my apiary. Three is a fun number of hives. I could (probably) be happy with any single digit number of hives. Also, unlike most beekeepers I have no interest at all in honey harvesting. What jazzes me about my bees is studying their behavior and natural history. They exist in this unique place between wild animals and domestic animals which fascinates me. I run a small veg. and fruit operation so their help with pollination is a plus, but not a big deal, as I don't think having them increases my crop yields much because I farm in area with many native pollinators (which I have been protecting from ag chemicals for decades.)
Local advice is that I have to make honey, or make bees (for sale). It seems absurd to me that a beekeeper with less than a year's experience might even consider producing bees for sale. Sort of the bee equivalent of the least desirable type of back yard puppy mill, just cranking out more animals (insects) to sell. So I think that's a non-starter for me.
I'm OK with doubling the number of hives this year by making ONE split from each colony. And last week I ordered up enough equipment to do that (gotta get painting if it ever gets back above freezing again!) So I'm good for this year to have my original three, plus make a split/spare of each of them. That still sounds like fun. But looking ahead to next year, I'm not so enthusiastic because doubling my six colony apiary begins to sound like real work, and not so much fun.
Has anybody else wrestled with this issue? How did you decide on the right size apiary and how did you manage to keep it there? Maybe I'm missing something obvious.
Thanks for your ideas.
Enj.
So I met my first year goal - being better for the bees than my barn wall cavities. It's probably mostly beginner's luck and attributable, in part, to the fact that I started only with swarms, at least some of which may be feral survivior in origin. All three obviously have some strong survival traits because they survived my newbee ignorance and often-clumsy efforts to manage them.
But it brings me face to face with the next dilemma. I do understand that the goal of the bees themselves is to grow big enough to cast a reproductive swarm. And I understand that one of the most effective ways to manage this is to do splits. And I understand that at any point I could suffer some catastrope to the queen(s) so having splits or nucs on hand would allow me a hope of both sustainable beekeeping and maintaining my three colonies.
But unlike most beekeepers I read about here on BS I'm not particularly interested in growing my apiary. Three is a fun number of hives. I could (probably) be happy with any single digit number of hives. Also, unlike most beekeepers I have no interest at all in honey harvesting. What jazzes me about my bees is studying their behavior and natural history. They exist in this unique place between wild animals and domestic animals which fascinates me. I run a small veg. and fruit operation so their help with pollination is a plus, but not a big deal, as I don't think having them increases my crop yields much because I farm in area with many native pollinators (which I have been protecting from ag chemicals for decades.)
Local advice is that I have to make honey, or make bees (for sale). It seems absurd to me that a beekeeper with less than a year's experience might even consider producing bees for sale. Sort of the bee equivalent of the least desirable type of back yard puppy mill, just cranking out more animals (insects) to sell. So I think that's a non-starter for me.
I'm OK with doubling the number of hives this year by making ONE split from each colony. And last week I ordered up enough equipment to do that (gotta get painting if it ever gets back above freezing again!) So I'm good for this year to have my original three, plus make a split/spare of each of them. That still sounds like fun. But looking ahead to next year, I'm not so enthusiastic because doubling my six colony apiary begins to sound like real work, and not so much fun.
Has anybody else wrestled with this issue? How did you decide on the right size apiary and how did you manage to keep it there? Maybe I'm missing something obvious.
Thanks for your ideas.
Enj.