Hello everyone! I have a question about honey production. I am starting my second year of beekeeping this season. Through a combination of my own ignorance and a rough winter, I lost 3 of my 4 hives. Determined to keep going, I bought several packages and a couple nucs to give it another attempt. I would love for at least one colony to make some surplus honey this year; however, my one colony that did overwinter never built up well. I ended up re-queening the colony with an extra queen I bought with my packages. So far, the packages have filled out around a 10 frame deep each and the colony I requeened is similar in size to them. While I do not know if this is true, I have read that 1 strong hive will far outproduce several weaker hives. Therefore, my plan is to pick whichever hive has the best laying queen and use it as my honey production hive. I then intend to take a couple frames from each of my other 4 hives and donate it to the designated honey production hive thereby creating a much stronger single colony. I hope to continue to do this throughout the main flow (until June 15 around here). My only concern is I do not want the hives from which I am taking frames to become too weak. Around here, it is not at all a problem to overwinter in single deeps, so I have no problem leaving the weaker hives in a single deep by continuously taking brood from them. How many frames of brood should I leave in each single hive after I harvest? How often can I harvest frames to donate to the honey colony? Is my plan a good one or should I modify it? I have probably another box or so of drawn comb to work with that is currently being stored.
Thanks for the input and let me know if you need to know anything else!
Thanks for the input and let me know if you need to know anything else!