Hi all,
This past year was our first year beekeeping and we started out with 4 hives. Long story short: all hives went into winter with 2 deeps & 1 medium filled with honey, and as luck wouldn't have it, none made it through the winter... disappointing. Now we have 4 empty deep boxes of drawn comb, 4 deep boxes that are partially filled with honey/pollen, and 4 honey supers loaded with capped honey. This year we plan on starting back up again with 3 nucs and 2 packages. My questions to everyone are: What configuration would you start the new bees off with given our current frames? Can I start each hive off with 2 deeps? 2 deeps and a honey super on top? Just 1 deep? Any thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Also, none of the hives had any sort of diseases that would keep me from reusing the equipment. Thanks,
Greg
This past year was our first year beekeeping and we started out with 4 hives. Long story short: all hives went into winter with 2 deeps & 1 medium filled with honey, and as luck wouldn't have it, none made it through the winter... disappointing. Now we have 4 empty deep boxes of drawn comb, 4 deep boxes that are partially filled with honey/pollen, and 4 honey supers loaded with capped honey. This year we plan on starting back up again with 3 nucs and 2 packages. My questions to everyone are: What configuration would you start the new bees off with given our current frames? Can I start each hive off with 2 deeps? 2 deeps and a honey super on top? Just 1 deep? Any thoughts on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Also, none of the hives had any sort of diseases that would keep me from reusing the equipment. Thanks,
Greg