# Expansion Model Beekeeping



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Do you ever get that feeling when someone puts something you have been thinking about in to a nice neat concise terminology that makes sense and summarizes your thoughts into a cogent concept?

Yes. It often crystallizes something that was only a vague idea, even if it really didn't not significantly change the idea, yet it does in some way make it different....

You said one day, that I was managing my hives by the box. You were right, but I had never thought about it before, even though I had said I was splitting by the box. I was just doing what was working under the circumstances. Now I realize that mostly I do manage by the box.


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## Che Guebuddha (Feb 4, 2012)

Sol im buying 2 full colonies on 10 frame each! This May!

My plan is to focus on increasing colonies. I was thinking to split these 2 colonies once more in Jun but after reading this post of yours I considering making more nucs instead. 

I run only top bar hives and 12 bar nucs/bait hives. I have built enough equipment for this year;
4 x long TBHs and 4 x 12 top bar nucs. 

Those long top bar hives have entrance on both ends with follower boards which i can use as 2 hives. 

Even though we have (apparently) no wild swarms here im thinking to put up a few bait hives and see what happens. 

Are you sure i will not weaken the small colonies too much by making too many nucs with them???

If for example the mother colony produces 10 QC in Jun, I can leave 2 QC in the mother colony, split the old Queen into a new hive and still have 8 more QC to make nucs! How many nucs can I make from one Buckfast colony (locally adapted)? I dont want to weaken the colonies too much. 

Thanks!


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

The thing is you do get to the point where you just don't need any more bees. I basically did this for my first 3 years - went from 1 package to 20 full size hives plus many nucs. Very little in the way of losses during that period, but at that point it was more than I could take care of in my spare time. I have 8 hives this spring.

You have to know what you are going to do with extra bees before you get to that point, and be confident that you have done what you need to do to legally sell bees that you can be proud of. Plan ahead, instead of just crossing that bridge when you get to it.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Che Guebuddha said:


> Are you sure i will not weaken the small colonies too much by making too many nucs with them???
> How many nucs can I make from one Buckfast colony (locally adapted)?


I can't tell you for sure, it's really up to your hives and your weather conditions. One of the benefits of queen castles is that they can share warmth a little bit. You can certainly do too much and thereby weaken the hives. A few years back, I split a bit too heavily and a bit of brood got chilled. You'll have to try it out to see exactly what you can do and how it will work.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>The thing is you do get to the point where you just don't need any more bees.

I think the main point is to always have more bees than you need so you can take losses and make them up. You can always combine just before the flow for more production, or just before winter for better wintering, and therefore end up with less hives. Less hives is easy.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

When I built my first long hive, it struck me that it would make a great and very versatile queen castle, and I know that at least one commercial beekeeper uses long hives in that way.

The entrance to the couple of long hives I've built is just a slot or recess routed out of the edge of one 3/4" ply top board. That gives bees a 3/8" high slot for an entrance, and the entrance can easily be adjusted by sliding a stick across the stringer that reinforces the front of the hive. I made these top boards to fit my 8 frame Langstroth boxes, in case I ever had to super the long hive. This seems unlikely, but it's also been an advantage in that it's easier to move one of the smaller top boards than to handle a big sheet of ply. (Each hive has a "roof" of galvanized roofing panel.

Anyway, if a person wanted to use a long hive as a queen castle, he could easily fit 8 or so three-frame colonies into it, using division boards. Or any combination of larger nuc-size colonies, by using division boards to cut up the space, and those edge-routed top boards for entrances. If you need to expand one of these 3-frame colonies into a 6 framer, all you have to do is pull out a division board and flip one of the edge-routed top boards over, so that you now have a single entrance. These edge-routed top entrances are very versatile. If you want to alternate entrances on each colony, one in front, one in back and so forth, all it would take is turning the top board end for end. 

A wonderful thing about these long hives, if put on 32" legs, is that they are really easy on the back to work, and convenient in several ways. I liked my first one so much that I took a couple hours Saturday afternoon and built another.









Each hive costs about 50 bucks, not counting frames.

I really like the idea of outbreeding problems, and the suitability of locally sourced bees. I got my first nuc from a kind local beekeeper, and so far it's booming right along.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

We are building a few TBH's for this season (Les Crowder's plans...but reworked for repeatability and accuracy), and I'm thinking the same thing (even more so with the trapezoid shape)...3-4 small combs of bees is "approximately" a sphere....good for a mating nuc).

deknow


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## Moon (May 7, 2011)

Solomon Parker said:


> Timidity at the beginning often ends in failure.


This is one of the most solid tid bits of beekeeping knowledge ever.

_*EDIT*_

Just to expand on this a little bit for anyone who cares. My first year in beekeeping I made a lot of mistakes. The majority of my mistakes were the result of knowing something was wrong but second guessing myself. I would attempt to fix a problem, half way through the process I would second guess myself, wonder if I was doing more harm then could and then stop with correcting the issue. This more often then not lead to a problem developing past the point of being able to second guess what was going on but having let so much time slip by that it was now much more of a nuisance to deal with. 

Prime example, my first year I had a queen with a horrible laying pattern. I knew from the pictures I had seen, the books I had read, and the blogs I had browsed that this pattern was junk. I knew I needed to re-queen. At the very least pinch her and let the bees raise another but I wasn't 100% sure. I didn't (and still don't) have any kind of a mentor and I figured I would give her a couple of weeks before finalizing that decision. A couple weeks turned into a month and a half before the queen either absconded or was crushed by me during a manipulation. Sixteen days later a new queen is in the hive, two weeks later she's laying worker bees. Three weeks later the worker bees are hatching, and two weeks after that fall had set in and the hive just didn't have enough to catch up. There's all kinds of things I could have and should have done to help this hive along but I was to timid to add more brood, to timid to shake more nurse bees, to timid to pinch the queen when I first noticed the problem and the result was a season lost and a 65$ package down the drain, albeit, a valuable lesson learned though.

All in all it ended up being a moot point because of the splits I made off my over wintered bees the next year, but I always put in my notebooks while working my yards as a reminder 'Plan the work and work the plan'.

I still make mistakes, but rarely are the mistakes the result of inaction.


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## D Semple (Jun 18, 2010)

Good post Moon.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

This spring has been pretty disappointing for my little beekeeping operation.

Did a bunch of hives die? Outbreak of AFB? Bear attack? Skunks? No, no, no, and I just found him dead on the road this morning. RIP, neighborhood skunk. Skunks are territorial by the way.

No, it's the weather. The weather sucks. Last year, I grafted queens near the end of March, meaning nucs were ready for sale in mid May. Also, then I was in college and had a pretty flexible schedule. This year, I have it worked out so I would graft on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, and make up mating nucs on the next Saturday.

A few problems:

Number one was the weather. Virtually every Thursday was nasty weather. Not a good time to go mucking around in hives, grafting into queen cups and getting cell builders going. By the time I did have a free Thursday, it was mid April.

Number two: Last year, I made a huge mistake and grafted from the wrong queen. She was nice enough, but her hive likes to keep some queen cups around (meaning swarmy) and her parentage was a little mean (meaning her progeny have a higher chance as well.) When the nucs came out, I realized my mistake and rather than selling any of these queens, I kept them. I sold the good ones. I had to fall on my sword or some goofy analogy like that. So this year comes around and none of the hives in my home yard are of the configuration, strength, and genetics to graft from and to serve as a cell builder as I like to do. One was correctly sorted to serve as a cell builder but it is mean and will be requeened. Long story short, I need a bunch of my own queens to requeen a bunch of my own hives from this line. I did save a number from the other line last year and several of those are good breeders, but they're at my outyards, an inconvenience.

Third, weather again. As you may have noticed reported, we are having a cold spell. Mating nucs are already made up, virgins are in, and these hives have no way to be fed. They could starve in a few short days. Today is one of those days. This is the latest it has ever snowed in recorded history in NW Arkansas. It is May, and it is snowing. It's not freezing necessarily, but it has been snowing. No bees are flying.

Hopefully, all or most of these mating nucs will survive this mess. And due to prior commitments I am not going to be able to start another batch of queens until next week. Fortunately for this area, someone has predicted a cool wet summer. However, I have a theory about predicting the future. Humans suck at it. And I don't mean "hypothesis," I mean theory, as in "explains the data."

I am doing what I can and will do what it takes to make good on my queen and nuc reservations. But this is one of those years where things don't work like you think they ought to.

That all being said, my established hives are doing well. Only lost one this winter, one absconded this spring. As usual, I will miss neither.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Solomon, these problems made me smile, they are common to all queen raisers. (Other than the weak hives).

Queen raising is not like honey production. For queen raising there is an exact schedule and it has to be followed, to the day, rain or shine. If you want to be successful, you have to devise a way to work in the rain, if need be. For you, that could be as simple as getting your wife to hold an umbrella over you & the hive while you work it.

The difference between doing a few grafts per season, and larger scale queen raising, is organisation, focus on that.

The vicious hive you were going to use as a cell raiser? Use it. It will probably be a good cell builder. You can if you wish requeen it, and still continue to use it for cell raising.

Your breeder queen, move the hive to your site where you are raising the cells, that will pay off timewise longer term.

Your nucs, should always have enough feed to last at least a couple of months irrespective of weather. When queen raising, always base weather predictions on worst case scenario, Bad weather can and will happen, and there is too much to loose to leave anything to chance. You cannot be sitting at home worrying that your mating nucs might be starving.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

For anyone interested in the method, it's not practical or indeed possible to keep a queen castle mating nuc stocked with months worth of stores. The idea behind my queen castles is a mating nuc made of full sized frames. This gives utility and the ability to expand those mating nucs into larger and even full sized hives.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

I get the concept of Expansion Model Beekeeping. What are your thoughts and or suggestions when one is 1) not in a particularly good area for raising bees and 2) already at the carrying capacity of their land for bees. Establish new yards?

I have some concerns about how much control a beekeeper can have over land that they do not own or otherwise control. Given that bees can forage over a large area it seems as though expansion model beekeeping might not be a universal solution. Am I over thinking this?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It's very possible to have 2 months or more stores in a 3 frame nuc, I do it all the time. The trick is do not overstock the bees, which also makes it faster to find the queens.

I have raised queens as a full time job you know.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Andrew Dewey said:


> What are your thoughts and or suggestions when one is 1) not in a particularly good area for raising bees and 2) already at the carrying capacity of their land for bees. Establish new yards?


Conditions are important. I also live in a difficult area for bees. There are no commercial beekeepers here. There's obviously not much to be had. My season is very short. A quick spring, long summer, short fall, and that leaves very little time to work on expansion. It's spring or not at all. In summer, feeding is dangerous. There are times when if you feed a hive, you've killed it. I imagine things are a bit different in your area, you have a long winter and a short beekeeping season, I imagine. I can't speak from experience on how to deal with that, but I would suggest researching into the methods of Kirk Webster and Michael Palmer. They both are heavily invested in nucs and they seem to work. Nucs don't survive the summer here. I've had to adapt. For instance, I cannot keep more than 8-10 colonies in a single yard or robbing becomes excessive and destructive.




Andrew Dewey said:


> I have some concerns about how much control a beekeeper can have over land that they do not own or otherwise control. Given that bees can forage over a large area it seems as though expansion model beekeeping might not be a universal solution. Am I over thinking this?


There is this pernicious rumor that one needs to control genetics in a given area for it to work. I don't see this to be the case. I have no control over my genetics. I have feral hives and other beekeepers within drone range. I don't know any treatment free beekeeper who controls their area.

Expansion doesn't necessarily mean expanding indefinitely. The idea is that you outbreed your problems. Or, you use it to raise your own queens to replace poor performers. The focus is on sustainability and learning to keep bees on the breeding level rather than learning about treatments. I don't believe even treated hives can survive under a single hive in the back yard type regime. The differences in losses are not that great between treated and untreated hives. That one hive is going to die eventually, treated or not.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

Solomon Parker said:


> Conditions are important. I also live in a difficult area for bees. There are no commercial beekeepers here. There's obviously not much to be had. My season is very short. A quick spring, long summer, short fall, and that leaves very little time to work on expansion.


sounds like a tough area for bees alright solomon. did you get to harvest any honey at all last year?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Yes, our honey season is done by June, so hives that build up quickly and bring in a lot of honey right on time are important. I harvested 17 gallons from five hives last summer, late June. During that time I also produced about 20 nucs/queens, some were sold, the rest used to requeen and expand. I went from ten to ~25. Conditions prevailed last year as they are doing this year. Only last year, conditions were excellent until June. This year, they've been terrible.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

usually done by june here too. last year they were already capping honey at this time. i'm not even seeing new wax yet this year.

btw, i have a long time friend who lives in rogers that i visit occasionally, would like to visit your apiary if possible.


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## zhiv9 (Aug 3, 2012)

We have gone from high 30s to nearly 80 in a week here. A week and a half ago we had snow. We seemed to have just skipped spring altogether and jumped right into summer.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

squarepeg said:


> i have a long time friend who lives in rogers that i visit occasionally, would like to visit your apiary if possible.


I would be happy to host.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

thanks solomon, and likewise if you find yourself down this way. 

regarding the queen castles, did you make your own?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

I did make my own queen castles using the design found at my website: http://parkerfarms.biz/queens.html#Mating_Nucs

They can be made using only a table saw or a radial arm saw with some creativity. Having a dado set really helps but is not absolutely necessary.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

i see you prefer the three by three in the ten frame box. that's what i'm leaning toward too.

if one of the three fails, can you simply pull a divider and let them combine?


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Yes. In fact. in my most recent batch of mating nucs, I ran out of queen cells so I pulled two dividers and made two six frame mating nucs in two separate boxes. 

I'll do the same thing when I find that one of the queens didn't return from her mating flights.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

cool. i'm guessing that about when the first round or so of brood starts emerging they get moved into a bigger box.

i'm liking the idea of them ending up in five frame nuc boxes, mainly to have spare queens, brood, ect. to keep my my twelve production hives optimized and to have replacements for losses.

have you tried overwintering any nucs?


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

I think the long hives I've been experimenting with would make first class nuc batteries and queen castles. I'm using top entrances routed into the covering boards. It would be pretty easy to make up covering boards and dividers in the sizes you planned to use, and the system would be very flexible.









I imagine you could paint stripes of different colors, and have entrances on opposite sides, to cut down on confusion.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

yep, i think that would work fine ray, and easier on the back too. 

and there would be less heat loss if you tried to overwinter more than one in a box.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

squarepeg said:


> have you tried overwintering any nucs?


I have not yet gotten them to survive the summer. The winter should be easy. 




rhaldridge said:


> I imagine you could paint stripes of different colors, and have entrances on opposite sides, to cut down on confusion.


I do have one box you could call a nuc battery. It has space for 4 five frame nucs, entrances on either side and the end. The queen castles also have entrances on either side and one end. The other end has screened ventilation holes to attract robbers.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

SOlomon, I do not have time to read yoru entire post much less this entire thread right now.

I will say it has captured my attention though. Right at this moment my apiary has expended from5 colonies to 10 in a little over a weeks time. I also found two of my hives queenless. I also desire to have a nuc for each of my hives. which I have none at this moment and not enough equipment for all of them. You comments on queen castles looks good to me at this moment.

I also believe that your Expansion model beekeping would fit into my inclination well. It is my base thinking on keeping of anything that thriving healthy and vibrant is the first order of business. For me it is like this. if you cannot take an average colony and build it to a healthy thriving colony. what makes you think you can take an ailing one and make it healthy. In general is see the effort is producing sick colonies form healthy ones. For me the whole thinking just does not fit. If you cannot keep a healthy colony healthy. you might as well exterminate them as they get sick. Bringing a sick animal back to health is a whole different level of skill.

I wish you well with your development of this method.


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## mrnewberry (Feb 13, 2012)

I feel your pain on the weather. Every time I think the weather has mellowed out I try something cool with the bees and the weather changes it's mind.


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## Solomon Parker (Dec 21, 2002)

Daniel Y said:


> SOlomon, I do not have time to read yoru entire post much less this entire thread right now.


Well, I tried to read yours and I don't know what you're trying to say, but I will say this: You cannot keep a colony healthy, that's its job.


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