# Best Way To Expand In Year Two?



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

So I'm starting three hives this year and, if things go well, I have every intention of adding seven more hives next year. I'm starting with two packages of carnies and an Italian nuc this year. My questions is what would be the best way to fill out my seven new hives next year?

#1 - Make splits this summer or fall into overwintering nucs
#2 - Making splits next spring for each of the new hives
#3 - Sucking it up and buying more packages / nucs next year. 

As a bonus question what would be the best way to find a location for these new hives? Three is the most I can really have in my yard. Just call on random farms in the area?


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

#2 Consider making this years goal- developing 3 really strong hives that will overwinter well. If you can keep them alive you can consider splitting and buying more packages.


----------



## Sovek (Apr 27, 2014)

#1 would probably work too, depending on your fall honey flow though you may need to feed. Just make sure that if you DO go with #1 you do it early enough and dont starve them of resources, namely bees. Make sure you have queens laying early enough.

First year though, #2 is probably better, my hive probably would still be alive if I hadnt screwed up. Oh well, live and learn.


----------



## philip.devos (Aug 10, 2013)

One thing you didn't mention, but should consider is getting FREE bees. I caught 2 swarms last summer, hanging a six-frame box at my brother's house. Swarms start in April; I was late getting the box up, but it's nice a neat way to get some "local" stock.


----------



## Terry C (Sep 6, 2013)

I started with one hive last June , and assuming they make it until then I'll be doing a split in mid-April , then another in May . First split will make their own queen , second one I have a queen on order from my original supplier . We'll have to see how it goes , but I'll probably split all three <assuming I don't kill 'em> again next spring , which will get me into my target number of 5-8 hives . Plan is then to make splits for nucs each year , use what I need to cover losses and sell the rest .


----------



## beeware10 (Jul 25, 2010)

If you split your packages the first year you could very well end up with no bees next spring. baby them and get them thru the winter with strong hives to split next spring. beekeeping can't be done on paper.


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

My first year keeping bees I started with two packages. By the end of that first year I had 13. I caught a few swarms and made nucs off of the packages and the swarms. I went into winter with 2 production colonies and 11 nucleus colonies. 12 of those 13 colonies overwintered and I split them in the spring and sold 8 nucs off of them. Now I have several hundred colonies and don't rely on the package bee industry to replace my losses. Nucs, nucs, and more nucs. I don't think you can have enough! Ask yourself what your goals are. Honey or Bees? There is an old saying, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Nothing wrong with setting high goals and shooting for the stars. 

Once people figure out who you are and that you keep bees you'll start getting offers for place to set up bee yards or yes, just knock on farmers doors if it looks like they have a spot that looks good to you. 

Good Luck!


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

Thank you for all the suggestions and opinions! Thinking I should buy the nice wooden nuc box kits so that I have them at the ready. I'm sure I'll need them sooner or later right? How long do the Queen Marking Pens last? Thinking I might as well buy those too now. 

It's way too easy to spend money with this hobby.


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

If you just starting- one of the last things you need is a queen marking pen.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

MTN-Bees said:


> If you just starting- one of the last things you need is a queen marking pen.


If I'm doing splits I shouldn't mark the new queens?


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

Before you start handling queens you should learn to handle bees. Before you start doing splits learn the very basics of beekeeping. There will plenty of time for all the other stuff.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

Oh absolutely. I'm famous for getting ahead of myself and putting the cart before the horse. I like to have my plans laid out, probably too far in advance. I'm planning for year two before year one has even started. Sometimes that's to my benefit and other times... not so much. I end up buying things I don't need or will never use. Since Mann Lake requires $100 for free shipping I end up justifying lumping in a ton of stuff so that I don't have to worry about placing another order in the future.

But there's always another order!


----------



## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

beeware10 said:


> If you split your packages the first year you could very well end up with no bees next spring. baby them and get them thru the winter with strong hives to split next spring. beekeeping can't be done on paper.



heed this advice, I turned a nuc a package and a swarm into 8 colonies my first yr......lost every one of them when the fall flow didn't happen and I didn't notice utill too late.


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

I'm using Testors model paint as many others do. There is a color code that identifies the year the queen was produced. You can't go wrong with having Nuc boxes handy.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

Harley if you monitor and feed heavily would that compensate? 

Here's the pens I was looking at - http://www.mannlakeltd.com/beekeeping-supplies/product/HD-381.html


----------



## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

Feeding is one part of the equation. Go to YouTube and look up Michael Palmer's Sustainable Apiary and watch that. That's one of many ways to do increase without putting your production hives at risk.


----------



## snapper1d (Apr 8, 2011)

I had a marking pen go bad on me today.I had one I wanted to mark.The double deeps were full of bees and not ready to split with the cold lingering on so I just decided to mark her when I saw her.I got the pen ready and went to touch her thorax and the pen just poured out paint all over her.I let her dry but she wasnt moving too fast and I figure she will probably die.If she doesnt she will rally stick out like a sore thumb.


----------



## Colby828 (Dec 4, 2013)

I went in to winter this past year with three hives, i lost one of them early on. It appears that the other two are going to make it through. I plan on expanding to six hives this year and here is the plan I have

I have ordered two packages.
I plan to split the two hives I have in early spring shortly after my two packages arrive.

Hopefully this plan will work and I end up with six strong hives in the later part of the summer I may split them again into nucs for overwintering if the honey flow is strong.


----------



## mgstei1 (Jan 11, 2014)

your#1 choice is what I would do in the summer or right before a major nectar flow if the colonies have 6-8 frames of brood.
Do Mel's method of OTS queen rearing in nucs. 
Like he says, a 4 fold increase is quite possible with 1 strong colony.


----------



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

pine_ridge_farms said:


> My first year keeping bees I started with two packages. By the end of that first year I had 13. I caught a few swarms and made nucs off of the packages and the swarms. I went into winter with 2 production colonies and 11 nucleus colonies. 12 of those 13 colonies overwintered and I split them in the spring and sold 8 nucs off of them. Now I have several hundred colonies and don't rely on the package bee industry to replace my losses. Nucs, nucs, an


:thumbsup: Pretty much what I did on a slightly smaller scale - went from one package to 10 overwintered hives in a couple of years-without buying more bees. Started making honey at that point. Still - nucs, nucs, more nucs...


----------



## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Banemorth said:


> Harley if you monitor and feed heavily would that compensate?
> 
> Here's the pens I was looking at - http://www.mannlakeltd.com/beekeeping-supplies/product/HD-381.html


You don't need a marking pen. 

But if you are placing an order with Mann Lake everything will be 11% off March 5-8. If you can get three packages installed, built up well, without swarming, and up to winter weight with low mite counts and minimal robbing you will be ahead of the game. My suggestion would be to leave making increase to swarm capture your first year. You aren't really going to know how strong of a colony you have honestly. Having three will help give you reference though. You have to learn the flows for your area as well. 
I went into last year with the attitude that if I didn't take honey I wouldn't need to feed in the winter. Wronnnnnggggggg. 
Be prepared to feed a lot your first fall and also to be amazed at how much honey your bees (particularly your italians) will blow through in any late summer dearth you may have. I was floored. I was mixing up 10 gallon batches every few days for quite awhile getting them up to winter weight. Buy sugar when it's cheap. 

Be more worried about year one than year two or you could easily find ourself needing 10 packages to get to your goal in 2016.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Slightly different tack, if 3 hives are kept healthy and well fed for a year, the hard part would be to have them *not* turned into 7 hives the following season.

So keep them healthy and well fed.

For you, your hives are starting from packages, so will likely be commercial hard working but non mite resistant stock, that will certainly require mite treatment. Failure to do so will mean unhealthy bees and stop you achieving your goal, regardless whatever else you do.

So control mites, keep the bees healthy, ensure they are always well fed, and you are 75% on the way to 7 hives in one year. Strong healthy hives are the basis on which mere details like how to actually split them are based.


----------



## Sovek (Apr 27, 2014)

pine_ridge_farms said:


> My first year keeping bees I started with two packages. By the end of that first year I had 13. I caught a few swarms and made nucs off of the packages and the swarms. I went into winter with 2 production colonies and 11 nucleus colonies. 12 of those 13 colonies overwintered and I split them in the spring and sold 8 nucs off of them. Now I have several hundred colonies and don't rely on the package bee industry to replace my losses. Nucs, nucs, and more nucs. I don't think you can have enough! Ask yourself what your goals are. Honey or Bees? There is an old saying, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Nothing wrong with setting high goals and shooting for the stars.
> 
> Once people figure out who you are and that you keep bees you'll start getting offers for place to set up bee yards or yes, just knock on farmers doors if it looks like they have a spot that looks good to you.
> 
> Good Luck!


13? wow. And only lost one over winter. Is it just me or do nuc splits seem to handle overwintering better than one big hive, cause that seems to be a common theme amoung those that overwitner nucs. Mike Palmers overwinter success with nucs is I think he said 75%. 

But in response to Harley, If you split into nucs, Feed anyway and if there IS a flow going on, you can always remove the feeder and put it back on after the flow is over.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

Wow I got way more replies than I thought I would, thank you all for the incredible suggestions and advice. Seems like the absolute safest bet would be to wait until next spring but splitting and feeding heavily this year might work too. Catching swarms does sound like a hell of a lot of fun. 

Lots of people saying not to worry about the queen marking pens. Do you guys just not mark your queens at all or do you have another method? If I am doing splits or catching swarms should I be marking the queen or does it really not matter? Not sure how much easier it makes finding her but I figured it'd be good too to know if she had been usurped or something. 

Not sure what else I want to buy from Mann Lake. I watched a video of a guy grafting a frame of queens and it looked awesome. Getting ahead of myself again...


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

I buy my queen marking pens from walmart. Painters I think is the brand. Mark hundreds of queens a year with them.


----------



## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Banemorth said:


> Wow I got way more replies than I thought I would, thank you all for the incredible suggestions and advice. Seems like the absolute safest bet would be to wait until next spring but splitting and feeding heavily this year might work too. Catching swarms does sound like a hell of a lot of fun.
> 
> Lots of people saying not to worry about the queen marking pens. Do you guys just not mark your queens at all or do you have another method? If I am doing splits or catching swarms should I be marking the queen or does it really not matter? Not sure how much easier it makes finding her but I figured it'd be good too to know if she had been usurped or something.
> 
> Not sure what else I want to buy from Mann Lake. I watched a video of a guy grafting a frame of queens and it looked awesome. Getting ahead of myself again...


Chinese grafting pens are cheaper for a 5 or 10 pack on ebay than buying a couple from ML. The marking is strictly to help you better find the queen which isn't really important 90% of the time. I don't find her terribly difficult to spot, most of the time finding her on accident. You can find evidence of her easily enough to not really need to worry about it most of the time.


----------



## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

Banemorth said:


> Wow I got way more replies than I thought I would, thank you all for the incredible suggestions and advice. Seems like the absolute safest bet would be to wait until next spring but splitting and feeding heavily this year might work too. Catching swarms does sound like a hell of a lot of fun.
> 
> Lots of people saying not to worry about the queen marking pens. Do you guys just not mark your queens at all or do you have another method? If I am doing splits or catching swarms should I be marking the queen or does it really not matter? Not sure how much easier it makes finding her but I figured it'd be good too to know if she had been usurped or something.
> 
> Not sure what else I want to buy from Mann Lake. I watched a video of a guy grafting a frame of queens and it looked awesome. Getting ahead of myself again...


Woodenware always gets you above $100. Cant have too much of that. I will qualify this by saying I am just limping through my second winter, my recommendation would be work your hives this year and learn from the bees and this site and anyone else that's willing to help. You will know when its time to split. As far as the pen, I used to look for the queen every time in the box, Now, I just look for evidence of her. Eggs, unless of course I need to find her. Shes alot easier to find when you aren't focused on finding her too. Good Luck. G


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

I think nucs just get paid attention to better. Young queen, plenty of feed, and low mite levels help make them incredibly successful. Most years 80 to 90 precent survive. I lost three last week cause the lids blew off...inch: my fault, not theirs.


----------



## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

pine_ridge_farms said:


> I think nucs just get paid attention to better. Young queen, plenty of feed, and low mite levels help make them incredibly successful. Most years 80 to 90 precent survive. I lost three last week cause the lids blew off...inch: my fault, not theirs.


I plan to try my hand at overwintering nucs this year. Makes sense, some of the singles I took into winter could have and probably should have been condensed to nucs. Thats the thing about this hobby, get plenty of lessons all during the spring and summer of the year. But only 1 final exam. Winter. It takes a long time to get that grade back. :lookout: G


----------



## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

Banemorth said:


> Lots of people saying not to worry about the queen marking pens. Do you guys just not mark your queens at all or do you have another method? If I am doing splits or catching swarms should I be marking the queen or does it really not matter? Not sure how much easier it makes finding her but I figured it'd be good too to know if she had been usurped or something....Getting ahead of myself again...


I haven't marked any queens, yet. My first year, I never really saw them. Often, I don't see them and I don't look for them as hard as I used to, just relying on the signs (eggs and larvae) that one is there. In the future I might want to keep better track of them but that isn't here yet.

If you are managing your hives, you will know if there is a queen problem- swarm cells, supercedure cells, or a lack of eggs/larvae/brood.

I had big expansion plans when I started, all mapped out...but, it didn't happen the way I planned it. You are dealing with living creatures and the forces of nature, things don't always go according to plan. There are variables that you cannot control. You do the best you can to try to account for them, but it doesn't always work the way you want it to. I had planned on doubling every year but isn't hasn't worked out that way, there are a lot of things to learn, a lot of mistakes to be made, plus the luck (good and bad) of random chance.

My suggestion- primary focus is to learn to work with them, manage them, get them thru the Winter.

Second- if you have the time, and they are strong enough, you may want to experiment with starting a nuc and raising a queen, but if you are starting from scratch and have no drawn comb your bees are going to have a lot of work to do to get established.


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x58/danwill73/8-12-13 052.jpg

Ever notice how outgoing kids are? Sometimes it worries me!  This is my boy, he was 4 at the time. Practice on drones and once you get the hang of it start marking them.


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x58/danwill73/8-12-13%20048.jpg


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x58/danwill73/8-12-13%20044.jpg

Sorry pictures are not in order. Grab queen by queens off the frame with your dominate hand, switch to non dominate hand holding her by her thorax, put dot of paint on thorax, gently push paint down on thorax with a spare finger (pinky), and allow a minute for the paint to dry. A few tips. 1. If the queen starts to run on the comb, quit trying to catch her. 2. If you drop the queen on the ground, place a frame of brood next to her and she will climb up on that frame of brood. 3. If the queen takes off flying (rarely happens, especially if she isn't running) put lid back on hive and most of the time she will be back in the hive later. 4. If the paint pens are hot they can dump paint on your queen. I touch the paint pen on a top bar before marking the queen. You just need the tip barely wet with paint and keep the pen in your pocket not your truck.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

Great pictures and tips! 

So help me spend my money guys. I'm putting in a Mann Lake order. What do I buy? 

I already have six deeps with frames and foundation, six honey supers with frames and foundation, screened bottom boards, queen excluders, solid bottom boards, inner/outer covers, top feeders for all three hives. I have two full bee suits with gloves. I have a smoker, two hive tools, bee brush, ApiVar, MAQS, protein patties, smoker fuel and a frame rest. 


Things I'm considering buying - complete NUC kits (wood), queen rearing frames w/ cups, ANOTHER hive, grafting tools, uncapping scratcher... taking all suggestions!


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

My opinion, with new hives you don't need anything for queen rearing. You don't have the capability as in the volume of bees to be grafting/building cells. A capping scratcher is a good buy and good for different things. I don't mess with the smoker fuel or the frame rests. For smoker fuel I use pine shavings made for animal bedding. A whole big bale of the stuff is like $5 and will last you several years. If you have money to burn Nucs, nucs, and more nucs.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

Yeah I bought smoker fuel before I realized how pointless it was and I bought some CheckMite too before I realized how ineffective it was too. 

Live and learn. My fault. 

So I watched a video of a guy. He did a split and put them in a nuc box with absolutely no larva / brood. He sealed it up and kept them there for 24 hours. Then pulled some larva at the right point in their development and put them into this queen frame thing with cups. He put that frame into the sealed nuc and those bees made a whole bunch of those larva into queens. (This absolutely blew my mind and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.) In my mind it would be good to do a single split, get all the queens ready, and then when they're almost ready to hatch create a whole bunch more splits into the nuc boxes and grafting a couple queens into each one so they aren't queenless for long. 

Am I out of my league thinking of trying something like that? Should I instead just worry about buying the nuc boxes and catching swarms?


----------



## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

Banemorth said:


> So help me spend my money guys...What do I buy?
> 
> I already have six deeps with frames and foundation, six honey supers with frames and foundation, screened bottom boards, queen excluders, solid bottom boards, inner/outer covers, top feeders for all three hives. I have two full bee suits with gloves. I have a smoker, two hive tools, bee brush, ApiVar, MAQS, protein patties, smoker fuel and a frame rest.
> 
> ...


Sounds like you've got money to burn, you can get some stuff for me if you want 

Seriously though- I've found that having several different types of hive tools is handy. I have 4 types that I use regularly: standard that looks like a carpenter's tool, j-hook, mid-size with a 45* angle lifter and small mini-frame lifter.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

I'm a sucker for a sale BBK. 11% off at Mann Lake has me wanting to buy now, anything I might need later. I bought all the rest of my stuff when they had their 10% off Black Friday sale!  

If I need something I'll put it off until they have a sale. That's just how I am. Both hive tools I got are the same with the J-Hook. (One for me and one for the wife.) I'll grab another different one.


----------



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

OK, to get ready _now_ for next winter throw in two 2" shims per expected hive stack and a shallow, or comb depth box to turn into a QB for each stack. You can paint them when you paint the regular stuff and then you'll have purty looking winter stacks.

You need one of the shims for feeding rim under the QB (and you'll need that with or without a QB). The second shim is for ventilation above the QB. And the shallow will turn into the QB.

Also get a robbing screen for each stack AND a short length (a yard or so) of bee-proof screening to use for making stuff for your bees (push in queen cages, entrance blockers that also ventilate, emergencies of one kind or another.)

Of course get sticky boards to use with your SBB. I like to have a spare sticky so I take one out and popa fresh one in. They can also be made by painting salvaged plastic political signs with BIN. Don't get sticky boards with imprinted lines - these can mask varroa, throing off your count.

Nice to have: one spare solid BB (home-made one is OK), one spare top (you can make a migration style one) and an extra one each of deeps and mediums. One of those folding plastic Jester-style nuc boxes. 'Cause you never know when you suddenly need a spare complete hive or nuc. I would also buy more frames than you think you need. (For three expected, four-box, 10-frame sized stacks - 3 X 20 frames of each size - perhaps 10-each of extra mediums and deeps. You may want to change to different frame designs/styles in subsequent years so don't go crazy.)

When you get your MAQS, put it in the freezer as that temporarily "stops" its expiration clock. In general I don't buy treatments until I need them, but then I live within driving distance of Betterbee, so I am lucky. I would also use OAV rather than Apivar. Amitraz is not welcome on my farm.

Cha-ching, cha-CHING, CHA-CHING! Welcome to Beekeeping!

Enj.


----------



## WilliamsHoneyBees (Feb 17, 2010)

Banemorth said:


> Yeah I bought smoker fuel before I realized how pointless it was and I bought some CheckMite too before I realized how ineffective it was too.
> 
> Live and learn. My fault.
> 
> ...


Learn the basics before jumping into queen rearing. The box you are referring to is called a starter box or swarm box. One of many ways to start cells. You'd also need a finisher to complete the cells and a vast knowledge of when those cells will be ready for mating nucs, how to stock mating nucs, when to feed mating nucs, etc. Starting out you are better off BY FAR to purchase mated queens and make splits with them or making splits when you find natural queen cells in your own colonies. Once you get comfortable working with bees and making splits, learn queen rearing. Grafting (Doolittle method) is not the way I would rear queens if I had 3 hives. There are better ways to raise less queens then grafting cell bars and making up starter/finisher hives. So honestly, yes you are thinking to far ahead. Learn beekeeping first.


----------



## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

Banemorth said:


> Great pictures and tips!
> 
> So help me spend my money guys. I'm putting in a Mann Lake order. What do I buy?
> 
> ...


The books Queen Rearing Essentials & Increase Essentials [Lawrence Connor] are good ways to spend money and will help you answer a lot of your questions for your future beekeeping experience.


----------



## Banemorth (Feb 28, 2015)

Alright so here's what my shopping cart looks like. Dan I'm taking your advice and nixing all of the queen stuff with the exception of one pen, so I can mark any swarms I might catch or splits I might do. I got white because I feel like that should stick out. 

Alright so White Marking Pen, 7 complete nuc kits, an extra completely assembled hive, four more honey supers with frames w/o foundation (I want some comb honey), a capping scratcher, and a queen excluder for the new hive. OH an an extra 100 deep frames. Oh I suppose I should get another top feeder too eh? 

Enj I forgot to mention that I have sticky boards. I added the frames like you suggested and that many wooden five frame nuc boxes should be plenty I hope. I think by QB you mean quilt box. Can I just use a super box without frames and the queen excluder to hold the material or will that not work?

Sterling I'm adding that book to my shopping cart!


----------



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

You could use an empty (medium) super, but you should not, IMO plan on using a queen excluder to support the shavings, for these reasons:

1) most QE won't keep the considerable amount of small particles and dust and junk from falling through and down into your hives. Girls don't like messy houses. 

2) A queen excluder, being made of at least some solid material, metal or plastic, could function as a condensation plane above the bees, making for dripping which is precisely what the whole point of adding a QB is intended to prevent. QBs have a cozy-sounding name, and I'm sure the do add some warmth to the top of the hive, but they are primarily intended as moisture-management tools.

3) I use a muslin cloth floor for my QB so the moisture from the hive can pass unimpeded up and into the filliing overhead and then through and out of the hive entirely. It's for this reason I have dedicated QBs that only are used for this purpose. Because getting the cloth floor properly tightened takes some work that I don't want to have to repeat each season. (I also experimented with leaving the QB on all summer long last year, and will do that again this summer. It worked well except the bees put a little wax and propolis,on it which I think could hinder future vapor-permeability, but on the whole I like them better than inner covers which I no longer use.)

Aside from my experimental summer use, I like QBs so much for wintering in our cold northern climate, that I consider them essential so I don't mind having dedicated boxes just for that. After all the QBs, just for winter use, would be on for at least half the year, probably more, anyway. So that makes _inner covers_, the short-time-use piece of equipment even though they are much more commonly deployed (and must be used in the absence of a QB). A shallow super, or even an old-fashioned comb-honey height (which is a tad less tall than a "shallow") provides more than enough height for the shavings. I use comb-height boxes because that's what I had on hand. I'd buy which ever is cheaper, including a medium, if you can get a better price by buying mediums in larger quantities. I know my supplier (Betterbee) gives a price break I think at five or more of the same item. Sometimes it's cheaper to not buy "complete" hive kits when you're buying more than just one or two outfits. You could ask your supplier which would be cheaper for you.

Re feeders: I wouldn't buy one(s) for your "just in case" equipment at this time. You will use them heavily for establishing your nucs or packages during their first spring and fall, then not so much for the original colonies which should, in their second year, become big enough to supply thmeselves for the most part. Winter feeding is solid sugar and patties which don't need liquid feeders. You can hand the liquid feeders down to your expansion hives, and future first years' new colonies. The only equipment pinch might come if you wind up with extra first year colonies late _this_ summer (say from swarms) when your original hives will likely need some feeding to get them up to full wintering weight for their first winter. But you could take that chance and only order another feeder if you, in fact, do snag some swarms. By the time you get swarms that need summer feeding this year to get established, your feeding of your nucs/packages will be tapering off. The swarms can use the feeders taken off your first hives and you will have plenty of time to plan for adding another feeder(s!) before fall. I made that mistake last year as I was coming out of my first winter and bought extra feeders for all my planned increases. I did not feed (beyond solid sugar and patties) in the spring and decided to leave enough honey on all my hives to see how that worked. I gave my 2014 first-year splits some extra frames of capped honey from my established hives so none needed feeding in the fall.

Enj.


----------

