# The National Honey Show Part 2



## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Thanks Michael great talk!


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

I have been following your posts on this for a while, but it was a well spent hour or so seeing it all tied together. Excellent.


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## Flyer Jim (Apr 22, 2004)

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: Thanks Well done!


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

I've enjoyed the lectures. One more to go.


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## Cottonwood (Apr 16, 2013)

Thank you Michael. While I'm not ready to raise queens yet, the lecture is very helpful in helping this first year beek better understand the process and more importantly the whys.


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## monrovi (Jan 22, 2012)

Michael I watched both of your presentations. They were extremely informational. Got me all excited ready to try some double nucs! It just makes sense. I'm going to give it a try this year. Can wait to start building them. Thanks for posting the link.


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## honeydrunkapiaries (Oct 16, 2013)

Thanks again for another great presentation Mike! I love your no bull approach, you need to write a book!


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

Michael,

Thanks for the link, I really enjoyed the presentation.

I have a question. I plan to raise a few batches of queens this coming season. In the past I have used a queenright starte/finisher to raise cells. I have added nurse bees by adding combs of capped brood. My starter/finishers have not been as strong as you demonstrated. I don't plan to raise back-to-back rounds of queens. Do you think a cell builder of the same strength you showed would be strong enough to raise two frames of grafts at once? 

At this point my grafting success is more in the 50% range. I would hope I would improve that over time.

I would probably look at raising a batch of queens once a month for two or three months.

Thanks,

Tom


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## taperdave (Oct 8, 2006)

Very Nicely done Sir! Great info well explained, Quality Recording!


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

TWall said:


> I don't plan to raise back-to-back rounds of queens. Do you think a cell builder of the same strength you showed would be strong enough to raise two frames of grafts at once?
> 
> At this point my grafting success is more in the 50% range. I would hope I would improve that over time.


Probably you could. Maybe two days apart instead of all at once. But how many cells do you need? 2 cell bar frames is 90+ cells

You should be able to get better with practice, say over 90% Better to improve your grafting skill than to double the cell building, I think.


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## honeydrunkapiaries (Oct 16, 2013)

Ive been following every presentation that I can find. I have always been curious though as to what ratio of production colonies, queen castles and nucs you feel is the best to keep it sustainable. I am sitting at eight colonies currently, and want to ramp it up next year to around 30 including a good overwintered nucleus insurance plan.

I was also curious as to what the benefits of dividing your queen castle horizontal wise have. Seems that everyone does it the long way. Do you have to make/cut down you're own frames?


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## BabcockFarms (Jan 14, 2012)

Outstanding lectures from National Honey Show. I have watched all three twice and The Sustainable Apiary three times. What I have learned from these lectures has given me a far better understanding of the importance of nucs. I had been told, and previously thought, that overwintering nucs in our area futile. Now seeing your lectures and knowing the conditions you are wintering in has proven I was led astray.

Each winter I evaluate my last season on what went right and what I can do better. Last year it was bringing in queen stock from northern sources some with VSH traits. This year the main thing I wanted to improve on this season was to have stronger colonies earlier and a better way to replace my winter kills. Implementing this will improve my ability to come out in the spring of 2015 stronger than ever, and should prove as exciting as successfully rising grafted queens for the first time.

After watching you lectures I do have a question. From my understanding you have dedicated nuc yards. Is it important to have separate nuc yards and if so why?

I thank the National Honey Show for having the insight to have you give these lectures and sharing them on YouTube, and you for sharing your wisdom and experiences.

Ron


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

BabcockFarms said:


> After watching you lectures I do have a question. From my understanding you have dedicated nuc yards. Is it important to have separate nuc yards and if so why?


I think so as it gives you more flexibility in locating your bees. If your yards are three miles apart, you can make nucs in one yard and take them to the other yard, with no loss of bees back to the old location. This allows you to make each nucleus colony with fewer resources.


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## BabcockFarms (Jan 14, 2012)

I understand that, but I thought you were talking about a dedicated nuc yard with no other colonies. Is it important to keep the nuc's away from strong colonies in a dedicated nuc yard?


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## honeydrunkapiaries (Oct 16, 2013)

Thanks for these presentations, Ive watched each at least 10 times and am slowly filling a notebook! Just another question, on day 11 in the morning when you setup your cell builder (separating the queenright from the queenless section,) what is the advantage of that versus say using a cloake board? I know you hate lifting boxes, and it seems like it would save you some work!


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

BabcockFarms said:


> I understand that, but I thought you were talking about a dedicated nuc yard with no other colonies. Is it important to keep the nuc's away from strong colonies in a dedicated nuc yard?


Oh, I see. You can keep nucs and production colonies in the same yard, as long as the forage is there. Be aware of robbing as the apiary holds more stocks. For instance, my cell building yard has 30+ very strong cell builders and 64 nucs. When I back my trailer into the yard, the bees are waiting for me and if I'm not quick covering the combs on the trailer, look out. And mite drift into the nucs...if you're relying on some kind of brood break in the nucs as your mite control.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

honeydrunkapiaries said:


> what is the advantage of that versus say using a cloake board? I know you hate lifting boxes, and it seems like it would save you some work!


I've never used a Cloake board, but I think I have more control of my nurse bee population using the shake method, and because the q-right part is moved off the stand, the cell builders has the foragers.


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## honeydrunkapiaries (Oct 16, 2013)

Im a bit of a numbers guy, so I am trying to figure out how I can take what you do and apply it to a smaller scale to suit me. I am thinking about two years down the road, and set myself up next year to try this. I suppose the hardest part is you do everything in fours. What I have so far is that you have about: 32 Cell Builders, 64 Nucs to support them, and 175 4 way castles. Im assuming that each builder builds about 20 cells.

Breaking this down I am coming up with (rounding up), 2 Supporting Nucs, and 5 Fourway Queen Castles for each cell builder. Do you think that would work on a smaller scale, or how would you tweak that number?

I would be worried that two nucs would not be enough to use as a brood factory.


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## BabcockFarms (Jan 14, 2012)

Michael Palmer said:


> Oh, I see. You can keep nucs and production colonies in the same yard, as long as the forage is there. Be aware of robbing as the apiary holds more stocks. For instance, my cell building yard has 30+ very strong cell builders and 64 nucs. When I back my trailer into the yard, the bees are waiting for me and if I'm not quick covering the combs on the trailer, look out. And mite drift into the nucs...if you're relying on some kind of brood break in the nucs as your mite control.


Thank you for the clarification, I thought I might be missing something. The rest was pretty clear.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I have 20 cell builders with 10+ additional colonies in the yard for backups. I have 64 nucs in that yard and 40+ in another. A cell builder is set up and 20 days later the cells are ready.That day the cell builder can be used again. Each cell builder holds 48 grafts. So if you need 7 frames of sealed brood every 20 days you might need 3 nucs. 

As far as mating nucs go, I have 130+ 4 way, divided into 4 groups. We catch one group every 4 days. The queens are caught 16 days after receiving the cell. So for each mated queen it takes 36 days from cell builder setup to catching mated queen.


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## honeydrunkapiaries (Oct 16, 2013)

Thanks for clarifying that for me Michael, you are the man!


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## BabcockFarms (Jan 14, 2012)

Watching the videos again with the intention of analyzing what is working for you and how I can encompass that into my modest operation, it dawned on me that you have a distincut advantage over my neck of the woods. You have the benefit of snow! Natures natural insulator. I have similar temperatures to what you experience but lack natures insulation. I seldom have the benefit of the kind of snow that you have with the issues with great fluctuations in temperature and the ever present wind. We seldom have a nice level beautiful snow storm, until we move out here I didn't realize that the snow, in some places like here, goes sideways and creates drifts 10 - 20' deep with barren land between. For instance Monday we had a high of 0° one day and the next day it was 48° for a high. Tough on bees, if we had your natural insulation (snow) it would help buffer the fluctuations in temperature.

With that being said I have chosen to invest in nucs to over winter with time, resources, and capitol to hopefully improve the sustainability of my over the next couple of years. I know that it won't happen over night but I am bound and determined to make it happen. I'm sure you didn't wake up one day and all the pieces fit together. You seem to be, like myself, are an observer, I hope over time I will gain some of the wisdom you have obtained. My only regrets are not starting sooner, and the opportunity to work with a commercial beekeeper. There are few commercial operations here and they are primarily migratory beekeepers.

Ron


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