# First year plan ADVICE wanted



## ctoverend (Mar 26, 2015)

I have never had bees and I will have my first two nucs in early May. My plan is to use Honey Super Cell to immediately reduce the size of my bees. My thought was to shake all the bees on to the HSC frames, place a top cover on without a top entrance (I have only one queen includer per hive). The HSC frames will be in a medium hive body on top of a queen includer, I will then place this whole thing on another medium hive body with the 5 nuc frames, then place all of that on a screened bottom board. 

- should I reduce the empty space in the medium with the nuc frames by enclosing the empty space with either wood or some other way. 

I have seen people use Mann Lake PF120 frames. I have not done my research on the Mann Lake frames, but I thought these are just plastic sc frames not drawn out. 

- If the bees are still at their enlarged size will they maintain the sc on these frames? (Ultimately the frames could become irregular and the bees will not regress as soon as I need for them to be prepared for next winter.)

As soon as there is a frame of capped brood I will remove queen includer and add inner top cover. Once all of the brood emerges from the nuc frames I will remove them. I am hoping the bees will move all of the honey and pollen from the bottom frames to the HSC frames. From my reading if I were using a package it would take about 60 days for all of my bees (minus queen) to regress.

- With a nuc would it take around 80 days?

After all the bees have regressed I would add a medium hive body on top of the HSC body with frames of small cell foundation (not prepared to go foundationless this year). Potentially this is end of July.

- If I wait the whole 80 days without adding new frames would they swarm?
- If they swarm would it be possible to create a nuc at this point?
- If they do not swarm would it be possible to create a nuc at this point?
- Is it possible to begin moving the bees off of HSC at this time or should I wait for next year?

I would really like to go into winter with two solid hives and two nucs. I know my chances of success my first year are slim. I am thinking of buying local queens as soon as I can. 

I bought the nuc before I learn of treatment free beekeeping. I was in my beekeeping class and felt the pressure to buy before all the bee were gone and hoped that buying nucs would increase my chance of success. I now have already paid for the nucs and am trying to make the best of my current situation. I have read Dean Stiglitz’s book and have watch his lectures. It is where I heard of using HSC. I have watched a lot of michaels lectures and hope to go foundationless eventually. I know now could be a great time to start but for many reasons we are waiting. My hope is over the next couple years I will create nucs and have them be foundationless and replace all my old foundation frames.

Thank you for any advice.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

It's best to learn to crawl before you walk, or in your case run so my advice is learn how to keep bees alive then play around with regressing bees if you want to ,.... or start with small cell bees to begin with. converting to small cell isn't going to be your key to successfully overwintering bees. I'm assuming you are wanting to be treatment free and can tell you that although some claim it's the best thing since sliced bread, that for many people, cell size makes zero difference on viability of a TF operation. 

If you insist on doing it now, I would do it one frame at a time by rotating capped above the excluder and feeding an empty HSC into the edge of the brood nest.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

Harley, there's no assumption about ctoverend wanting to be TF.



> I bought the nuc before I learn of treatment free beekeeping.


So there really isn't a need to start in on a debate about whether it works or not for you.


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## ctoverend (Mar 26, 2015)

My plan is to be treatment free. Sorry that was not clear.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

It was clear. Some can't resist being the TF police and always argue over some of the practices of TF.


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## brettj777 (Feb 27, 2013)

Honestly, if you can keep them alive until next year....you can go whatever size you like. But you have zero beekeeping experience. You should start there....then worry about advanced topics next year.

Did they die because I stressed them by regression? Did I chill the brood? Did I mess with them so much they decided to leave?

Those are all questions you won't be able to answer when your bees die. Do what is right for the bees you are getting, not what your heard is "better" on the Internet.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Barry said:


> Harley, there's no assumption about ctoverend wanting to be TF.
> 
> 
> 
> So there really isn't a need to start in on a debate about whether it works or not for you.



I wasn't starting a debate, and I never said whether or not it was needed only that some report it is their key to success while others report success without it. I then gave my opinion that the challenges one finds sometimes in regressing is not something I would recommend in their first yr. Where am I out of line here Barry? For what it's worth I have both SC hives and LC hives and both formats seem to be doing equally fine coming out of winter, we shall see if this yr brings anything different for me in my yard.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

I don't have much experience but I am past my first year...and not so far past it that I can't recall it.

Go slow...watch your bees, get comfortable being with them. Get to know them, don't try to push them too much. Care for them...make certain they have what they need to survive.
Get through your first winter, then your second spring. Once you know more about what bees do then you may want to start manipulating things and see what happens.


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## Barry (Dec 28, 1999)

What you said was . . .



> I'm assuming you are wanting to be treatment free and can tell you that although some claim it's the best thing since sliced bread, that for many people, cell size makes zero difference on viability of a TF operation.


We've had this discussion over and over and it gets tiring that every time a new beekeepers wants to do this, the warning has to come out again and we have the debate all over. People come to this forum because this is what they want to do. Let them do it. Nowhere was the question asked, "does it work."

Thank you.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Barry said:


> It was clear. Some can't resist being the TF police and always argue over some of the practices of TF.


This ^........... Barry is correct, this isn't always the best place about learning TF even if you do it in the TF section..... if you want to ask questions and not be afraid of the personal attacks their is a TF beekeeping group on FB that is a good resource, the only problem over there, is there is a lot of lack of experience, but you will quickly figure out who has been doing it and who is just starting out and has their heads in the clouds on all the things they are gonna do to help them be treatment free LOL


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

I completely agree with Harley that it is best to learn how to crawl before you run - with bees as with everything else. Take the time to learn what a colony needs to do in order to survive your winter. Find successful beekeepers in your area and learn from them. Unless what you are taught contradicts your inclinations, follow the teachings! Otherwise find another way to deal with the concern. Do NOT be a wishful thinker that there are any shortcuts to being successful at being successful Treatment Free.

I think what Harley was trying to say and what Barry objected to is that the jury is still out on what effects the use of small cell might have. So you're already getting mixed messages about that being a good path for you to go down. I encourage you to be skeptical of what you read on the Internet and to place what you do read and think makes sense in the context of your own experiences.

I have not worked with HSC and can not offer you any advice on how to work with it. Though I am concerned with the mix of cell sizes if you plan to use the frames that come in the nuc and HSC.

I don't think you will have any need of a queen excluder your first year.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Barry said:


> What you said was . . .
> 
> 
> 
> We've had this discussion over and over and it gets tiring that every time a new beekeepers wants to do this, the warning has to come out again and we have the debate all over. People come to this forum because this is what they want to do. Let them do it.


Let them do what? I don't care if he goes TF more power to him, wish more would, I'm trying to get completely there myself. I was only stating the FACT that both small cell and large cell treatment free operations exist to take some of the pressure off of him thinking he *HAS* to switch to small cell in the first yr. But like Brett said if he stresses them too much regressing them and kills them, he won't know why they died. I mean Gheesh I too thought I HAD to go small cell my first yr and it was a horrible experience , don't get me wrong I learned a lot, but it was an expensive education so if I can save someone else the grief I will.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

Andrew Dewey said:


> I think what Harley was trying to say and what Barry objected to is that the jury is still out on what effects the use of small cell might have. So you're already getting mixed messages about that being a good path for you to go down.
> .


Yes exactly what I was trying to say, thank you.


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## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

I, too, jumped the gun on foundation cell size. I ordered two hives, one hundred frames and foundation to go with it, then I started lurking on BeeSource because I knew a lot had changed since the seventies. I did get bees with the VSH trait, but I wish I had started with SC. If you do begin to switch over to SC I hope you will post your progress to this thread so I can follow along. I am seriously wanting to switch. 

I can't offer much advice, mostly encouragement. :thumbsup:


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

PM me if you want a realistic opinion on what to do. Don't be afraid to take two steps back though and learn to keep bees first.


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## ctoverend (Mar 26, 2015)

So it is very challenging to take on faith anything about beekeeping at this point. Am I just prone to go against the grain? Alot of what was given to me at bee school just did not make sense.(could be because I have not had bees before) 

- get two deeps and two shallows because thats what is done
------ I went with mediums for many obvious reasons
- buy a package or nuc now from GA or CA before they run out
------ I did buy a nuc from a local beekeeper (I believe the queen is from CA, I have spent the money and do not think it would be fair to cancel now.) I attended a meeting and learned of a study that showed that having local queens increases chance of bees surviving winter by 100% (nonlocal queen 40% chance of success, local queen 80% chance of success) So why didn't my local club steer me in the direction of buying locally?(https://vimeo.com/21378039)
- requeen in the fall to set yourself up for winter
------ If I have a good queen from local stock why would I requeen just because.
- treat your bees or they will die
------ I now know people can be successful not treating
- harvest honey in July because you keep bees for their honey
------ Why would I harvest in July and hope the bees will recover enough by fall to survive? It seems like harvesting in the fall I can guarantee that they have enough( I would only take the extra)(unless I want to supplement with sugar another thread maybe)

If It is not obvious it is a little frustrating. So how with all the information given is one supposed to keep bees successfully the first year and not treat? And why would people choose to treat if there is a path to not treating?(a discussion for another thread I think)


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

The OP started an identical thread in the Beekeeping 101 forum - and got pretty much the same advice from posters there, myself included: learn beekeeping, first, then try some of the more complex techniques.

I'm not saying TF doesn't work, but I am saying it is more difficult to do successfully - success being defined as keeping your bees alive from year to year, by whatever means you manage to do that.

You may say - what makes you so sure TF is harder to pull off than so-called treated hives? Well, if it was easier and more likely to be successful for novices then there would be vastly more beekeepers doing it successfully. Those of us who started out expecting to be TF didn't switch just to make our lives more difficult and poison our bees. We switched when our best efforts couldn't make TF work, and we were unwilling to let our bees pay the price for our lack of knowledge, skill, experience, and/or general beekeeping chops. 

I'm not arguing that TF doesn't work - I'm pretty confident it that it does for some experienced beekeepers. I just think that new beekeepers are much more likely to have success if they spend the effort and time to learn how to reliably keep their bees alive from year to year. Then with that skill and experience under their belts they will be better able to sort out the wheat from the chaff in the vast sea of TF approaches. 

I'll take live bees in my (minimally treated, unlimited broodnest, foundationless) hives over pure TF bees that can't survive my harsh winters. I hope to learn enough about bee husbandry to move closer and closer to the barest minimum of treatments and interventions. 

The OP is self-described as a complete novice. He is asking for comments on a very aggressive timeline focused primarily on getting to small-cell bees in a very short period. He believes that notwithstanding this he can still plan on splitting his first-year nucs and taking these four colonies into winter. He lives in RI, so his summer season is relatively short. To me this flies in the face of understanding the considerable amount of work the bees must do just to establish themselves and collect enough nectar to provision themselves for their first, long New England winter. I'm not intending to belittle the OP for his lack of experience. We all started as novices, and I doubt anyone could have been more clueless than I was at the outset. But he is seeking advice about his plans - and from more than few posters getting the same advice: learning to walk before you try running is the path most likely to lead to success. And that is not the same as dismissing TF idealogy in general, or specific techniques. It's just sharing the hard-won knowledge that all beekeepers (TF, or not) learn in their first year or two.

Enj.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I think you are good to question the advice given from your club, keep in mind if you ask 10 beekeepers a question you will get at least 12 different answers and all of them can be right. From what I have experienced in bee club meetings is they teach what they know, if you follow their path they will be able to help you. I too run all mediums and only a handful of us do. Sometimes when I ask a question, the response is " I don't know what to do in that situation because I'm not set up that way" My first yr I went out on my own it was a complete disaster, last yr I followed closer to their advice and overwintered 100% This yr is expansion mode for me some of which I will continue to follow the clubs advice and the others I will use to branch out to develop my own style that works for me. Nobody can tell you what you should do, only what has or has not worked for them and all beekeeping is local. My mentor is 5 miles away and if I did everything he did at the times he did, it would cause me trouble because he lives in town with irrigated lawns filled with clover and an abundance of flowers in gardens. My bees build off trees and soybeans and what little clover and wildflower that is in the ditches and field edges along the woods.


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## ctoverend (Mar 26, 2015)

Thanks you for the advice. I have taken some deep breaths.


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## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

When I quit beekeeping you could still buy leaded gasoline at the fillin' station. What was once simple has become complicated.
Read, read and read some more. 
As you have discovered TF is one of those Hot Button issues that has very vocal people on both sides, but I think what unites us all at the end of the day is our passion for bees. Whether it is for profit, pollination on a homestead, or for a little honey or a hobby. Most people have valid reasons for their opinions. If I had a thousand hives when varroa hit and was faced with the loss of my business, I know I would have chosen to treat my hives. Now we have reached a point where we should be able to start embracing methods to beat varroa and get past the cycle of using pesticides to kill mites, but not quite kill the bees. This is a cause worthy of the effort. It will take cooperation from all sides.:gh: 
I have become the old man longing for the good old days. I am attempting treatment free, but if the time comes to treat, I will, only after exhausting what I consider all reasonable options. Small cell being one that I am considering.
Do what you think is best with your bees, but learn from them and enjoy them and share your experience so that we may learn from them also. Rant over.


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## ctoverend (Mar 26, 2015)

defiantly not a rant
Thanks


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

ctoverend said:


> Thanks you for the advice. I have taken some deep breaths.


Get used to it. Bees will do that to you. I mimic post #8. Good Luck and welcome to beesource. G


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I wasn't planning on replying again, but I cross-posted with the OP.

First,of all, most of beekeeping is pretty contradictory - there is no ONE right way. Not in the TF world, nor in any other. Bees are remarkable because they are extraordinarily adaptable. It's one of their charms. But it also means that any single keeper who has success has almost certainly not discovered the true Rosetta Stone of perfect beekeeping. Keep that always in the top of your mind.

I got my bees on a whim (they chose me by swarming to holes in my barns in 2013), and have never been to bee school so I wasn't taught any particular way. I recognize that my bees have paid a heavy price from time to time for my ignorance.

I keep my bees in a variety of box arrangements - some live in four-deep stacks, some in mostly in mediums. This is partly because I am by nature experimental and partly by accident, but even more strongly because I spend a lot of time studying my bees and I try to let them lead me on the correct path to take. I make changes and watch very carefully, if it doesn't seem to working out I won't hesitate to reverse it.

My bees have, so far, kept all the honey they have made in two seasons. The first year they needed that, and more, to survive. Luckily, from reading here on BeeSource I recogized that they need additional supplies and made homemade sugar bricks according to a recipe I picked up here. I have no doubt that their survival the first winter was completely due to Lauri Miller's generous sharing of her technique. Last summer, which in my area was judged to be one of the top-producing honey years in decades, I decided to leave them all their honey simply to see how that worked out. My hives weighed well more than 150 lbs apiece going into winter. I did this because it seems likely to me that honey is better for bees to eat than sugar bricks (even Lauri's wonderful bricks!) There are studies, though, that say winter survival is better with supplemental sugar than with a pure-honey diet. But I decided to "risk" seeing how they did on tons of honey, because I am curious and interested to see how it works out. (Because I am also a cautious woman, I provided them with sugar bricks, too, which they have largely ignored all winter - but that's OK, because I can see that they are uncapping their honey as needed.) I am unimpressed by the argument that highly-subsidized, price-controlled, cane sugar is cheaper than honey so that the correct thing to do is pull the more-valuable honey and feed the bees equivalent calories in the form of sugar. My bees don't have to work for a living - nor I expect will your bees. I will harvest some surplus honey, as required to keep the hives in good order, and be grateful for it.

As far as pinching the queen annually - I have no intention of doing that and see no purpose to it for hobbyist beekeepers. Besides, I am foolishly very attached to my Queens (they have names: Fern, Iris, Buttercup and her daughter, Anthemis.) I know they will not live forever, and am resigned to that. This spring I will make splits from Fern and Iris so I have younger daughter queens from each of them. Fern, Iris and B'cup are my original queens and appear to be coming out of this second winter in good shape. 

As far as treating for varroa: I expected that my healthy hives would not get them. How ridiculous that hope seems now! I did not have varroa, at first, in my first year. Professionally, I have operated an organic fruit and veg. farm so I am very familiar with the concept of IPM, and scouting to monitor pests. So when I discovered sticky boards, I recognized them for what they are: the beekeepers' equivalent of row and field scouting. For most of the first summer, my boards showed virtually no mites - I was quite chuffed at my "success". But then after Labor Day the mite numbers spiked, first one, then in another of my three. After agonizing about it some (and thus reducng my chances of successful treatement) I finally chose one of the "soft" treatments (thymol-based Apiguard) in September. It worked OK, but I hated doing it, and didn't treat one of the three hives because that one's numbers stayed low. (That was a tactical error, however.) All three survived the winter (sugar bricks, quilt boxes, lots of insulation - even wool blankets tucked around the hives during the Polar Vortex). But I was shocked to discover that what I expected was normal (winter survival of first year colonies) was actually somewhat uncommon. That focused my mind on discovering what factors I could harness to increase my likelihood of surviving their second winter. Bees will sometimes manage to hang on through thier first season/winter but the over-wintered mites just explode in the second year, killing many untreated hives. 

It is not acceptable to me to be on the so-called "Sustainable Apiary" treadmill of making enough nucs every year to make up for expected losses due to lack of sufficent winter stores, mites, and overall stress experienced by my bees. To me true "sustainability" is an apiary where the queens/colonies live their full, expected, healthy, life-spans because their beekeepers work very hard at addressing the stressor issues, and within reason, reduce those effects on the bees. And in the case of varroa, since I have no realistic hope of my bees becoming more resistant, and because I live in area that has lots of feral bees which are regularly crashing from the pest, leading to my bees being constantly re-infected - I must treat or lose my bees. I choose my treatments very carefully and have put considerable thought into what, when and how. But I will treat because it is the only way for my bees to stay alive. And dead bees offer no hope of developing resistance, do they? 

Varroa is a human-fomented problem. We brought it here and our agricultural and beekeeping business practices continue to amplify it. My bees simply can't fight it on their own. 

My strong suggestion to make an effort to learn basic beekeeping, first, before adopting any idealogical position about bee-care is based on my own experience. Treated hives are not disasters and treatment-free hives are not somehow better. Neither approach, on its own, will solve the many problems facing bees right now. If you saddle yourself with some human-created construct about which approach is morally, or even ecologically, superior you will have more trouble and less success than simply starting out to discover what the bees will teach you if you keep an open mind and pay close attention to your six-legged mistresses. Pay much less attention to what you read or hear about bees from humans, a lot of it is not applicable, at best. 

I meant what I wrote last night: I truly hope your bees will give you as much delight as mine have given me.

Enj.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

enjambres said:


> It is not acceptable to me to be on the so-called "Sustainable Apiary" treadmill of making enough nucs every year to make up for expected losses due to lack of sufficent winter stores, mites, and overall stress experienced by my bees. To me true "sustainability" is an apiary where the queens/colonies live their full, expected, healthy, life-spans because their beekeepers work very hard at addressing the stressor issues, and within reason, reduce those effects on the bees.Enj.



Great post Enj! , but I would like to comment on the above snippet I quoted. First off, your bees might not be able to beat varroa, but there are bees that can seeking out and incorporating these genetics can and will help with that. The best method I've seen from local beeks who are doing this is find feral untreated bees and watch them like a hawk if they make it through multiple winters ( my litmus test is 3 based off discussing this with local beeks who do this ) then try to get access to their genetics. Secondly, what is wrong with producing enough splits to replaces losses, that is a method that is modeled after nature, albeit sometimes an accelerated time line. Even before varroa hit, feral colonies had a limited life span, they would die out and new colonies move in, and most yrs they swarmed thus causing a brood break which is in their favor and also replaced the deadouts to the ones who didn't make it. I have seen first hand locally people who don't feed nor treat and get an avg of 4+ yr lifespan out of a colony, with near 80% winter survival rate so that is more than adequate time to produce enough splits to replace them.....just like they would do in nature if they swarmed.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I have plenty of feral colonies in my area - I know of at least three within a one mile radius of my hives. And for two decades, until the spring of 2013, I had feral, unmanaged bees living in my barn walls. But then, unexpectedly they just disappeared in very late winter. Only to be replaced in mid-May by first one, then a second, and finally a third swarm. (Talk about hitting the "free bee" jackpot!) These three swarms were cut out and hived, and are now "my" bees. I have a few not very successful hobbyist beeks and a small sideliner within my foraging range.

Where did my swarms come from? Not from any of the hobbyists because at the time they didn't have bees in a stage to do that; possibly the sideliner, but he says not. So are my bees swarms from feral hives, or somewhere else? I have no idea.

Perhaps they have good "survivor" genetics (they have certainly survived my often clumsy efforts to take care of them), but they also had mites. Mites which weren't under control. And mite-vectored diseases, also not under control. So I treated them because I am not running some kind of evolutionary bee science experiment. My queens are, except for the split I made last summer, the original ones, though I expect this may be their last summer so I am making sure to get daughters from each of them.

My take on the "sustainable apiary" concept is that it seems to have morphed into an excuse to accept higher winter losses, without addressing the underlying causes of the losses in order to reduce them. If you can make enough nucs to cover your expected losses, then what's the benefit of preventing those losses in the first place? 

I do, however, appreciate the value of running nucs to add management flexibility (frames of brood, queens to fix problems, etc.)

My bees are all from swarms, so they definitely had a brood break, by definition. And in the hub-bub of the cut-out two of the queens didn't make it, so the bees had to cook-up emergency queens, which further lengthened the brood break. Curiously, the one hive that retained its swarm queen, without the additional brood break after the queen loss, had the lowest, as in almost zero, mites throughout its first year, including overwintering. I happen to think brood breaks as a primary mite-management tool are somewhat overated - and certainly over-promoted. I regularly have a 4- 6 week brood break during the winter, but the wretched mites in the hive survive just fine, biding their time to hop back into the first capped cells and start the whole process again.

For me an 80% winter survival rate would be a failure. And I say that having only four hives, so the loss of even one of those would be significant. (And I have one hive that's not looking as lively as the other three, so I _am_ a bit worried. It is the split from 2013, with a Solstice-period open mated queen. Since I can't yet inspect I can only look at what can be seen from the outside. Time will tell, of course, because eventually even this winter will finally be over.)

I'm not interested in having my bees swarm every year, nor am I interested in emulating the cyclical expansion and collapse of feral hives. I have my bees under management in order to _keep_ my bees as I would any other livestock on my farm. 

But that's just how I choose to stumble along on, on my path in beekeeping, YMMV.

Enj.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

To the op...I may have missed this but do you already have the hsc? If not, you may find it difficult to get, if I'm not mistaken. If you can't find any, you may want to review your options.


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## ctoverend (Mar 26, 2015)

No I do not have any yet that was part of why I started this post.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

ctoverend said:


> No I do not have any yet that was part of why I started this post.


Someone is surely going to correct me but from everything I've seen hsc is only available periodically and then only when enough advance orders are in place. If that is the case, do you have a plan to get some?
If you already have a nuc ordered and it is on conventional foundation you should study the process to 'regress' to small cell. I might add that the frames that come with your nuc should have brood in various states of development and you won't want to simply toss those out. 

Good luck.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

Let me preface this by telling you that I am neither a small cell nor treatment free beekeeper....so take my advice accordingly.
If you have conventional cell nucs ordered and are unable to find hsc and want to go to small cell....look at the Mann Lake pf series that have been suggested. I think that will be your best bet.
I will also strongly advise you to study varroa mites and their life cycle....and learn to do some sort of objective mite testing so that you can fairly determine how well your approach works for you.
Again...good luck.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

ctoverend said:


> So how with all the information given is one supposed to keep bees successfully the first year and not treat? And why would people choose to treat if there is a path to not treating?(a discussion for another thread I think)


welcome to the forum ct. it's really good that you are doing your homework and asking some very good questions. as you are finding there are no easy answers as a lot of this stuff is still in the process of getting figured out. at the end of the day your beekeeping experience will be unique to you and should be guided by what you want to do and what you want get out of it. 

i got my start in 2010 when an elderly beekeeper passed away over the winter and left behind some hives on my property. the equipment was old, rotting, and literally falling apart. spring had come and was almost gone when a neighbor noticed that no one was tending to the beehives. this neighbor had kept bees in the past and offered to come by later and take a look at them. i took him up on the offer and the rest as we say is history.

the neighbor had been out of beekeeping for about thirty years and wasn't even aware of varroa mites let alone what there is to do about them. we basically put what was left of the colonies into new equipment and let them carry on. i'll have to admit that it was pretty darn challenging just learning the basics necessary to take care of the general upkeep of the bees, even with an experienced beekeeper helping.

in the meantime i joined beesource and began looking over the threads and discovered that there was a whole other dimension to beekeeping that had been added to the craft since my neighbor had kept bees, namely the introduction of varroa mites to this continent and the associated problems that they present for today's beekeeper.

by the time i discovered all that it was already pretty late in the season and i didn't attempt to do anything about mites in the four hives that i ended up with. luckily they all made it through winter. the next spring i got ambitious and did some splitting and purchased some nucs to get my hive count up to 10. again as luck would have it i got my queens and nucs from a supplier who had started his operation 15 years earlier by collecting feral cut outs and propagating from them. he has never used treatments.

long story short, i live in fairly heavy wood area that supports feral colonies and we are having success keeping bees in a managed setting without treatments. we are using standard foundation and for the most part are allowing the bees to keep enough honey so that feeding syrup is seldom necessary.

i agree with the view that there is a whole lot to learn in the first year or two and getting your first colonies of bees through their first winter isn't easy whether treating or not. it is true that we have had a fair number of reports of people starting up new and trying to go treatment free after purchasing commercially available stock only to end up losing their colonies to mites. it can be very disheartening when your only hive or two doesn't make it to the next spring and you don't have anything to show for the time and money you've invested.

what i have recommended is that folks in your situation should try and locate someone keeping bees off treatments in your general area, try to get your bees from them, and mirror their management practices. if you find someone having success keeping bees this way near your location you will know it is possible for you to do so as well. if you can't find anyone else having success keeping bees treatment free you've got a bigger hurdle to overcome, especially if you are starting from scratch.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

From the many reading, I still have a long way to go to be TF.
There is a max # of hives before you can take that route. Though the
OAV treatment had brought down the mite level to less than 2% now, I
don't want to completely kill off the mites anymore. They are here to stay and
my bees need to deal with them. This is the only way to test the bees out with some
mites in there. But I will manage and treat when needed until I can find some resistant
bees to handle the mites. So the quest continue.


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## ToeOfDog (Sep 25, 2013)

This is not a suggestion but just an attempt to make the poster aware of this option. Some claim that the added stress of regressing from 5.4mm down to 4.9mm is too much for a beginning beekeeper. Dadant makes a foundation that is 5.1 mm for those who want to gradually regress them. 

http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=23_38&products_id=788


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I have never had bees and I will have my first two nucs in early May. My plan is to use Honey Super Cell to immediately reduce the size of my bees. My thought was to shake all the bees on to the HSC frames, place a top cover on without a top entrance (I have only one queen includer per hive). The HSC frames will be in a medium hive body on top of a queen includer, I will then place this whole thing on another medium hive body with the 5 nuc frames, then place all of that on a screened bottom board. 

This can work. Mann Lake PF120s (or PF100s if deeps) work a little faster as you don't lose two weeks while the bees make up their mind to use the HSC. HSC does have some advantages in the long run as they are more permanent and can't be chewed up by the wax moths or the small hive beetles (SHB).

>- should I reduce the empty space in the medium with the nuc frames by enclosing the empty space with either wood or some other way. 

Your option. It will help to fill that empty space below the deep frames (assuming you are getting a deep nuc and assuming that is the space we are talking about) but it's not necessary. two two bys cut to fit will stack up to about the right size to fill the space

>I have seen people use Mann Lake PF120 frames. I have not done my research on the Mann Lake frames, but I thought these are just plastic sc frames not drawn out. 

Correct, but they are almost always drawn out as what they are layed out which is 4.94mm where wax foundation at 4.9mm is often reworked by the large cell bees into something more like 5.1mm or 5.2mm.

>- If the bees are still at their enlarged size will they maintain the sc on these frames? (Ultimately the frames could become irregular and the bees will not regress as soon as I need for them to be prepared for next winter.)

All of the bees you get will be dead in six weeks. All of the bees you get will be foragers in three weeks and will not be building comb. So essentially you regress them in one step with either the HSC or the PF120s.

>As soon as there is a frame of capped brood I will remove queen includer and add inner top cover. 

You can do it as soon is there is a frame of open brood... and if you start with a nuc you will already have that so the includer is unecessary.

>Once all of the brood emerges from the nuc frames I will remove them. 

Then you may be better off to get them above an excluder so the queen doesn't lay in them again.

>I am hoping the bees will move all of the honey and pollen from the bottom frames to the HSC frames. 

Doubtful. I've never seen them move capped honey and they will only move open honey if it's in their way.

>From my reading if I were using a package it would take about 60 days for all of my bees (minus queen) to regress.

But the only ones that really matter are the ones building comb.

>- With a nuc would it take around 80 days?

Once all the comb available for the queen to lay in is small cell you don't need to worry about it anymore. That is the relevant thing.

>- If I wait the whole 80 days without adding new frames would they swarm?

That depends on how much room they have and how fast they build up. But 80 days seems like a long time to not give them more room.

>- If they swarm would it be possible to create a nuc at this point?

Of course.

>- If they do not swarm would it be possible to create a nuc at this point?

Maybe.

>- Is it possible to begin moving the bees off of HSC at this time or should I wait for next year?

I would never move them off of the HSC. It's nice small cell permanent. comb.

>I would really like to go into winter with two solid hives and two nucs. I know my chances of success my first year are slim. I am thinking of buying local queens as soon as I can. 

I would play it by ear on doing splits. See how strong they get.

>I bought the nuc before I learn of treatment free beekeeping. I was in my beekeeping class and felt the pressure to buy before all the bee were gone and hoped that buying nucs would increase my chance of success.

Part of the issue with "nucs" and "increasing your chance of success" is that a "nuc" can vary greatly in both definition and quality. Some of them are just a package someone put in a nuc box. Some are overwintered local nucs. Some are brought in from somewhere with a significantly warmer climate.

If they are local nucs it will hugely improve your changes of success. If they are overwintered nucs from a warmer climate, it's still better than packages and you may be able to requeen with a local queen. If you do splits and let the bees open mate their queens you may get some local genetics as well.


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