# Tricks for getting the most honey from one hive



## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Say it's a contest - what things would you do to make one hive produce the most honey possible?

Supplement feeding early to start brood build up?
Transfer brood and bees into the hive before the flow starts?
Combine hives before the flow?
2 queen system?
Remove or cage the queen a month or so before the end of the flow?
Not use an excluder?
Extra entrance above the excluder?

You have to keep it from swarming of course, but that isn't the question. Assume you *can* prevent swarming.

Anybody do this?


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## jlk (Jul 5, 2001)

Early spring feeding. Rotate brood boxes(give em space)give them supers right when they need em. Try to grow their numbers right before the flow.


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

This topic was recently discussed with a lot of good tips.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247470


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

So many forget about the health of the bees today. Not all bee supplier are suppling health bees anymore. With the prices of bees going up every year and a big demand for package. Package suppliers are getting bees in from whoever, and where ever they can, and bring problems with them. Starting to see things in the east that the west has been talking about for a while.:ws
Know your supplier and how they do business.

SICK BEES DON'T MAKE HONEY


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

David LaFerney said:


> Say it's a contest - what things would you do to make one hive produce the most honey possible?


Location, location, location.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

Large frames and brood chambers. 
Location, Location, Location.
This is close to 300lbs on this hive, and they drew out and fill that green box with ten 11 1/4" frames.


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## marksmith (May 4, 2010)

Build like mad by supplementing feed/pollen to build hefty numbers by start of flow.

Roll the queen when the flow starts.

Add boxes of drawn foundation to keep ahead of the bees.



Rolling the queen will allow all resources coming into the hive to be diverted to honey for about 3 weeks (one week until capped brood then additional 3 for the mated queen to start laying again)

You will stuff a hive FAST as long as you are in the right place. Downside to this is the population will dive a couple weeks after the queen starts laying again. (from what I noticed last year)

JMHO. I am a newbeek also.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

If you were going to de-queen to increase honey production (by not having brood to feed for a period) when would you do it? I would guess that would be about 3 - 3 1/2 weeks before the end of the main flow if you were going to let them make an emergency queen. 

On the other hand it's about 6 weeks from the time an egg is layed until the bee starts foraging so maybe it would be better to dequeen at the beginning of the main flow - assuming the population is very strong at that point. If it isn't the hive isn't going to produce maximum honey anyway.

So, what do the experts say?


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

I don't get the de-queening. The flow here is about mid June-mid Aug. I just keep extracting and adding boxes back on. No need to mess with the queens. I shot for about 8-10 lbs of bees by production time with 5 supers on each hive to start. I only run in single deep brood boxes, with excluders.


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## marksmith (May 4, 2010)

I dont de-queen. IF you were looking to maximize honey, then rolling a queen at the beginning of the flow will allow the bees to focus on storing honey. They have no need to store pollen or turn it to food for larvae. At the beginning of flow also allows them to pick back up and bring in pollen for the newly laid eggs and brood.

I found this out personally by rolling my queen accidently during the blackberry flows this past year. Two almost identical hives and the queenless hive had 2 mediums more than the queenright colony.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

So a new inexperienced beekeeper has once experienced maiming a queen and coincidentally getting a larger crop, and then proceeds to suggest it as a viable method to obtain larger crops on a regular basis. Hopefully all my competitors down here in the Bay Area will follow his sage advice.


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## scdw43 (Aug 14, 2008)

Why not take the queen with a frame of brood and make a nuc, instead of killing her. Seems like a waste of assets to me.


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## marksmith (May 4, 2010)

odfrank said:


> So a new inexperienced beekeeper has once experienced maiming a queen and coincidentally getting a larger crop, and then proceeds to suggest it as a viable method to obtain larger crops on a regular basis. Hopefully all my competitors down here in the Bay Area will follow his sage advice.



SOME inexperienced beekeepers look for information to see why this might have been. Finding information supporting what I found, I then realized that it was possible and WHY this happened.

I have no idea why beekeeping is a cutthroat hobby? Seems everyone has a smart ass comment about the new guy not being 'up to par'

You do your thing, I'll do mine. FYVM


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## Mtn. Bee (Nov 10, 2009)

Lots of supers with drawn out comb. Forget about the honey excluders, I learned this one the hard way and lost lots of honey crop over the years.
Lots of strong colonies with HEALTHY Bees.

Sounds like making a Nuc would be a reasonable thing to do!
I can think of one Beekeeper named Mel that would recommend the same thing, check out his website:
http://www.mdasplitter.com/


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Clearly "rolling the queen" refers to an accident - it would be pretty hard to do on purpose. 

As far as any of this being "sage advice" The first word in the thread is "Trick" some of them are good management practices which is great, but that's not all I was asking for - Otherwise I would have started the thread with something like "Best practices for producing a large honey crop?" 

Just like "How do you grow a giant pumpkin?" Isn't the same as "What is the best way to grow pumpkins?"

Like any information found on an Internet forum - buyer beware.

But the tips that have been given are exactly what I had in mind.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

scdw43 said:


> Why not take the queen with a frame of brood and make a nuc, instead of killing her. Seems like a waste of assets to me.


That is of course exactly what you would do.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

This should throw gas on the fire....... Remove all frames with drone comb from the brood chamber. Replace with all worker comb. Smash any drone comb built in brace wax. Drones do not make honey, but they eat it. .


Roland


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Mtn. Bee said:


> I can think of one Beekeeper named Mel that would recommend the same thing, check out his website:
> http://www.mdasplitter.com/


That's an interesting site, but where I live there is only one good flow and it starts too early for that system to work on the same schedule. I would have to overwinter the nucs and combine them in April - Which would probably be just as good.


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## Mtn. Bee (Nov 10, 2009)

Remember the old wooden/excluder screen drone traps with the wire mesh funnels/entrance? (I have a few floating in the archive pile)
They looked a lot like a front porch pollen trap and were used to get rid of those honey eating drones!


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## Mtn. Bee (Nov 10, 2009)

Over wintering nucs isn't that hard, I have a bunch in cool storage right now and they are doing fine.
Where you live it would be a lot easier than the part of the country I live in. 
(the land of ice and snow)


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Start w/ a yard of bees. Take all of the supers of honey from all but one hive. Stack those supers on that last hive. Wait a period of time until the bees get up in those supers. Then harvest the crop. That's one trick.

Otherwise, Location, location, location and good strong hives.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Well, don't know if it's a trick or not. You've all had apiaries with tall (lots of full supers), and short (no full supers), and medium (a couple full supers) size colonies. 

Raise queens from your most productive colonies and you will have more productive colonies. GBA!...good basic agriculture

That's the best trick in my bag.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

For giggles I thought about making a colony queen-less and adding capped brood to it constantly from strong hives making a insane sized honey producing hive. I was thinking of a long box, say five deeps wide then stack honey suppers in center to the moon. You could constantly swap brood frames every week from one side or other. That should make some serious honey and relive swarming pressure from other colonies. I think it would be cool to just see the mass of bees coming and going and how large the colony would grow.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

WI-beek said:


> For giggles I thought about making a colony queen-less and adding capped brood to it constantly from strong hives making a insane sized honey producing hive. I was thinking of a long box, say five deeps wide then stack honey suppers in center to the moon. You could constantly swap brood frames every week from one side or other. That should make some serious honey and relive swarming pressure from other colonies. I think it would be cool to just see the mass of bees coming and going and how large the colony would grow.


If you did this you would certainly need that long box so it would be easy to inspect brood a couple of days after or they would sure raise a queen from a stray larva. You would have to give them some open brood too or they would probably develop laying worker. Might be a good way to have a cell starter and honey hive too.

Hmm...


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## victory1504 (Mar 27, 2010)

Hey HH, just think of all the honey you could make if you "took the leash off" your queen and let her perform at her peak !

I don't really blame you. If I had honey running out my ears I would have to restrict the brood nest to one deep and make them go thru a queen excluder too.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

Unless I got my info wrong Im under the impression you will not develop laying workers unless you go bloodless. If wrong Id like to be corrected.

If on a weekly schedule you should in theory be able to scrape all viable queen cells before any hatch. If you put a queen excluder under supers, and on sides of the two brood chambers you could rid hive of a queen that pops up without to much hassle. I thought about being able to raise cells in these too. You could raise a ton of them.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

victory1504 said:


> Hey HH, just think of all the honey you could make if you "took the leash off" your queen and let her perform at her peak !
> 
> I don't really blame you. If I had honey running out my ears I would have to restrict the brood nest to one deep and make them go thru a queen excluder too.


For every queen excluder that fails I lose about $100 in honey a year. Most call it feed for the bees, I call it lost profit.

I had a few hive produce 11-14 medium supers last year. Almost a barrel of honey for those hive in production. Location is a big part of it, but why does one hive produce 12 supers and the hive beside it only produce 4 supers. Dad say thats a good thing, because you stand on the short hive to take the honey off the tall one.:scratch: I think a lot going to the queens. 

Maybe this is for another tread, but went does most enduce the queen excluder to the hive. And what kind of excluder are most using. Excluders are like most equipment it is great if used right. :thumbsup:


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

victory1504;603683If I had honey running out my ears I would have to restrict the brood nest to one deep and make them go thru a queen excluder too.[/QUOTE said:


> IMO excluders are not an issue for singles. Bees will go thru in any flow if surplus honey is produced.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

[QUOTE= Location is a big part of it, but why does one hive produce 12 supers and the hive beside it only produce 4 supers. 

I've had one hive make far more than others, too. Maybe the strong one is robbing from others or maybe because of hive setup foragers from other hives are returning to that strong one.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

The Honey Householder said:


> Maybe this is for another tread, but went does most enduce the queen excluder to the hive. And what kind of excluder are most using. Excluders are like most equipment it is great if used right. :thumbsup:


If using an excluder correctly makes you get more honey then let's have it!

According to Ed Holcomb (respected local expert) don't add an excluder until 3 weeks before harvest and then put it wherever you want as long as the queen is below. By the time you harvest any brood will have emerged and be back filled with honey.

What do you do?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I will never accept that genetics can directly account for widely variable honey crops. My feeling is if you would go through a yard and count frames of brood several weeks before a major honey flow that you would see a fairly direct relationship between that frame count and your surplus honey being initially stored. If the honey flow were a bit later many of those smaller hives would begin to catch up of course. But the big variable is always the drifting factor particularly if your yard is set up to drive a truck in or near enough to affect a flight on a day when you might be supering with a large flight on. Bees can and do frequently get in the wrong hives when returning heavily laden particularly if something has changed since they left. The fact that is it is not at all unusual to have large numbers of bees begin to land on a truck load of supers or a corner hive that you have just supered up gives you some idea how easily this can happen.
We use wire excluders, have never really trusted the flimsy plastic ones. In addition to maximizing your honey available to pull off the other big advantage of excluders is keeping not just the brood but also the pollen in the brood nest and greatly minimizing hive beetle problems in the extracting room.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

David LaFerney said:


> IBy the time you harvest any brood will have emerged and be back filled with honey.What do you do?


I don't want brood cocoons and pollen in my honey supers because that is what wax moths eat. I put excluders on top of the brood chamber and bait the bees up with drawn comb. I have had eight full mediums on top of a single brood chamber through an excluder and eleven on top of a double. 
This is this years 8/1, and it started as about 20 bees and a queen in fall.


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## victory1504 (Mar 27, 2010)

HH, I certainly understand why you would have to use an excluder if you are restricting the queen to one deep super. Most queens can fully cover a deep and a shallow, or two mediums. When I used commercial equipment I used three mediums. I rarely had trouble with the queen laying in surplus supers with no excluder.

Clearly, your location is far superior to mine. 

I would be surprised if you don't have major swarming problems, crowding them that much.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Jim your right about the drifting, but I get some queens I call my super queens that draw bees to them. It's like 1 in 25 queens, maybe 1 or 2 queens in a yard. They out produce the rest by 1/3. Those are the hives that really up the avg. per hive.

For excluders I use the all metal and the metal one with the wooden frames. I put all my excluder on when I shake the package in and I add two honey super on them then too. The bees don't see the excluder as a bottle neck, because it has always been there.
I think it was Allen Martens that pointed out when running singles the bee have to put everything up. Many want to know how can I produce 8-10 lbs of bees in a single deep. From the time I shake the bees in in the spring until I shake them out in the fall, they have supers on them. The thing is with only 8-9 frames for the queen the combs have to be the best. Every year I put all my brood boxes into the shop to clean them up and sort the bad out. I set the hives up for everything they need to get started. Frames of feed, pollen, an 1-2 empty frames to give the queen a place to get started. Then fresh quenn and bees to start each season.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

victory1504 said:


> HH, I certainly understand why you would have to use an excluder if you are restricting the queen to one deep super. Most queens can fully cover a deep and a shallow, or two mediums. When I used commercial equipment I used three mediums. I rarely had trouble with the queen laying in surplus supers with no excluder.
> 
> Clearly, your location is far superior to mine.
> 
> I would be surprised if you don't have major swarming problems, crowding them that much.


Don't get me wrong I do lose a few to swarming, but I do shake a lot of packages to sell too. Its easier to cut queen cells out of single then doubles!!!!
I shake my packages in around the last week of March and start shaking the extras to sell around the first of May. Most the time I only have to shake a few frames out to keep things in line with my strong hives. The local beekeeper like it because they get fresh bees the same day. The packages I sell are back in the hive within less then 24 hours most of the time. Plus they don't have all that shipping they have to pay.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

HH you may well be correct in your observation that some queens may simply attract bees better. Perhaps they fan in such a way to emit the phermone better or perhaps some queens simply emit more. The additional bees allow the queen to lay at a higher rate and the end result is the same, more bees make more honey. As most beekeepers we strive for uniformity from the time that we make our splits in the early spring, too often it dosent happen but when it does it is quite remarkable how little variation there is in production among the hives that caught queens in a timely fashion and built up without delay.


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## Allen Martens (Jan 13, 2007)

I would rather have a well produced queen with poor genetic than a poorly produced queen with good genetics. Before HI got varroa we used to get our queens with nurse bees in the box and no attendants in the queen cages. If the bees were all over the queens they inevitably had high acceptance rates and end up being great honey producers.

A couple of years ago I produced some queens in July and introduced them into mating nucs in an area I had about 200 hives and strong flow was on. The resulting queens were big, plumb, and attracted bees well. Made 60 2 frame splits during the first week of Aug which is late for southern MB. By fall these splits had grown to occupy a single. Next spring they exploded and I threw an extra brood chamber on over half of them which provide a split in a couple of weeks. During honey flow, most of the hives had 2 frames of brood pulled for nucs once or twice depending on their strength. Many of the hives produced 9+ deeps full of honey over 3 pulls in 10 weeks. The 4 best hives produced 12 deeps packed with honey; I'm sure they produced 500 lbs each. However, the location was incredible. The field where the bees were location had red clover the farmer alternating grazed lightly and hayed so it was blooming continuously. The surrounding fields were canola, soybean, sunflower and late alfalfa. 

Queens I had produced early from the same queen mother didn't come close to this performance. Mind you, nor did the location.


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## dave28210 (Nov 10, 2008)

marksmith said:


> SOME inexperienced beekeepers look for information to see why this might have been. Finding information supporting what I found, I then realized that it was possible and WHY this happened.
> 
> I have no idea why beekeeping is a cutthroat hobby? Seems everyone has a smart ass comment about the new guy not being 'up to par'
> 
> You do your thing, I'll do mine. FYVM



whether by newbees or veterans, I have learned from many experiments, accidents, and foul ups reported on here by users. And I'm thankful for the opportunity.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

odfrank said:


> So a new inexperienced beekeeper has once experienced maiming a queen and coincidentally getting a larger crop, and then proceeds to suggest it as a viable method to obtain larger crops on a regular basis. Hopefully all my competitors down here in the Bay Area will follow his sage advice.


We start as beginners. Then we learn a little and think we know everything. Eventually with enough experience most of us become wise enough to listen too and evaluate all contributions that come our way.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

jim lyon said:


> I will never accept that genetics can directly account for widely variable honey crops. My feeling is if you would go through a yard and count frames of brood several weeks before a major honey flow that you would see a fairly direct relationship between that frame count and your surplus honey being initially stored.


I agree that drifting can be a factor in some colonies making way more honey than others in the same yard. I gave a quick answer to the question, and probably should have said more.

Yes, in my apiaries, it is about how many frames of brood are present at the start of dandelion bloom, and how much brood they maintain through the flow season. Along with amount of honey produced, one criteria I follow is minimum of 9 frames of brood. Before I started raising my own, and bought all my queens, the strength and production in each apiary was all over the board. Tall hives, short hives and in between. Using the 9 comb rule changed all that, but the first indication of productive colonies is of course how many supers of honey they made. After years of raising my own stock, a new NY inspector came online. He commented by writing on the hives things like...another colony with 9 frames of brood, another colony with 9 combs of brood...wow, another breeder here, etc.

My reason for my too short reply was that I think rather than try to get super production from one colony by using some trick, it is better to increase the colony average in the whole apiary.

With that in mind, how would a beekeeper go about accomplishing that job other than through selection (genetics)? You say that the most productive colonies in the yard and the ones with the most brood are likely because of drift. What other indicators should be used by the beekeeper trying to increase the colony average in the apiary other than honey produced, and amount of brood maintained in the broodnest?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Nine frames of brood at what point in the season?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

>>Nine frames of brood at what point in the season?<<

From my previous post:



Michael Palmer said:


> Yes, in my apiaries, it is about how many frames of brood are present at the start of dandelion bloom, and how much brood they maintain through the flow season. Along with amount of honey produced, one criteria I follow is minimum of 9 frames of brood.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Sorry - didn't pick up on that.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

MP, to asnwer your question on indicators, I would like to add the ability for the queen to live long. This seems to be one thing that has changed over the last few decades that can not be explained. It was generally observed 30 years ago that the queens would live to about the age of three, and then the bees would suppercede her in a manner that was only noted by the pressence of an unclipped queen the next spring. What changed? I realize we have many more pathogens today. Is that the cause? Or is it genetic? The reason I asked, is because people in this area have complained alot about queen failures. the last couple years. If you are on top of your game controlling pests, and your hives have a good location and weather, the life span of the queen becoems an important factor. We had record rainfall this summer, and most of the hives that lost their queen made significantly less honey than those that stayed queen right, despite attempts to equalize.

Roland


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Summary (as I see it) of this thread to this point:

TRICKS FOR GETTING THE MOST HONEY FROM ONE HIVE

BUILD A STRONG HIVE

•	Lots of Healthy bees
•	Great Queen
•	Go into winter with a strong hive and strong young queen that has never been through an intense build up.
•	Never let the hive get too low on food or the queen may shut down.
•	Feed in early spring to help them get built up – nectar and pollen subs.
•	Have at least 9 (deep – 14.4 medium) frames of brood by beginning of dandelion bloom.
•	Give the hive more bees – swarms, package bees, brood, nurse bees that will soon be foragers, combine hives. 
•	Dump two 3 or 4 pound packages in a box of comb right before the flow hits but only one queen. They will have lots of foraging bees, and no brood to take care of. 
•	Run small cell frames – such as Mann Lake's PF - These have 8,000 cells per frame, whereas 5.4mm cell frames have 6,000 or so. This is another 25%-30% more brood which can be raised in any given cluster volume.
•	Small cell bees emerge about 5%-10% faster than 5.4 cell bees. A faster cycle time from egg lay to egg lay is like having a larger brood area.
•	Trim brood frames to 1 1/4 and run 11 frames. One of the limitations of spring buildup is how much brood a cluster can keep warm. Any given cluster can only maintain a certain volume. By running 11 frames, there is 10% more comb in a cluster than 10 frames, and 22% more comb than 9 frames. 
•	Minimize drones by swapping out drone comb for worker comb. Drones eat honey, but don’t produce any. 
•	Two queen system 


PREVENT SWARMING

•	Never let the queen run out of room to lay. 
•	Reverse hive bodies at Dandelion to help with swarming and super above to insure the queen feels she can easily move up onto empty comb, and the bees feel they have extra room above for nectar storage.
•	2-3 weeks before swarm season starts go thru the brood boxes, remove ALL honey and backfill with drawn comb - at least 2 deeps. Make sure there is not a layer of honey in the middle of the top brood box. Then 2-3 weeks later each hive gets 2-3 empty supers. 



OTHER CULTURAL PRACTICES

•	Good Location with lots of forage throughout the honey season.
•	Never let the hive have less than 15 pounds of honey or the queen may shut down.
•	Take all the honey, and then feed the bees to prepare them for winter. 
•	Harvest as soon as possible after the flow ends. The longer you wait the more honey the bees eat. 
•	Correct sized brood nest – single deep or slightly larger is enough – a double deep system could hold 60 pounds of honey. 
•	Always run an excluder if there are any supers on so that the bees don’t learn to see it as an new barrier.
•	Don’t add an excluder until about 3 weeks before you will be extracting – then put it wherever you want as long as the queen is below it. By the time you extract, any brood above the excluder will hatch and the comb will be back filled with honey. 
•	Install honey supers the moment you see dandelions.
•	Have 5-9 supers with fully drawn comb ready to go. Bees that are drawing foundation aren’t producing a maximum honey crop. 
•	Keep more supers on the hive than the bees are working. Note: Excess empty comb may exacerbate SHB problems.
•	If the hive is bearding, provide shade and ventilation - Bearding bees are NOT working bees !
•	Once the bees have made significant progress on the topmost super slide 2 more supers on just above the excluder. 
•	When the top two supers are capped off extract them and replace the stickies just above the excluder.
•	Use Large frames and brood chambers. 
•	Remove the queen at some point during the flow so that there is no brood to feed for some period of time.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Roland said:


> MP, to asnwer your question on indicators, I would like to add the ability for the queen to live long. This seems to be one thing that has changed over the last few decades that can not be explained. It was generally observed 30 years ago that the queens would live to about the age of three, and then the bees would suppercede her in a manner that was only noted by the pressence of an unclipped queen the next spring. What changed?


That's a huge question that everyone is asking. Surely it is partly do to conditions under which the queen is raised. Raised too early in the season, with poor nutrition, bad mating weather, contaminated comb, and chemically damaged drones.

But I wonder...how much is due to annual requeening? Is there a way for the breeder to select for queen longevity if colonies are requeened every year?


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

MP, This is one of the reasons I run the way I do. Most the queen now at days are a throw away queen. I just when a little bit farther then throwing the queens away.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Well I think mites could be involved. Just to find out, I raised batch of cells in a hive with a high mite count, then opened some of them before hatching. And yes, some of them had mites in with them. I allowed the others to hatch and mate. Despite all the cells looking large & healthy some of the queens where suspiciously small and performed poorly, can't say for sure but my strong suspicion is they are the ones that were varroa infected as a larva.

Another thing I can't say for sure, but strongly suspect, is that chemical treatments affect queens. I can say for definate that FA will weaken a queen, but other treatments like for example apistan, i have grounds to suspect there is a negative effect.

I now run my mite treatments around trying to be as gentle on queens as possible plus keeping mite levels not just "acceptable", but as close to zero as possible. Nearly all my queens are now good egg layers for two years, just like the old days. But certainly if I'm lazy or make certain mistakes, I can have queens being superseded or dissapearing within a few months. And what is particularly annoying, I like to buy queens in from others just to try out new blood, a high proportion of these queens simply vanish in a few months, without much warning and seemingly not much that could have been done.


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## arcowandbeegirl (Oct 11, 2010)

Thanks everyone for posting all the great information!


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## Countryboy (Feb 15, 2009)

_I think rather than try to get super production from one colony by using some trick, it is better to increase the colony average in the whole apiary._

Isn't total production more important than averages? Running a few more hives in a yard may be easier than trying to increase colony average by another 10 pounds. Isn't that the reason we run more hives in a yard, rather than trying to get hives that produce 1,000 pounds each?


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

You can learn a lot by examining the extreme case. Just like a lot of technology in a civic started out being developed in formula one.

Just look at the list. Almost all of it is just sound managment for honey production. Not really very many "tricks". I think its been a pretty constructive thread.


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## Roland (Dec 14, 2008)

MP - I maybe have some clues. Half of our yards and equipment is 50 plus years old, with everyything that was used over the last 50 years. The other half is new within the last 4 years, with no chemical treatments for mites. We see little difference in queen survival between the two groups. That does not mean that chemicals are not harmfull, just that there is some other factor that is more powerfull. There was bad mating weather in the past, so that is a variable that has not changed. Yes, we get poorly mated queems. maybe more than before, but sooner or later there should be a queen in the hive that has been properly mated and should go the distance. The same should hold for nutritian, Some time in the year should be good. 
Of your list, it sure looks like genetics is the leading culprit.

Oldtimer, Your theory fits the time line also. I will try to observe if there is a corelation between mite levels and queen longevity. But maybe it is not the mites, but the associated pathogens that are really causing the decrease in life span. It is just easier to observe the mites.

Countryboy - yes, but the title of the thread is about one hive.

Roland


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Roland said:


> Oldtimer, Your theory fits the time line also. I will try to observe if there is a corelation between mite levels and queen longevity. But maybe it is not the mites, but the associated pathogens that are really causing the decrease in life span. It is just easier to observe the mites.Roland


Oh yes, the associated pathogens obviously. In fact the more advanced queen breeding folks are looking not only for mite resistance, but specific resistance to various associated pathogens.

I guess another thing that should have been mentioned is the effect of varroa on drone quality. For spring mating this can be quite important as we have hives coming through winter with an increasing mite population, and then when they are treated the treatment can affect drone fertility also, so there is a double whammy.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Countryboy said:


> _I think rather than try to get super production from one colony by using some trick, it is better to increase the colony average in the whole apiary._
> 
> Isn't total production more important than averages? Running a few more hives in a yard may be easier than trying to increase colony average by another 10 pounds. Isn't that the reason we run more hives in a yard, rather than trying to get hives that produce 1,000 pounds each?


Before I raised my own stock, my average with 30+ yards of 7-800 colonies was 24T. My average now with the same yards is 40T. To me, increasing the per colony average is better than running more colonies per yard.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Oldtimer said:


> Nearly all my queens are now good egg layers for two years, just like the old days.


I see the same oldtimer. While I don't look for every queen in every hive...not even close...production records indicate that if and when the queens are being superceded, production doesn't really drop. Supercedure is a good thing and is the way the bees do it. I requeen colonies that I think could benefit. This past summer, most of the queens replaced were red (2008) and yellow (2007) queens. I too think most of my queens last 2-3 years. I ask my queen customers for feedback., and replace any poor queen free. I want to know about any drone layers or first year supercedures. This year I only got two replies.

If the queens in your colonies (packages) are so poor that they are superceded the first year, and the resulting queen is once again a poor performer, then I would say it is a case of: "Garbage in, garbage out".


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

The Honey Householder said:


> MP, This is one of the reasons I run the way I do. Most the queen now at days are a throw away queen. I just when a little bit farther then throwing the queens away.


I really have thought about your method of honey production. I haven't said anything negative because that's not my place, although I wouldn't do it that way. But, two thoughts come to mind. I wouldn't want to be tied to the packaged bee industry, and if my queens were throw away queens, I would be totally disgusted with myself.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

MP, The whole deal with being tied to the package suppliers in coming into play now. Most the big ones have somuch business now they don't care about the guys that have made them. Somany of them are bring big problem into there operations and they don't care. There just for the here and now business and money. Maybe that is the way it sounds like I run my business. In this business you have to change with the times, and TIMES ARE A CHANGING and fast. 30+ years in the business and each year brings new chances to learn. 

Really do the big supplier want to fix the problems. They are getting rich with the unfixed problems.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Package producers are just businessmen selling their product for whatever the market will bear. If you feel that it is getting too risky to trust your livelihood to them you may have to look at a different business plan. We quit buying packages about 20 years ago, figured it took the first medium of honey they made just to break even. The bees we hauled south and split and the good overwintered hives always outproduced the packages. Eventually we just quit wintering altogether and moved everything, took a while to get fully palletized and set up but it has payed off. I'm not saying that a migratory operation is for everyone just that it has worked well for us.


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## The Honey Householder (Nov 14, 2008)

Jim, How right you are about them being businessmen. Yes but back in the days they were more then just that. They took pride in there product, and they knew that they had to have a quitily product for repeat business (staying in business). Now there is so much demand for bees, they shortcut (short shake), do as little as possible for the health of the bees. Why??? Because it cutting into the bottom line. Don't get me wrong not all the suppliers doing this. You would think if they do business like this for very long they wouldn't be in business. To many new customers in the business today, and they just blame them for inexpensive. 

The money I send on packages each year, I might as well start my own package business. Why produce the best honey when you can produce 10K+ packages??? Why because Honey is what I do best!


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