# Going in to first Spring with overwintered hives



## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

I am realizing that getting a package to spring is a whole different animal than starting a package in the Spring, so I want to make sure I have a plan so I don't get behind... knowing that things can change quickly and I will need to adjust things. What do you think about this approach...

3 hives that are each 2 deeps + 1 medium with more than enough stores, but I wanted to be safe. Again, acting on the safe side, I added a pollen patty and about 5 pounds of sugar bricks to each hive yesterday.


Now through end of February - Check pollen patties and sugar bricks and add if depleted. 
Early March - Reverse deep supers assuming there is no brood in the lower box
Early March - Add medium on top (2 deeps + 2 mediums) and checkerboard the 2 mediums with honey, drawn empty frames, and undrawn frames.
April and May - Check on space and add/pull frames to keep the top boxes from getting too full
June or July - Harvest honey if things go well

I am not planning on giving them any supplemental feed this year from March 1st - end of June.... unless they are just not bringing in enough.

After honey harvest (hopefully), I will give them syrup to get them back to weight in August - October.

Any help would be more than welcome... Thanks.


----------



## johnmcda (Aug 10, 2015)

Mite count? Treatment?


----------



## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

Last round of OAV (3x at 6 days apart each) was finished in early December. Oil trays under the hive have been in place undisturbed since mid December and they have less than 5 mites per tray (about 6 weeks time). Have not done any sugar roll as the rain has been constant here and I don't want to get in to the hive.

Treatment plan is going to be to check count in April and treat if needed (3x OAV). Early August treatment will take place regardless of mite count (3x OAV).


----------



## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

Your plan sounds fine. Treatment plan should be good.

You are giving the bees a lot of space for your climate, I think. Likely they would be fine with just the two deeps.
I probably would not have given them the pollen patty and extra food unless I wanted to increase the number of hives. 

Now you need to be ready for the unexpected. Do you have nuc boxes? Extra deep hive bodies with frames and foundation?
If I were to predict what to be ready for, it would be swarm cells. Be ready to make splits. You can get some awesome queens from swarm cells. 

If you don't have room and can't expand you might consider buying or making double screens so you can do vertical splits and then recombine after swarm season has passed. 

Always remember: The bees will surprise you. Just be ready for the unexpected.

Good on ya for thinking ahead.


----------



## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

If your hives are as healthy as they sound be ready for booming hives. It's a whole different animal than package hives in the first year. A little intimidating but fun too.


----------



## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

Arnie said:


> If your hives are as healthy as they sound be ready for booming hives. It's a whole different animal than package hives in the first year. A little intimidating but fun too.


Thank you for the time. I do have some extra woodware but I am hoping not to split this year. I have 3 packages coming this spring and was hoping to have 3 overwintered producers and 3 packages that I can take slowly so I am not overwhelmed.

Is it hard if not impossible to keep booming hives from swarming without splitting?


----------



## larryh (Jul 28, 2014)

Seeing them so active on these nice days is exciting.
I've been seeing that they're on a mission, and just about every bee coming in is loaded with pollen. I saw nectar in the comb (unless it was water?) So I'm not doing any feeding. I am keeping tabs on their stores (by lifting) but they seem to be holding steady, if not putting some away..
..Loving this journey!


----------



## BeeBop (Apr 23, 2015)

Norcalkyle said:


> Is it hard if not impossible to keep booming hives from swarming without splitting?


I'm kind of surprised that you aren't splitting them instead of buying more packages.


----------



## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

Norcalkyle said:


> Is it hard if not impossible to keep booming hives from swarming without splitting?


Sure you can. But by feeding pollen and sugar you are encouraging them to brood up. If they are already healthy they may take that encouragement and turn it into swarming. So you are making your job of trying to keep the bees in the boxes that much harder.

And as BeeBop says, if you are going to increase anyway, why not from your own hives? Save money and learn something at the same time! 

Keep an eye out, when you find swarm cells, split the hives. You can get some excellent queens that way and they cost you nothing.


----------



## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

BeeBop said:


> I'm kind of surprised that you aren't splitting them instead of buying more packages.


I could be making a mistake by my approach... I just don't have the experience yet to know what the best thing to do is. My ideal situation would be to have 3 booming hives put up a lot of honey, and have 3 packages plug away and allow me to continue to learn at a slow pace.


----------



## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

You are the only one who can decide what is best for you and what you are most comfortable doing. 
Here's a thought: Buy 2 packages and make one split from your over wintered hives. Best of both worlds.


----------



## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

Arnie said:


> You are the only one who can decide what is best for you and what you are most comfortable doing.
> Here's a thought: Buy 2 packages and make one split from your over wintered hives. Best of both worlds.


You guys are right, I should do a split at least for the sake of learning. Is it best to pick 1 hive and do a walk-away, or is there a method to do a 2:3 split? What time of year is a good time to split? Is it bad practice to split with a robber screen on (does it make the queen less likely to return)?


----------



## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

It depends. A good way to get a nice split out of one good hive is to check it during swarm season and look for queen cells. Once a week should be good. When you find swarm cells you can split the hive, making sure you have a cell in each half. That is easiest; you don't have to find the queen. A better way to do it is to find the queen and move her to a new stand. The bees think they have swarmed and you get a new hive with a nice healthy queen. Be sure to give them room. 

Otherwise you can make up a pretty strong split out of two hives. Lots of ways to do it. One method is to take the queen out of your best hive and put her in a nuc. Shake in a bunch of nurse bees from a second hive.. After three days go through and cut out any queen cells you find. Then leave it to raise a queen. Start a hive from the nuc by adding frames of bees without a queen to create a full brood box. Let it build up from there.

A good way to get nurse bees while ensuring you have not gotten the queen by accident is to find a frame with open brood on it. Shake ALL the bees off of it. Put it into an empty brood box above a Q excluder for an hour or so. The nurse bees will move onto the frame of brood. Then you can shake those bees into the hive you want to raise the queen. 

You can make it simple or complicated.

Spring is the best time to split. I don't use a robber screen.


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

You've stated that you have 3 hives with 2 deeps and a medium each. You've not said how heavy they are, what the stores are like, how many frames of bees are in them, or where the cluster is located. I feel you need to know these things before feeding or making any plans. Let the hives guide you for timing of what to do when. You have a general plan, but let the hives show you exactly what to do when. 

From your location and other posts you've made, I'm assuming that you have good honey stores in the boxes, probably the top super and at least half or probably more of the middle deeps, but I'm not there looking at it to be sure. If that is the case, you don't need to add the sugar bricks. In your location, giving pollen patty with already heavy enough stores can get the bees brooding and give you earlier large populations to get some early spring flow honey. That will also get them using up some of that last years stores, to give room for new incoming honey this year. We are having early spring like weather, flows of pollen should be starting now or very soon. Nectar flows will be right behind it. Almonds will be blooming early this year, maybe within a week in some locations. Mustard is starting already in some locations. I'd say that even the pollen patties won't be needed after another couple weeks, certainly not after the end of February. Watch the weather, if we miraculously get heavy rains for days in a row where there are not enough fly days for the bees, then yes feeding may be more needed, but that's not likely.

Yes, in most instances, you can keep the bees from swarming which will give you good honey production, but some of it also depends on the bees, the genetic strain and their general attitude. Every hive is different, each has it's own personality and traits. Making sure they have space to expand directly above and to the sides of the main brood nest area is usually all it takes. A strong nectar flow that you are not aware of can throw a monkey wrench in the works, so just keep a monitoring eye on them. Over time, you will learn your areas flows and timing.

Your general plan looks OK, but look to the hives to let you know of the exact timing, and reversing boxes may or may not be in order so once again, the bees and conditions in the hive will tell you yes or no and when. For now, pop the lids and tip back supers and top deeps to check and see where the bees are and how strong of population you have. No need to pull frames and check for brood yet, they are just getting started with brooding now in any expanding motion. Keep in mind also, that as the brood rearing is expanding, that you are now also losing the over wintered bees, they are starting to die off, so the population is not going to be exploding on you quite yet. look to the end of February or the first of March for first signs of needing to monitor space and swarming.


----------



## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

Thanks for the time and advice... this place has been such a saving grace for me in my first year.


----------



## Arnie (Jan 30, 2014)

Ray, as always, excellent points.


----------



## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

"Borrowing" a frame or two of capped brood, from each of your big hives, and giving it to the packages will likely help cut down on the swarm urge in them, and improve your chances of success with those packages. 

I've posted this a few times, but here it is again:

From "The Hive and the Honeybee" - Management of package bees :

"_There comes a critical time in the progress of the package colony, usually about 3 weeks after it is hived when the new brood produced from the eggs of the queen reached a relatively high point in proportion to the number of adult bees. Many of the (package bees) will have died, and no young bees will have emerged. It is often at this time that supercedure ... occurs..., probably because the population is out of balance. This can largely be overcome by giving the package colony a comb of emerging brood and bees from a healthy colony, placing this comb next to the brood combs in the package colony. This should be done about two weeks after the package is installed; colonies so treated will gain surprisingly in strength_."

It is important to note that they mention "emerging brood & bees". That means capped brood - not open brood with eggs and young larvae. The aim is to provide an immediate boost of worker bees. Adding another frame of capped brood with each additional brood chamber has been a very productive technique for me. 

The big hives get a frame of foundation in the place of the borrowed brood frame - no guarantee that they still won't swarm, but an accepted technique for curbing the urge. Most often the "big" hives still produce a great crop - they barely notice the missing frame(s), and the packages go on to produce a very nice one - and still head into winter heavy with stores. 

By next year, you should be in a very good position to start making splits from your overwintered colonies, rather than having to buy more packages.

Good luck!


----------



## phyber (Apr 14, 2015)

Norcalkyle said:


> I could be making a mistake by my approach... I just don't have the experience yet to know what the best thing to do is. My ideal situation would be to have 3 booming hives put up a lot of honey, and have 3 packages plug away and allow me to continue to learn at a slow pace.


Best thing about a walkaway split is that you don't have to know anything, aside from placing a frame of stores/frame with queen cells or at least eggs/a few frames worth of shook bees into a nuc. Wait about 3 weeks and you have a new queen. Doesn't get easier than that.


----------



## Norcalkyle (Apr 23, 2015)

RayMarler said:


> You've stated that you have 3 hives with 2 deeps and a medium each. You've not said how heavy they are, what the stores are like, how many frames of bees are in them, or where the cluster is located. I feel you need to know these things before feeding or making any plans. Let the hives guide you for timing of what to do when. You have a general plan, but let the hives show you exactly what to do when.
> 
> From your location and other posts you've made, I'm assuming that you have good honey stores in the boxes, probably the top super and at least half or probably more of the middle deeps, but I'm not there looking at it to be sure. If that is the case, you don't need to add the sugar bricks. In your location, giving pollen patty with already heavy enough stores can get the bees brooding and give you earlier large populations to get some early spring flow honey. That will also get them using up some of that last years stores, to give room for new incoming honey this year. We are having early spring like weather, flows of pollen should be starting now or very soon. Nectar flows will be right behind it. Almonds will be blooming early this year, maybe within a week in some locations. Mustard is starting already in some locations. I'd say that even the pollen patties won't be needed after another couple weeks, certainly not after the end of February. Watch the weather, if we miraculously get heavy rains for days in a row where there are not enough fly days for the bees, then yes feeding may be more needed, but that's not likely.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the feedback. Since you and I are reasonably close, when do you typically pull honey supers off for extraction? I am in an area where the only agriculture is wine grapes, and there is not much alfalfa. We have lots of wild flowers, blackberries, manzanita and star thistle. I was thinking since the hillsides look very dry by the end of June, that sometime in early June would be a good time to look for capped frames.... but again, I am not sure.


----------



## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

phyber said:


> Best thing about a walkaway split is that you don't have to know anything, aside from placing a frame of stores/frame with queen cells or at least eggs/a few frames worth of shook bees into a nuc. Wait about 3 weeks and you have a new queen. Doesn't get easier than that.


Assuming they succeed at rearing a new queen, and she gets properly mated, which isn't always the case...

Don't get me wrong - apparently it often works, just not always.


----------



## phyber (Apr 14, 2015)

Colobee said:


> Assuming they succeed at rearing a new queen, and she gets properly mated, which isn't always the case...
> 
> Don't get me wrong - apparently it often works, just not always.


there's always room for failures....but I took two packages and split to 5 hives (still kicking) in my first season, with less experience than OP, and I started splitting after June. Only had one failure where a queen never made it back from a mating flight.


----------



## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

phyber said:


> there's always room for failures....but I took two packages and split to 5 hives (still kicking) in my first season, with less experience than OP, and I started splitting after June. Only had one failure where a queen never made it back from a mating flight.


Not to hijack the thread, but did you make those 5 splits from the two packages started in that (same year) spring ? I am getting started this year with 2 hives. Watching Michael Palmer on NHS, I am wondering which one is better option 

a) Leave two hives into winter and think about splitting in the second year fall 
b) Split them into multiple Nucs (without any production colony left) going into winter that same year (may be some ordered queens).


----------



## phyber (Apr 14, 2015)

DaisyNJ said:


> Not to hijack the thread, but did you make those 5 splits from the two packages started in that (same year) spring ? I am getting started this year with 2 hives. Watching Michael Palmer on NHS, I am wondering which one is better option
> 
> a) Leave two hives into winter and think about splitting in the second year fall
> b) Split them into multiple Nucs (without any production colony left) going into winter that same year (may be some ordered queens).


yes, two packages were purchased from my local Dadant (one in april, one in may) and placed into 10 frame deeps which would have another deep added when the time was right. Along about June I got the desire to try to make some splits to insure against winter losses. I knew I wouldn't get honey this first year anyway, and the bees were drawing comb great, so why not?

I did learn that, despite advice against it from local beeks, late splits/queen mating CAN work, but worker bee wax drawing significantly slows down after the flow. I would have tried a few more splits but the bees weren't in the mood to keep drawing comb past their initial 5 frame nucs. Equipment budget was running low for the year, so I quit splitting.

I ended up going into winter with three double deep hives, one 10 frame deep, and one 5 frame nuc hive. I hope to expect honey from at least the double deeps, if not all of them by flow time.


----------



## phyber (Apr 14, 2015)

Now that I potentially have production hives available to me, I will likely not split from them. I will take brood from my other two hives and try to split...but if I see swarm cells, hey...that's a free split for me.

Keep in mind my splits were not an even split; from one 10 frame deep I would only take one frame of stores and one frame of eggs/brood and place them both in a 5 frame nuc with bare foundation frames. I had maybe 2 frames worth of bees in the nuc.

I felt this was the best way to start smaller splits, while reducing the impact on the donor hive as much as possible.


----------



## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

phyber said:


> Now that I potentially have production hives available to me, I will likely not split from them. I will take brood from my other two hives and try to split...but if I see swarm cells, hey...that's a free split for me.
> 
> Keep in mind my splits were not an even split; from one 10 frame deep I would only take one frame of stores and one frame of eggs/brood and place them both in a 5 frame nuc with bare foundation frames. I had maybe 2 frames worth of bees in the nuc.
> 
> I felt this was the best way to start smaller splits, while reducing the impact on the donor hive as much as possible.


Awesome.. thanks for sharing. Not to count my chickens, but I started to think about how I can divest going into next winter.


----------



## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Norcalkyle said:


> Thanks for the feedback. Since you and I are reasonably close, when do you typically pull honey supers off for extraction? I am in an area where the only agriculture is wine grapes, and there is not much alfalfa. We have lots of wild flowers, blackberries, manzanita and star thistle. I was thinking since the hillsides look very dry by the end of June, that sometime in early June would be a good time to look for capped frames.... but again, I am not sure.


I'm willing to wager that I'm in a worse area than you are for flows. I try to get honey as early as I can, but there are years when I can pull honey the end of July, that is IF the starthistle is good and IF I have the mite levels DOWN. Those are 2 pretty big ifs. The end of June may be fine in your area, it will depend on the prospects for a good starthistle year whether you can wait later or not. If you try keeping the hives strong by not pulling out splits, and keep them from swarming, then you may be able to pull honey in May or June. I've done so in some years. Also, you don't have to wait for a full box to pull honey. You have 3 hives, so you could pull what frames are capped from each hive to make up enough to extract. I like extracting 12 frames at a time, because that gives me a 5 gallon bucket of honey.

I would like to make a comment on making splits from swarm cells. If you can manage the hives to not swarm and keep varroa levels low, then you are much more able to get a honey crop. Waiting until you see swarm cells in order to make splits, is not as profitable of a way of making splits, in my opinion. It would be better to plan and make the splits before swarming measures are being made by the hives.

March, April, and May are fruit and berry bloom, so honey that is capped by the first of June or sometime in June, is a good time to pull and extract if you have enough to do so. As you have said, after June, we can get the drying heat come on for summer, and if starthistle is not abundant, then there won't be any flows afterwards. You will have more of a chance for flows in Sonoma county than I will at the base of the foothills here in Yuba county, as you are closer to the coast with a more humid environment. Oh, BTW, grapes don't do any good for bees, unless they get access to grape crushings waste from a vineyard, as they can suck out any traces of the sweet grape juice.


----------



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I plan to requeen mine early on with the Spring queens.
Then when the flow is on later just check to see if any
queen cells are made. With a new mated queen they are less
likely to swarm when given plenty of room. The old queen will
be in a nuc and the production hives headed by the new queens will
make lots of honey. I'm at the point that I don't have to buy more bees
anymore and will make my own local queens through out the season. It is
a good feeling to finally have a self-sustaining apiary. Why not the local queens are
free on a good Spring flow.


----------

