# How many Hives needed for sustainable apiary?



## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

An apiary can suffer 100% winter losses, so there is no such thing as you are seeking. 
Wait a few years and there will be millions of bee hives available from all the people who have climbed on this recent bee mania and whose bees die out and they then give up.


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

odfrank said:


> so there is no such thing as you are seeking.


Of course there is.

I am not asking for definitive numbers. I am asking for recommendations.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Count on 50% loss over winter in Maine and you should do fine. Have as many nucs (or more) overwintered than you have hives. 

Watch this 2 part video and it will all make some sense . . .

http://vimeo.com/search?q=palmer+apiary


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

Thanks for the link keth.

BTW, I think that it was you that recommended Larry Connor's book Increase Essentials, if so thanks for that also. I got it and it is a very good little book. Lot's of valuable info.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Keth Comollo said:


> Count on 50% loss over winter in Maine and you should do fine. Have as many nucs (or more) overwintered than you have hives.


I decided the same thing. If I wanted three hives in in Spring I "needed" six or seven going into the Winter. Seven of my eight hives made it through the winter this year. A few were in double or triple 5-frame medium nuc equipment.

Buy/build some nuc equipment and possibly plan on getting a queen castle. It adds to the fun.

And get resistant regional queens...


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

I was going to say 3 for me. 50% is not an average, 20% would be closer to the average. But still 3 colonies going through winter should be a reliable number for sustaining one colony.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Note:

I was replying as a hobbyist.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

odfrank said:


> An apiary can suffer 100% winter losses, so there is no such thing as you are seeking.


This is technically correct. Anyone, at anytime can suffer total loss. Is it likely, no, but possible, yes. Don't know about your state, but VA keeps a running average of winter losses, which is around 30%. I'd expect Maine to be a good bit higher, so a 50% loss would be a reasonable estimate. I think the question is more involved than you suggest. For example, what are your overall objectives? Certainly its not simply to never buy bees again, right? At minimum, I'd expect to get a honey crop, if not for just personal use, to help offset some costs. My point is that if you've got 2 hives and lose 1 (50%), the remaining hive may or may not produce honey, so you need to add some redundancy to your plans that will achieve your objectives with some level of certainty. Of course there are many other objectives that can factor into such a plan.


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## Andrew Dewey (Aug 23, 2005)

Hi Ralph,

Your winter time losses will vary with the weather. My loss rate was about 16% this past winter and most losses were due to entire preventable things - like the nuc that ended up being a great mouse house, a hive that fell off its stand during the winter - stuff like that. If you plan for 50% losses most years you'll end up with more hives than you started. Of course if your hive numbers are where you like, you can combine or steal lots of brood from the nucs to boost your hives. I would think the minimum number of hives to be sustainable would be four full hives plus a couple of nucs. And pay attention to the details! Don't forget that nucs need mouse guards too!


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

If your one hive produced 100 pounds of honey for you own use it is likely you could go two more years without producing any unless you drink a lot of mead. Except for starvation, I think most hives die early in the winter leaving a whole lot of honey. That is my experience so far.
If you are successful at sustaining one hive as a back yard beekeeper honey will not be an issue until you get the bright idea of selling it. Then the line between hobbyist and sideligner gets shady.


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

AstroBee said:


> I think the question is more involved than you suggest. For example, what are your overall objectives? Certainly its not simply to never buy bees again, right? At minimum, I'd expect to get a honey crop, if not for just personal use, to help offset some costs. My point is that if you've got 2 hives and lose 1 (50%), the remaining hive may or may not produce honey, so you need to add some redundancy to your plans that will achieve your objectives with some level of certainty.


This is a very good point. Thank you for making it.

My first concern, however, is to get to the place where I can come through the winter with some bees to work with. Right now, having bees is my main objective. After that, having enough bees to sell a few nucs would be neat. If I ever get a surplus of honey, that would be icing on the cake.


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## Allen (Oct 5, 2011)

We've started with 5 colonies of bees.
Helped a friend all last year with his three colonies that are just up the road.
He doesn't use chemicals, lost 1 and split the remaining two.
I got one of the splits and he is back to three.


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

ralittlefield said:


> Thanks for the link keth.
> 
> BTW, I think that it was you that recommended Larry Connor's book Increase Essentials,





[email protected] said:


> THe best bet would be to read Increase Essentials by Dr Larry Conner. He basicly describes Mike Palmers methods. I use these with great success. It would also work in Maine. You might consider building up to ten frames for winter.


Actually, I should thank Adam for that!


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

ralittlefield said:


> How many hives would you recommend to someone who intends to keep bees, but does not want to have to buy replacements for their losses?
> 
> I understand that it could vary depending on location and other conditions.


Two. You will still have to replace w/ nucs or packages some time in the future when both colonies die the same year.

Otherwise 10 would bve a good number.

If your numbers aren't growing you are going backwards. Not that you have to go haywire commercial at all.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

I have ten hives and am going to have 10 nucs (5 doubles) by the end of July for overwintering. Rather have 12 to feel real safe but one does run out of wood now and again. 

Nucs won't all be in the same yard for added insurance in case one yard gets hit by Nosema etc. Ameliorate the risk as much as your resources allow.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I have had in the last few years 100% loss in yards with ten and four colonies. Didn't we hear of commercial beekeepers with 100% loss? I still say in the worst case scenario what you are seeking can not be promised. That being said, I recommend five as a good#. They fit on two eight foot long pressure treat fence posts as the stand even with Telescoping covers.


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

odfrank said:


> I still say in the worst case scenario what you are seeking can not be promised.


I agree. There is no promise of success.




odfrank said:


> That being said, I recommend five as a good#. They fit on two eight foot long pressure treat fence posts as the stand even with Telescoping covers.


That is in the ball park with other responses.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> If your numbers aren't growing you are going backwards.


This is the logic you use when you own or run a business. A hobbyist devotes a certain amount of money toward the hobby for his enjoyment. There are very few hobbies where you can break even. Beekeeping is the only one that I know of.


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## Gord (Feb 8, 2011)

I started with 3 colonies last year.
They all made it through the winter, and I now have five from the original three.
Two need to be split soon.
My short answer is three.


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## blueskydixon (Jul 9, 2011)

Wow Gord! You're telling my story!


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Another question for you Ralph is do you want to make honey, and if so how much? You could start there and then work from that figure using the State average as a guide. I expected 50% losses last year as I do nothing for mites other than a brood break. I was way off. I had a 100% survival rate. I overwintered 12 hives and 9 double story 5 frame nucs. 
This year I have sold over $700 of bees and now I have 14 colonies in production and 16 nucs and swarms; *IF* I am able to make the state average I should make a 1000lb's of honey.
Of course this all has a cost. On the plus side I have covered my costs and learned a lot, on the downside I have spent more time with the bees than perhaps I should have.
One big learning for me is not to underestimate the exponential growth of a colony in spring. I was thinking along the lines of colonies doubling in size and selling half the brood would prevent swarming issues. I think that in my area it is more like a tripling in size.


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## NirvanaFan (Apr 17, 2012)

Acebird said:


> This is the logic you use when you own or run a business. A hobbyist devotes a certain amount of money toward the hobby for his enjoyment. There are very few hobbies where you can break even. Beekeeping is the only one that I know of.


Saltwater corals can easily pay for the hobby of keeping fish tanks. Some corals that are 1" can sell for $100+. Raising certain fish, like clownfish, can pay for the hobby too. 


On topic... This is my first year. I've got two hives now. I'm hoping to get my number to 4 or 5 next spring. I figure on 50% losses, so I'll have a hive or two to steal frames from if need be.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

There are a few problems with really small numbers like 2-3 hives. 

You have less of a basis for comparison - with more hives there are usually some that are outstanding and others that are weak, while most are kinda average. That might be harder to see with very few hives. 

Also, when you have very few hives you really hate to cut your losses, or even take any chances with any of them because it will leave you with even fewer to work with. You might tend to nurse along a dog for a long time when you should really just eliminate the queen and combine it, or whatever.

To recover gracefully from a mishap you not only need a resources to fix the problem, but also some to use to make increase to replace whatever you just used up.

So whatever number of production hives you decide is right for you, to sustain that number I think you need spare hives/nucs in addition to your "real" hives. And the smaller the number of production hives you want to maintain - the larger your percentage of nucs should probably be. So if you want to always have 3-4 "hives" I think you probably need to also have 3-4 nucs.

And if Spring ever arrives and you happen to have more than you want you can always get rid of extra nucs. If making money off of a hobby ruins it for anyone then give them away - same goes for honey. But it's not a problem for me.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

David LaFerney said:


> So if you want to always have 3-4 "hives" I think you probably need to also have 3-4 nucs.


I know there is a lot of talk about raising nucs but if I agree with your numbers why can't someone just have 6 or 8 hives to sustain 3 or 4? To me nucs require much more time and fiddling. Hives just require equipment. So the person with one hive can work to three and the person with three hives can work to six or eight. Easing into the hobby.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Full sized production hives are huge brood factories and that results in them being huge mite factories. They are more prone to succumb to mite related issues during the winter than a nuc with it's small brood size due to less space for the queen to lay. Building midsummer nucs and providing them with a mated queen provides a brood break as well so the mites can't really get a great grip on the hive before winter.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Some times I think the word/concept of "sustainability" is just a "new", cool word that we use now days for doing something. For most folks keeping bees is simply an enjoyable past time, not something done to sustain life. So, what does "sustainable" really mean or matter?

If you want to keep two hives, keep two hives. When one or both day, restock them. What's the big deal? If you want them to selfsustain, then you have to become a very good beekeeper and still you will find that one or both will die some winter. It's natural and normal.

There is no "one size fits all" answer. Do what works for you.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Keth Comollo said:


> Building midsummer nucs and providing them with a mated queen provides a brood break as well


:scratch:Where is the brood break?


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## johng (Nov 24, 2009)

I would say 10 hives would probably do what you are talking about. Make splits each year to make up for losses. If you have a good year sell the extras. Over winter nucs each year. With ten hives you would sometimes have as many as 15 hives and other times you may only have 5. With those kind of numbers you should be able to keep going even during bad years.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

> Hives just require equipment.


And space...

I can place six or seven five frame nucs on a 6' 6" long stand.

Full size equipment also requires more bees... 


Full size hives obviously cost more to buy or build.


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## Lburou (May 13, 2012)

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> ...This year I have sold over $700 of bees and now I have 14 colonies in production and 16 nucs and swarms; *IF* I am able to make the state average I should make a 1000lb's of honey.


Better be careful here, IRS agents might be reading....


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Oops! Meant to say queen cell! Sorry to confuse!!


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

sqkcrk said:


> Some times I think the word/concept of "sustainability" is just a "new", cool word that we use now days for doing something. For most folks keeping bees is simply an enjoyable past time, not something done to sustain life. So, what does "sustainable" really mean or matter?


For me it means not having to start from scratch with new bees. It matters to me because if I am unable to keep at least some and preferable most of my bees alive then I do not feel that I am doing a good job as a beekeeper.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

Lburou, I am OK with IRS reading this. All income goes on my tax return. I'm just happy to be bringing money in and not sending it out - it will help me rationalize spending some when something goes wrong as it inevitably will.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

sqkcrk said:


> Some times I think the word/concept of "sustainability" is just a "new", cool word that we use now days for doing something. For most folks keeping bees is simply an enjoyable past time, not something done to sustain life. So, what does "sustainable" really mean or matter?
> 
> If you want to keep two hives, keep two hives. When one or both day, restock them. What's the big deal? If you want them to selfsustain, then you have to become a very good beekeeper and still you will find that one or both will die some winter. It's natural and normal.
> 
> There is no "one size fits all" answer. Do what works for you.


It may well be a new way of describing something that farmers and ranchers have been doing for centuries, but it is certainly a worthwhile goal.

It's pretty clear that if you only have one hive, and it fails then you are no longer a bee keeper until you can get some more. You are at the mercy of whatever source you have, and while you wait for bees the season progresses, and the honey crop is lost. Sound like fun? Two hives makes this somewhat less likely, and while no number guarantees that losing them all is impossible at some point it becomes statistically unlikely in any given year. 

I think your initial answer of about 10 was much more helpful - and probably about right in my opinion.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

"Saltwater corals can easily pay for the hobby of keeping fish tanks. Some corals that are 1" can sell for $100+. Raising certain fish, like clownfish, can pay for the hobby too."

I was nearly going to say " Expensive fish - the best fish here are about $ 30. And that is filleted!"


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

ralittlefield said:


> For me it means not having to start from scratch with new bees. It matters to me because if I am unable to keep at least some and preferable most of my bees alive then I do not feel that I am doing a good job as a beekeeper.


But, as long as one has the money to through at something, aren't all systems sustainable until the person sustaining them gives up and quites? Selfsustaining is another kettle of fish.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

If I'm going to run a sustainable apiary, I feel all the bees and queens, ofher than breeding stock, must come from my apiary. If I had only 10 colonies, I could winter enough nucleus colonies to cover winter losses. Raising the queens for those nucs would require a few more colonies for cell building. 

The problem I have with trying to maintain that kind of small apiary, with a real sustainable plan is in selection of good breeding stocks. With that in mind, I wouldn't want to attempt taking on a program of sustainable beekeeping with less than 100 colonies.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

I wish I had the time and knowledge to have 100 hives but will keep experimenting with my little apiary. Built my cell builder a few days ago and today is my first graft day. Excited to see any results. If successful these queen cells will go into the nucs I attempt to overwinter. If not I buy queens from different sources of northern breeders.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Michael - if I understand you correctly you are saying that 10 colonies would work as far as replacement bees, but that an apiary with less than 100 colonies needs to use outside genetics to maintain diversity. Right?


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

Michael Palmer said:


> I wouldn't want to attempt taking on a program of sustainable beekeeping with less than 100 colonies.


The whoosh you just heard is the wind leaving my sails.


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## Nabber86 (Apr 15, 2009)

3 to 4 hives for a hobbiest. Make sure you know how to split and catch swarms. Plus keep a couple of nuc boxes handy.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

David LaFerney said:


> but that an apiary with less than 100 colonies needs to use outside genetics to maintain diversity. Right?


Except for queen breeder almost all colonies are getting their genetics from outside the apiary. Nature figured that out very nicely for us.


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## mgalimbe (May 8, 2012)

keth,

Thanks for the link those videos were fantastic, lots of great info!


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

Acebird said:


> Except for queen breeder almost all colonies are getting their genetics from outside the apiary. Nature figured that out very nicely for us.


From "outside the apiary" I assume you are including swarms. My father-in-law kept bees for sixty years without purchasing a queen. Swarms from his own hives were often recaptured in a neighbor's yard...


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Michael Palmer said:


> ...The problem I have with trying to maintain that kind of small apiary, with a real sustainable plan is in selection of good breeding stocks. With that in mind, I wouldn't want to attempt taking on a program of sustainable beekeeping with less than 100 colonies.


Thanks for this. Your point is a good one, and just what I need to hear. One can probably keep from buying bees with far fewer than 100 colonies, but you're going to have queens that are more or less "hit and miss" in terms of genetic quality. Interesting.

Adam


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Right, and that 10 colonies don't have the resources to recover from winter losses, make a honey crop, raise the needed queens, and make intelligent selection for breeding stock. I'm not saying that a 10 beehive apiary can't go a long way toward sustainability by raising it's own bees. Yes raise a few queens because it's fun and you might get some very good queens. Long term, over time I suspect the program would fall apart. With 100 colonies and 20+ nucs to winter, you have enough bees to replace your dead outs, requeening weak colonies, stock your cell builders, and run your new queens through a selection process, you should be able to maintain your apiary with little outside purchases of bees and queens.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

My baseline for 10 hives is just where I am currently. I will attempt to overwinter 10 nucs as well. Probably be at 20+ hives next year if my losses aren't devastating and the table saw doesn't blow up.
I have already decided to pinch 2 queens (selection) after using them as brood factories. One of them has always had a terrible brood pattern and the other just shows no vigor. Both have been gone over with a fine toothed comb for disease etc. They will be requeened with the cells I grafted or a queen from a northern breeder. I plan on bringing in at least four northern raised queens from different sources and geographical regions next season.

I live in a small valley with 5 other beekeepers within 5-6 miles of me. Most every one has stock from a reputable local breeder making virtually every bee in our valley cousins. This can't be good. I have been talking to all of them regarding the importance of genetic diversity. In order to insure a good drone stock in our area we have all agreed to bring in queens from different reputable northern sources. One guy already dove in head first and requeened with Buckfast/Italian VSH sourced from a reputable breeder. We kicked his Georgia package genetics out of our valley. Strike one!

There is one guy who isn't on board yet. A grumpy old cuss. He has 8 hives from Georgia packages. Hopefully we can convince him eventually. The bears did knock over four of his hives recently so he might need one of my mated queens soon. 

I may not make it but am willing to give it a try because I truly enjoy the challenge.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Keth Comollo said:


> There is one guy who isn't on board yet. A grumpy old cuss. He has 8 hives from Georgia packages. Hopefully we can convince him eventually.


Judge not, Keth. We are all doing the best we can at any one give time. Besides, one day, if you are lucky, you will become "A grumpy old cuss.". I bet he is an original Vermonter and you a transplant? Not that I am judging or anything.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

I am a grumpy old cuss already, he is just older and grumpier than me. 

We are both native Vermonters but not sure how that figures into it. Are transplants better beekeepers? I may have to move to another state!


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Keth Comollo said:


> We kicked his Georgia package genetics out of our valley. Strike one!


Is that adding diversity or removing it?:scratch:
Strike two!


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I guess it comes down to what your sustainability goal is. A completely self contained gene pool isn't important to me - I kind of like trying new queens, and seeing what happens when they mate with the locals. But I don't want to be biting my fingernails every spring waiting for packages or nucs so I can start bee keeping again. If I was Robinson Caruso and could never get any more I guess I would want to keep all the hives that I could manage, in multiple yards spread out across the island - and even then something *could *wipe them out.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Acebird said:


> Is that adding diversity or removing it?:scratch:
> Strike two!


IMHO Georgia package producers select their breeder queens for one thing and one thing only. The ability to make lots of bees to fill packages. They don't care about winter hardiness, disease resistance, honey production etc.

While the goal is genetic diversity it is also about genetic integrity. We removed questionable genetics and replaced with queens that were selected for a variety of good attributes important to a northern beekeeper. Certainly a step in the right direction towards diversity AND integrity.

We will never rid our area of every undesirable bee but if 90% of the drones that a queen mates with are from bees selected for desirable traits it will only improve every hive in the valley IMHO.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

If you do any selecting at all you are removing diversity without really knowing what integrity you are sacrificing because not all genetic makeup has visible traits. Nature will select for integrity. As you pointed out human intervention can muck that up.

BTW I am not in favor of packages from GA but I am not sure a bee from MN, VT or PA is the answer for Utica, NY either.
Is the intent of the OP fulfilled by having 100 colonies plus a breeding program so he doesn't have to buy bees? How many operations of any size never buy bees? I have a gut feeling there aren't very many.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Keth Comollo said:


> Are transplants better beekeepers?



Not necassarily. Just that I have noticed that transplants, ne being a forgiener whereever I go, oft times make judgements concerning the way some locals do something.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Keth Comollo said:


> IMHO Georgia package producers select their breeder queens for one thing and one thing only. The ability to make lots of bees to fill packages. They don't care about winter hardiness, disease resistance, honey production etc.
> 
> We removed questionable genetics and replaced with queens that were selected for a variety of good attributes important to a northern beekeeper.


I can understand why you would assume what yopu do about bees from southern package producers, but, imo, your assumptions are incorrect. Call one up and ask them what they select for. Maybe northern winterhardiness isn't on their list, but Honey Production and Disease Resistant sure are. Or people would stop buying from them. imo


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Acebird said:


> If you do any selecting at all you are removing diversity without really knowing what integrity you are sacrificing because not all genetic makeup has visible traits. Nature will select for integrity. As you pointed out human intervention can muck that up.


And you can try to win the Kentucky Derby with a draft horse too I guess!


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## libhart (Apr 22, 2010)

I tried to answer this exact question with some simplified math. If using my simple math, the number of hives you need all comes down to two factors...your definition of sustainable and the loss rate. Pretty graphs are included 

http://bees.libhart.com/?p=423


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

Im limping along at 3-4 hives as a hobbiest. Ive caught a swarm one year and made a walk away split one year to keep going.

But then again i bought a package this year also hopeing to kickstart my hives this year with expanding. as it were it simply replaced one i lost over the late winter/early spring.

If you dont want to buy packages you need to be willing to make splits each spring and feed each split for quick buildup.

you will also need lots of extra wooden ware for the splits, swarm catches etc. 



Nabber86 said:


> 3 to 4 hives for a hobbiest. Make sure you know how to split and catch swarms. Plus keep a couple of nuc boxes handy.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Keth Comollo said:


> And you can try to win the Kentucky Derby with a draft horse too I guess!


I hear they replace a lot of horses that run in the Kentucky Derby. I would not model my apiary after the breeding program for the Kentucky Derby.

Nice work libhart. I think that is a good answer for the topic.


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

Keth Comollo said:


> Full sized production hives are huge brood factories and that results in them being huge mite factories. They are more prone to succumb to mite related issues during the winter than a nuc with it's small brood size due to less space for the queen to lay. Building midsummer nucs and providing them with a mated queen provides a brood break as well so the mites can't really get a great grip on the hive before winter.


Nucs are also great brood factories, especially if you stack a 2nd or 3rd story on them. Has worked well for me this year, fueling backyard queen rearing efforts and making other nucs. While on paper I agree with your theory about the brood break when making OW nucs, when you use a mated queen with the new nuc, the break if very short as she is up and laying within a week. I have seen high mite loads in my OW nucs, and even lost several to PMS winter before last, as confirmed by sample analysis at Beltsville showing high mite counts (especially for January!). I guess the brood frames I used to make them had mites under cappings... hard to know exactly, all I am saying is that in my limitted experience, I have seen high mite loads in OW nucs in late summer/Fall.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

Karla,
It seems you are starting nucs much earlier than I plan on it this year. Targeting third week of July myself for creating my double nucs and putting in queen cells. They should be in two boxes after the fall flow with (hopefully!) a pretty low mite count and enough stores in the top box to get them through winter. An experiment for sure but am hoping I can formulate a yearly plan that works for me. Fingers crossed. 

Best of luck with your overwintering plans!


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## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

I make new OW nucs up in July as well- generally before July 15 and with a laying queen. My last post meant to say that I use in Spring as brood factories, etc. If you are using queen cells instead of mated queens, then you do have a much longer brood break.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Just saying, I am not seeing the brood brake as very effective for mites in the hives I split.


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## Keth Comollo (Nov 4, 2011)

From what I have read the brood break is just a small edge. A slight kick in the teeth to the mite population. Certainly not a panacea nor guarantee that your hive won't become overrun with mites.


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## MTINAZ (Jan 15, 2010)

I have not read all the posts but I don't see how 3-5 hives can be sustained long term. You may be able to keep those going a few years but soon enough you will be buying bees. 30%-50% losses is an average over thousands of hives. The odds of losing 100% in one winter go up dramatically with only a few hives. I know small beekeepers and have read of many with 2-5 hives with 100% losses quite often. to make it 10 -15 years I would bet you would need upwards of 20 in multiple yards.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

ralittlefield said:


> The whoosh you just heard is the wind leaving my sails.


Sorry, I was thinking out loud with my one track mind. Understand, I've been chasing the bumper honey crop around the northern Champlain Valley for decades. In that time I've found that attention to detail, and maintaining some amount of control over the operation will greatly increase the success rate. So I couldn't run the apiary I want without raising my own queens. And I couldn't run a selection program with less than 100 colonies. But that's me. 

It really depends what you want from your bees. If all you want is live bees, then winter enough nucs to cover your worst losses, and buy queens. You'll always have live bees in the spring. If you want to make money chasing the honey crop, remember honey is expensive to make. Bees aren't. 

So a 10 colony apiary with enough nucs as backup could be both sustainable and profitable. Considering that nucleus colonies can yield nucs at near 10:1, I expect an apiary with 10 colonies and 20 nucs would have all the needed resources to replace losses, requeening colonies not performing well, and to rebuild the nuc side of the apiary. If you were to build the nucleus colony side to 50 or 100 or more nucs going into winter, I think a nice income could be realized.


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## ralittlefield (Apr 25, 2011)

Michael Palmer said:


> So a 10 colony apiary with enough nucs as backup could be both sustainable and profitable.


Thank you for the reply. This is helpful and encouraging.




Michael Palmer said:


> Considering that nucleus colonies can yield nucs at near 10:1, I expect an apiary with 10 colonies and 20 nucs would have all the needed resources to replace losses, requeening colonies not performing well, and to rebuild the nuc side of the apiary. If you were to build the nucleus colony side to 50 or 100 or more nucs going into winter, I think a nice income could be realized.


I started (again) this year with 4 nucs. I think that what I will plan to do is use one to build more nucs from and try to go into winter with 3 full colonies and as many nucs as possible. Sound reasonable?


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## lynnd (Jan 25, 2018)

AstroBee said:


> This is technically correct. Anyone, at anytime can suffer total loss. Is it likely, no, but possible, yes. Don't know about your state, but VA keeps a running average of winter losses, which is around 30%. I'd expect Maine to be a good bit higher, so a 50% loss would be a reasonable estimate. I think the question is more involved than you suggest. For example, what are your overall objectives? Certainly its not simply to never buy bees again, right? At minimum, I'd expect to get a honey crop, if not for just personal use, to help offset some costs. My point is that if you've got 2 hives and lose 1 (50%), the remaining hive may or may not produce honey, so you need to add some redundancy to your plans that will achieve your objectives with some level of certainty. Of course there are many other objectives that can factor into such a plan.



I must be somewhat in a minority because my decision to emulate Michael Palmer's sustainable method from the very beginning was once up and running to never buy bees again. I'm still purchasing either queens or queen cells as my eye sight does not allow grafting; however, I've also been trying(limited success) OTS queen rearing. I've actually purchased 20 more packages of bees for 2018 to open a couple new Apiaries and hopefully strengthen my genetic line: however, goal is no more bee purchases after 2018. I'm in NE Indiana and keeping my fingers crossed that losses may be less than 10% entering spring


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## IAmTheWaterbug (Jun 4, 2014)

ralittlefield said:


> Thank you for the reply. This is helpful and encouraging.
> 
> I started (again) this year with 4 nucs. I think that what I will plan to do is use one to build more nucs from and try to go into winter with 3 full colonies and as many nucs as possible. Sound reasonable?


You sound like you're in a similar position to mine a few years ago. I had just started out with backyard, hobby beekeeping, from a cutout, and I wanted to feel like I wasn't failing 

Now going into my 4th year I wouldn't ever want to have fewer than 3-4 healthy colonies at any one time. At 2 or fewer I just feel paranoid that I'm going to wake up one day and have no bees :-(

I've had my losses and my gains, and if I have 4 healthy colonies, then I feel pretty happy. Maintaining 4-6 colonies also isn't that much more work than maintaining 1-2. You still have to suit up, light the smoker, schlepp your tool bag out to the bee yard, etc. Once you're there, an extra few minutes to inspect one more colony isn't that much of an investment, but having one more colony sure helps when you need a frame of eggs!

I'd think that having more than 10 would cross that threshold into "a lot more work" than having a handful of colonies. 

So for me, personally, I probably want to have somewhere between 4 - 10 colonies. I currently have 2 very healthy colonies coming out of winter and 2 limping their way out of winter. But I fully intend to trap at least one swarm and collect a few as well. 

Get on your local "swarm" calling list, and you'll never have to buy bees again! (though you might still need/want to buy queens, depending on your local genetics, your tolerance for nasty bees, and your neighborhood situation)


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

lynnd said:


> I must be somewhat in a minority because my decision to emulate Michael Palmer's sustainable method from the very beginning was once up and running to never buy bees again. I'm still purchasing either queens or queen cells as my eye sight does not allow grafting; however, I've also been trying(limited success) OTS queen rearing. I've actually purchased 20 more packages of bees for 2018 to open a couple new Apiaries and hopefully strengthen my genetic line: however, goal is no more bee purchases after 2018. I'm in NE Indiana and keeping my fingers crossed that losses may be less than 10% entering spring


Not quite sure why you decided to quote my response from 2012, but it sounds like you're doing well. Good luck.


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## mbear (May 18, 2017)

Without knowing your average overwinter losses I would say 7 hives. But lets assume a large overwinter loss of 50% that is 3.5 hives. 4 hives is 57%. So even if you loose 4 hives you can do a spring split with bought queens and be back to full strength as long as you feed your bees early and get a good jump on brood rearing. 
So if your goal is the miniumim hives necessary I would go with 4 hives and 3 nucs.


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## Virgil (Jan 14, 2018)

I'm in the 3-4 colonies with a few nucs camp. With that, you can do most things and happily potter around the bees and make some honey. I've always found the problems with beekeeping is keeps the numbers down.

My neighbour has had bees in her suburban garden for many years, she's got two WBC hives and she's never had a problem with loses etc.


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## Adam Foster Collins (Nov 4, 2009)

Interesting to see this old (2012) thread returning to the top, as it contains a key comment from Mike Palmer (Post#38) which really changed my outlook. I wanted to be able to do things like exploring queen rearing and breeding and to really create some sort of sustainable model. His setting a number of 100 colonies as a starting place really made me think hard about what I was prepared to do to reach the goal.

I had maybe a dozen hives in Nova Scotia at the time. Since then, I sold everything I had there, moved back home to Vermont and now I have 80. Mostly headed by queens from Mike.

I've built a lot of gear, invested in extraction equipment, read a lot, gotten stung a lot, listened a lot and continued to listen. Somehow, I feel that for the first several years anyway - the more you listen, the more you realize how little you know.

In the end, it comes down to effort and how much you can give of yourself to an interest. I've come to believe that truly exploring all aspects of keeping sustainable apiaries, working toward your own stock, etc. Takes a lot of bees, a lot of knowledge, a lot of time and a fair amount of material investment.

I'm aiming for 200-300 colonies as a point where I really work out all the processes and see how that all feels. Then I'll decide wether I want to go larger from there.

We'll see what comes through winter...

Adam


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

I would say that if you're losing serious numbers of colonies over winter - then find out why this is - and deal with it. There's absolutely no reason why a hobbyist (with a much smaller number of hives to work with than a professional, and without the professional's economic feeding constraints) should be losing more than the odd one or two colonies - unless you happen to live in Alaska, of course.

'Sustainability ?' Minimum two and a half colonies (with the 'half' being a nuc). If the making-up of a nuc is too much trouble - as I've read somewhere in this thread - then I suggest the taking-up of a less demanding hobby.

More desirable, I'd suggest, would be 10. Personally, I'd start panicking at that number, and would only start to feel comfortable with 20+.

'Long-term (genetic) sustainability ?' Michael Palmer knows his business well enough.

LJ


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## rkereid (Dec 20, 2009)

lynnd said:


> I must be somewhat in a minority because my decision to emulate Michael Palmer's sustainable method from the very beginning was once up and running to never buy bees again. I'm still purchasing either queens or queen cells as my eye sight does not allow grafting; however, I've also been trying(limited success) OTS queen rearing. I've actually purchased 20 more packages of bees for 2018 to open a couple new Apiaries and hopefully strengthen my genetic line: however, goal is no more bee purchases after 2018. I'm in NE Indiana and keeping my fingers crossed that losses may be less than 10% entering spring


If you want to be sustainable and keep your bees alive, one thing I would suggest is to requeen those packages by early summer with some better genetics like hardier northern, and hopefully mite resistant, stock such as VSH Carniolan or Russian. NE Indiana has a winter, and you are not a commercial beekeeper, so you don't need genetics that are good for migratory/pollination.


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

Ill revisit this as my last post here was 6 years ago. In that time Ive continued to do splits, catch swarms, do cuttouts. My current overwintered stock 3 of 5 this year is all feral stock


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