Something for the second-year beekeeper or anyone who has overwintered hives. If you are still relatively new to beekeeping, perhaps having successfully overwintered a colony or colonies, the concept of two and a half hives is a good next step. Having and managing a nucleus hive is a great learning opportunity as well as a valuable resource should one of your production colonies develops problems. And it’s just fun. Nucleus hives are a pleasure to work and help you develop your assessment and inspection techniques. And finally, it’s your next step to never buying bees again!

 

Some time ago I listened to a local beekeeper give a lecture about flexibility in beekeeping. One of the points of his lecture was going with the natural rhythm of the bees and nature. Experienced beekeepers, having kept bees over many seasons, know these things. Spring is the time of increase, a time of plenty, growth, and expansion. It is a time of natural increase. Summer follows here in the South Carolina Midlands with dearth and a time for the bees to tighten the belt on resources. Fall and Winter are times when the bees depend on stored resources. This is also when the stress on the hive is greatest due to the climate, pest pressures, viruses, and lack of food stores all of which sometimes leads to colony failure.

 

Going with the flux described above means making increase when the bees want to make increase. The beekeeper goes with the flow and capitalizes on the ease with which nature and the bees expand during times of plenty. The idea being to capitalize during times of plenty so you too, the beekeeper, have resources during the harder times of seasons ahead.