How to make a Hive Grow Strong and Fast?

[Billy The Beekeeper]

Is there any possible ways to get my hives to grow strong in a shorter amount of time? My hive its small atm but i wanna make it strong during spring, summer, and fall for the Honey and just to enjoy watchin them fly in and out in the masses from time to time.                      

[papabear]

I was told to feed 2/1 sugar to water for about 1 to 2 weeks then go to 1/1 mix. It helped me.

[Michael Bush]

Make sure they have stores and/or feed (syrup or capped honey).  Make sure there is pollen coming in and/or you have a pollen patty on.  Minimize the space (remove boxes that aren't occupied) until they have 80% of the space filled.  Make sure they don't run out of room.  If you have drawn comb and capped honey, checkerboard now.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesexperiment.htm

If the brood nest stops expanding, add empty frames to the brood nest.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm

[Billy The Beekeeper]

kk thx if weather is good tomorrow ill do those things if need thx again                     

[doak]

I looked at a colony once that was so big the mas of bees coming and going looked like a strobe light.
They got that way on their own.
doak

[Robo]

Make it a 2 queen hive

[doak]

Check the brood patteren, if it is spotty, replace the queen.
The kind of patteren I like is one with no more than 2 doz. skipped cells.
doak

[Dr/B]

Hey Billy!

I'm not sure how many hives you have, but here's some inexpensive things that I routinely do to strengthen mine.  It has worked great so far.

1. Swap positions in the beeyard with a weak hive and a strong hive, in mid-day.  This is when most of the foraging bees are out of the hives working, so place a weak hive that needs more bees where the strong was, and visa versa.  This way this small weak hive will have an instant influx of worker bees.  Bees covered with pollen and nectar are accepted in the weak hive, even if they are not FROM the same hive.

2. Take capped and/or uncapped brood from a strong hive and add (or swap frames) with a weak hive.  This gives a bolt of brood when these hatch.  I ROUTINELY take and give from all my hives, to any hive that is in need of something....(i.e. honey, pollen/nectar, brood, empty comb, etc...) 

3. Rotate the brood chambers every 3 weeks to provide the queen with a constant supply of open drawn comb, to stimulate egg-laying and encourage brood production.  (i.e top on bottom, bottom on top)

4. Feed sugar water to make up for what they don't find available locally, at the given time.

Just FYI:
I'm going to experiment this winter and build a heated container for 5 of my strongest hives, and actually maintain heat for these five hives, in an effort to keep the hive building brood all winter long.  Hopefully, I can make some multiple splits for next spring and get a jump on 2008.  It's going to be something very simple, and just maintain the temp so the bees don't ball, and the temp doesn't drop very low.  Hopefully it'll boost my splits and queen rearing for next year.  I'll post and let everyone know how it goes. 

Best of Luck

Steve

[Ross]

Rotating the brood chambers isn't necessary and can set a hive back.  The queen will move freely between drawn boxes and will lay in more than one box without any "help".

[Dr/B]

Not to disagree, but I guess everyone's experience is a little different.  The Miss State Beekeepers Association DOES recommend this technique of rotating the brood boxes for hive build-up.  I trust they know more about it than me.  I've not had any adverse effects from this technique.  It might not be necessary, but doesn't seem to hurt my hives. 

I'm certainly not debating any scientific stuff, since I'm a simple beekeeper.........it has helped me.



Steve

[Ross]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopswitching

[tennesseebeeman]

well i feed my coke in april  , may

[TwT]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopswitching

just like Dr/B said read the first 3 words in that link, it says "In my opinion" and where Dr/B is at their opinion is different, could be the locations? it could be he needs to have a open brood nest, feed sugar syrup, feed pollen patties, make sure you have a good laying queen, it can be one or all of these that need to be done, its hard to to say what he needs for the hive without looking and knowing what you are looking for.... most queens shut down during a dearth but some queens by feeding and adding pollen patties can be built up. a lot of variables there 

[TwT]

Just FYI:
I'm going to experiment this winter and build a heated container for 5 of my strongest hives, and actually maintain heat for these five hives, in an effort to keep the hive building brood all winter long.  Hopefully, I can make some multiple splits for next spring and get a jump on 2008.  It's going to be something very simple, and just maintain the temp so the bees don't ball, and the temp doesn't drop very low.  Hopefully it'll boost my splits and queen rearing for next year.  I'll post and let everyone know how it goes. 



Steve

the only thing with heated hives is that they may go through their stores and starve, I saw a big difference just by adding pollen patties and feeding heavy in the fall.

let us know how it does if you try it, but if we finally have a longer, colder winter they might eat up some stores.

[Michael Bush]

>The Miss State Beekeepers Association DOES recommend   this technique of rotating the brood boxes for hive build-up. 

I'm sure they do.  George Imirie likes to do it constantly.  But the purpose is to prevent swarming.  It succeeds at this, but at the cost of constantly breaking up the brood nest and forcing the bees to reorganize it.

[BAStallard]

George Imirie claims that the queen won't move down into the bottom box so you have to switch them.

[Michael Bush]

>George Imirie claims that the queen won't move down into the bottom box so you have to switch them.

Since bees in trees always start at the top and move down, George is obviously mistaken.  George's motivation isn't that they won't move down, but to prevent them from swarming by disrupting the brood nest constantly.

[Brian D. Bray]

Upening the brood chamber by replacing 1 or 2 honey only frames with undrawn frames is much easier than rotating several boxes.  Much easier on the back too.  There is usually more than 1 workable answer to every problem--pick the 1 you like the best.