my apiary was new last year, and was started from a mix of survivor swarms and small cell packages. all the colonies had to build lots of comb to get started. that is the major reason for the high losses. unlike an established hive that has most of its comb already built and can go to work straight away storing nectar and pollen, my colonies spent their energies building comb. even though we fed them most of the year, not all were able to put back enough honey to last the winter. to be honest, i expected the high losses. we knew going into winter that alot of the colonies didnt have enough stores to make it through winter.
so the lesson ill take away for this spring is to make all my splits as early as possible to give the bees as much time to gather nectar for the winter as possible. ill be getting 6 colonies from cut outs during the spring on a barter situation and im sure ill catch some more feral swarms that ill have to nurse through the winter, but i shouldnt bear the same losses i did this winter. another thing i'm taking away from this last year is that i need to feed heavily during the dearth we experience in the heat of the summer to keep them from burning up their stores too early. of course we kept all the drawn comb out of the dead outs to reuse this year and that will help too, but the main thing
going forward is to plant much bee forage so we can cut out the feeding all together by next year.
all in all, its not a bad situation. i was hoping to hit 50-60 hives this year, but in all likelihood ill only get to about 40. that will reduce my projected sales for next spring, but i should still make enough to cover the costs of establishing the apiary and pocket a little profit. we should see significant income by year 4....... not too bad for our first farm venture i dont think
