Bees for Development Journal 139 June 2021
The Shepherds of the Bees – Part 2 Splitting ‘flocks’ and making nucs David Wainwright, Tropical Forest Products Ltd, Aberystwyth, UK My beekeeping has evolved over the years: complicated methods which do not produce reliable results or are not cost effective (time is money!) have been abandoned and methods which work well have been expanded. I now find that a lot of my time is spent on splitting colonies to make nuclei (nucs) (a few thousand bees and a queen bee) and then caring for these nucs as they expand in bee numbers. If this is all done correctly these young colonies will produce a good crop of honey for three or four years with little attention.
This is the second article in which David Wainwright discusses his approach to making good business from beekeeping. A commercial beekeeper with over 1,500 colonies across 100 apiaries in the UK, David runs a highly successful business, marketing his own honey and hundreds of tonnes of honey and beeswax imported every year from Africa, which he supplies to major retailers in the UK. farms. The life expectancy of the neglected colonies was 0.7 years compared to 2.8 years for the cared for groups. The average honey production was 13kg for the Oakwell bees and 72kg for their sisters. This effect was not due to the location, another set at Oakwell was one of the highest producers.
I split my ‘flock’ of hives into four groups: nucs, second years, third years, and ‘oldies’ ready for retirement. Due to attrition from losses of about 20% a year the younger groups are larger in number and produce the bulk of the honey. Every year I make plenty of nucs, so that by the autumn in the UK about 40% of the hives are nucs from that year. I reduce the number of old hives by uniting them together. On average I look in a hive three times in a season: early spring to check all is OK, mid spring to make a nuc, and autumn to check all is OK for overwintering. It is a bit like the old British tradition of skep beekeeping but instead of encouraging my hives to swarm I make nucs. These nucs must be nurtured so that they are not stunted by lack of food or other stress and development is unchecked and keeps them healthy and strong. They do not produce much honey in their first year as they put all their vigour into raising brood to expand their population. In the following two years they will produce a good crop. In their third or fourth year they usually start to have problems and are approaching their allotted span, so they are moved out to our retirement sites.
The first months are crucial for a colony’s future performance
The two groups below were all sister colonies, started in May 2018 from the same batch of sister queen cells. The only difference is that in September 2018 one group was neglected and ran out of food, while the cared for group had plenty of nutritious forage. The after effects of this stress affected the neglected group for the rest of their lifespan as shown below:
The empty sites created are filled up with 24 nucs from our nursery sites. The hives in each site are a group, with sister queens started on the same day. I try to track the life history of each group and compare groups of different ages and origins etc. One lesson I have learned from these life histories is that early months of colony development are crucial to the entire life history of the colony. If a developing young colony is subjected to stress and their development is checked then they will never come right in the years to come.
Neglected Group
Cared for Group
Number alive after two years
15%
70%
Average life expectancy
0.7 years
2.8 years
Average honey production
13kg
72kg
The lesson I have learned over the years is that a colony will carry the after effects of stress throughout its lifespan, it will be more liable to disease, will swarm more and will not gather the same crop as its well cared for sisters. I put a lot of effort into caring for my developing colonies in their early months, to make sure they have everything that they need. Opening hives creates stress and is only done when there is a clear purpose. We do not do swarm control as this creates stress which further encourages bees to swarm. I do not find swarm control to be cost effective in the long run, I try to provide my bees with all that they want so they do not feel the need to swarm. Swarming is usually around 15% per annum.
A good example of the effects of stress in the early months is the life history of a number of colonies on Oakwell Farm. These were sister colonies to three other groups at Atcham, Cross and Haughmond Houses, all started in 2018 with sister queens. I neglected the Oakwell bees and they became hungry in September 2018, meanwhile their sisters were well cared for and had good forage throughout. I fed the Oakwell bees when I found they had become hungry, all looked well going into winter and I thought that all would be ok in the coming years, but I was mistaken. By September 2020 only 15% of the Oakwell hives were alive compared with 70% of their sisters at the other
In the UK we spend the winter months preparing and renovating a lot of hives for the young colonies we will begin to produce in the next season. This minimises disease transmission opportunities as colonies are always started in a clean hive. Many colonies are in the expansion phase and have the energy of a new swarm. 6
