Beekeeping; Year two & Beyond
Your bees have made it through their first winter. You have books that tell you how to get started, how to put a package of bees into a hive, what to look for and do in that first year.. BUT, that first year is OVER... Now what?
I have heard the question above more than once, so I wanted to see if I could expand a little on what to do that second year and beyond.
If your looking for a step by step instruction manual.. bees dont work that way. I have often been asked for that step by step manual.. On XX date do this, and on XX date do that..
"I want to know a DATE to put my supers on.. a DATE to treat my bees, a DATE to extract honey, and a DATE and time that I should replace my queen!"
There is no such thing, so I can only give you a general guide.. There is no set DATE to do anything, because your climate/weather are different than mine. Your bees are different than mine. Your FLOW is different than mine, so your extracting date may be sooner, or later... TO make that worse, the weather will be slightly different here next year, so I cant even use a "date" to determine when to do these things in my own yards. Your QUEEN may be VERY well mated and live to be 5 years old, or she may be poorly mated and the bees will replace her after a month or two, so pretty much every thing you/we do in a hive is determined by circumstances beyond our control.
Treating your hives can be given a general guideline, IE spring and fall.. Typically I treat when the weather is good enough in the spring for me to be comfortable while I do it, and then I treat in the month of August so the bees caring for the bees that will raise the winter bees are strong and healthy.. If I have a hive that shows signs of mite infestation they get treated again, and a different queen is installed... there is no exact date..
This is about as close as you will get.
Before we get to spring, let me mention winter. The bees in your hive will continue to dwindle, but not at the rate they would in the summer. Your bees are NOT working themselves to death, like they would when foraging. Your winter bees will survive much longer. But you will STILL find dead bees. Dead bees at the entrance to your hive, dead bees in the snow, and dead bees on the bottom boards. This is NORMAL, up to a certain point. Hundreds of dead bees? Normal.. Thousands? There may be a problem.
"THE" problem, if there is a problem, is that there is very little you can do to fix the problem during the months when the temps are too cold for bees to fly. You have to grit your teeth and wait for warmer weather.
Your duty, your purpose in life, is to insure that your bees have the necessary treatments and supplies to survive the winter. Once the COLD sets in, there is nothing more you can do beyond adding more sugar on the top bars.
Honey is priority one. If there is honey above the cluster in amounts suitable for your winter, then you have done WELL and need to let them do what they do best until warm weather arrives.
If they do NOT have enough honey above them, or if they are AT the top of the hive, then you need to get food on that hive. Fondant, candy board, sugar cakes, or plain old granulated sugar poured on newspapers on top of the frames. Whichever you use, those bees WILL make the best of the situation..
(At this point, if you have done all you can, and the bees have perished, then perhaps you should try to get some local/northern bees that are already proven overwinter. Sometimes, the beekeeper is not as liable as the package seller would like you to believe!)
Stepping ahead to spring. You have done your duty, and you have live bees as spring arrives!!
NOW, the fun begins! If your bees have wintered successfully, pat yourself on the back. there are MANY hives that were not as fortunate, no matter which winter we are talking about.
So, what do you do as winter begins to fade, and on a warm day in late February, you realize, My bees are FLYING!
Yes, you still have cold weather coming, but seeing your bees out taking cleansing flights for many, IS the true tale of weather to come.
In year one, you did not have to worry a lot about Mites, or swarming. That changes this year.
First question you need to ask yourself. What is my goal for this year?
One; I want to increase the number of hives in my Apiary.
This includes doing splits and starting nucs to keep, or to sell.
Two; I have enough hives, I would like to get some honey.
How you answer that question determines how your going to start the year off.. As March comes in, the days will begin to get warmer, and your bees will begin to fly more often. If you intend to split and increase the number of hives in your apiary, I recommend that you get Pollen sub out as soon as the threat of prolonged COLD has passed. This CAN be a risk. If I begin feeding in March, and April arrives with 0 degree temps and a foot of snow for the first week, the bees will stay on the brood trying to keep it warm, and they will perish. So consider the risks!
When Maples and other plants are beginning to bloom, the bees will probably not be interested in syrup, but it is always worth a try just to make sure.
The pollen sub will allow the queen to begin ramping up numbers. Once you start feeding, do NOT stop until you KNOW there is plenty of natural pollen coming in. When the spring flow has started, your bees will normally ignore the pollen sub and go for the real thing. If they are dependent on your feeding, and you stop feeding, they could starve within a few days, so be mindful of the situation. Early feeding will allow you the numbers to produce queens the MOMENT the drones are ready. Queens for early splits/nucs. If you are buying queens, the numbers are still there to do the splits with.
If you have a couple or a few hives, and your interest is in honey production, you will still need strong colonies for the best production, but may not want to start feeding QUITE as early.
When you split, you weaken the hive and reduce the necessity/desire for the bees to swarm. When going for production, your trying to keep the hive strong, yet still prevent them from swarming. Add supers to this hive early. Give them room to grow. If you can, pull a frame of brood and add it to a weaker hive. Give the strong hive an empty frame for the queen to lay in. Keep her busy, and make sure she does not feel restricted. Keep the bees busy so they have no idle time to consider swarming. Give them a couple of NEW frames to draw out in each box. Place them to the outside of the brood nest so the queen does not see this new sheet of wax or plastic as a barrier.
The queen in your production hive is only one year old, her pheromone should be strong, but you are still going to need to keep an eye on her, and the bees to insure they do not decide to swarm, despite your efforts to convince them they should not.
Remember, it is their PURPOSE in life to procreate, to spread their genes, and swarming is how they do it.
You need to be aware, that as your hive population explodes, so too will the mite population within your hives. Decide what method you are going to use to treat those mites and have that treatment ready. Read the instructions, watch the videos, and follow the guidelines for the treatment you intend to use. It isn't all that hard. You should be quite comfortable getting into your hives after the inspections you did last year, so applying the treatment will be simple and easy. If you follow the instructions you should not have problems.
Problems start when you decide to modify.
For now, don't even think about modifying.
Follow the instructions. If you have a question, there is a contact number and EMail on the package, please use one or both, and make sure your question is answered so that you understand.
Oxalic Acid Vapor has been approved for use in the US and in most states. It is simple and safe. I recommend its use. Please read more under the Honey Bee care/Treatments tabs.
The entire first part of the season will be taken up by doing the splits, or just because your checking every seven days for swarm cells. The bees should be RAPIDLY filling frames and supers. Beyond checking for swarming urges, you need to be paying attention to the storage room in your hives. If the bees run out of room, they will fill the brood chamber with nectar and pollen, and that hive will swarm.
It takes TWO supers of nectar, to produce one super of honey. Stay ahead of your bees by a super.
If your bees are filling one super with capped honey, and are working nectar in the second, put a third super on. At this point in time, I would prefer to have too much room, rather than too little.
Flip your inner cover so the notch is down, and push your tele cover forward so the bees can USE that notch as an upper entrance. The foragers will deliver the cargo from their honey stomachs to a house bee, which will find the closest empty cell to put the nectar into. Other bees will work at transferring this nectar OUT of the brood area into the supers.. IF.. you have an upper entrance, the foragers will be greeted at the top entrance and their cargo will go to the supers directly, saving time and work.
I prefer to use a reversible inner cover; Deep side down for winter;
Deep side UP for summer;
This has the advantage of keeping that upper entrance open and usable by the bees. I have noticed cleaner combs, and better use of the space when I offer them an upper entrance. Your choice will vary with your climate and method.
( Yes, that deep on top is full of honey, and OH DEAR LORD is it heavy! 103 pounds almost exactly! )
As I already stated, swarming is how the honey bee multiplies. Many beekeepers consider themselves, and others a FAILURE as a beekeeper if their hive or hives SWARM...
I disagree completely.
To begin with, you are working to make sure your hive doesn't swarm, so you are giving them extra room, frames to draw, keeping the bees busy and making sure the queen has room to lay.... and they swarm...
Do you understand the significance of that?
No, you did NOT fail.. Those bees under your care, face the threat of contamination from the outside, pesticides, fungicides, neonics, Varroa Mites, Tracheal mites, two different types of Nosema, Foul brood, both American and Eurpoean.. the odds stacked against your bees is incredible, and yet.. YOU guided them to THRIVE so much, that they swarmed!!
My friend, my hat is off to you! None of us want our bees to swarm, but if they do, it is not because you failed, it is because YOU did something right!
From May, to July in my area of SE Iowa is considered Swarm season. Find out what your swarm season is, and set up an inspection schedule to suit. When you are certain the season is over, do another weekly before you switch to two week inspections.
Once swarm season is over, you are inspecting to insure the continued growth of the hive, and their progress at storing their winter supplies. The entire purpose of your bees at this time should be preparing for winter. No more splits. NOW you make sure they are storing honey. If you have NO FLOW, then you may need to begin supplemental feeding.
When to begin?
Much depends on your weather. You want to give the bees time to dehydrate and CAP the syrup you feed them. If I do not have ample stores coming in by September first, I begin PUMPING the syrup to them. Syrup jars on top of each hive with multiple holes. MANY holes, 20 holes in the lids may not be too much. You want them to take the syrup FAST! Put it in cells, and get it capped.
Mix Fumagilin B with some of that syrup to help lessen the chance of getting Nosema. By October, the days are getting colder, shorter, and the bees will stop taking the syrup, so you NEED to have the resources on the hives that will carry them through the winter.
Here, I want 120 lbs of honey/syrup. They may not need that much! If we have a mild winter, they may only go through 60 lbs of honey....
So lets say the winter is mild, what do I do with the rest of the honey come spring?
I can use it to start nucs.
I can put it in the freezer to use for emergencies next fall.
If it IS honey, I can extract it.
I personally prefer to keep it aside, and use it as necessary. A frame of capped honey/syrup gives a new nuc an unbelievable boost. Putting one of these frames into a queen rearing hive insures the nurse bees have all they need to produce royal jelly.. In fact, I will decap part of a frame before popping it into a queen rearing nuc/hive. It will NOT go to waste. If you have these frames come fall, you will be a step ahead of the game when you put it on the hives that may not have enough stored for winter..
In a worst case scenario, if the winter is BAD, cold, and LONG... YOU will be confident that you have prepared your hives to the best of your ability.
Prepare them for winter as I outline in my wintering section, and you will be capable of standing in that window, hot cup of coffee in hand, with a big smile on your face, because YOU did all you could do, the best you could to prepare your bees for winter, once again.
Spring, step by step;
The first chore of spring beyond feeding and pollen sub to get brood ramped up as early as possible (Yes I will split and make nucs most years) is to inspect your hives. You need to know which ones survived and which ones didnt.
This is an important inspection for more reasons than one. Pay attention to those hives that look good. The ones that came through the winter well are the ones you want to proliferate.
Lets say you have 5 hives, One did fantastic! One died of starvation, and three of them SKIMPED and SCRAPED through to spring...
At this point, you have one empty hive. Clean it all up and store it where the wax moth will not destroy it. Use Xentari BT or paramoth crystals, or even put the frames in the freezer. You will refill this hive soon.
You have one well to do hive that came through the winter great! And three hives that came through... ok. At this point, the bees should be in the top box.
Go through the hives, clean them, scrape the bottom boards replace any bad equipment etc.. Place the TOP BOX on the bottom board. Put the old bottom box on top of that, and the second box on the top. Rotate out any old comb at this time. I try to replace a couple frames in the new bottom box, about 4 frames in the second box and 4 frames in the top box. (remember I use three mediums) Putting each frame in between well drawn frames. Put syrup on the hives. They may not take it if its still early, but try! You want them building up. Put the pollen sub out as well. They will be desperate for it early.
Now, you can wait and watch, checking your hives every 7 days, waiting for the GOOD hive to begin swarm prep.
Weekly inspections are to see how crowded they are becoming, and to see if they have started swarm prep.. You will have supers on the hives by now..
Pop the supers loose, tilt them up. In Example; Break them loose with your hive tool, and slide them toward you an inch, then lift the back (if your standing behind the hive) high enough you can see the bottoms of the frames comfortably. Give a light puff of smoke across the bottom of the frames causing the bees to move up into the super. you can now SEE to a certain extent.. are there any queen cells? Is there even any brood in the super? hopefully not, hopefully you will see nectar, or honey, or even better, capped honey! so now you will know if you need to add another super or not.
Set the super aside and check the next one the same way.
Then you get to the brood chamber.. You still do the same thing. You dont really need to go through the hive, frame by frame at this point. Tilt the box up, light puff of smoke to move the bees, and look.
How much brood can you see? Capped brood? If you need to, you can pry lightly on the bottom of the frame, and push it over, like opening the pages of a book. This will allow you to see a little more.. You are also looking for SWARM cells hanging down from the bottom of the frame. Once a week inspection means the cell should NOT be capped yet. It should be fairly easy to spot, and you should see the new queen glistening pearly white on her bed of royal jelly.
Queen cells further up on the frame "usually" means the queen is being superseded. If I find cells higher up on the frames, I will usually leave them alone. I only take action when I find cells on the bottom, or near the bottom of the frame.
On the day you found the queen cells....
IF... you use wax foundation, or natural comb, you can cut these cells out and use them in the three hives that had iffy queens. You leave one or two cells in the original hive, and you take that GOOD queen that survived so well, and move her, along with a few frames of brood and bees to the dead out hive. Take a single box of the drawn comb, put it on a bottom board nearby. Swap a drawn frame with the frames you take from the main hive. I am assuming you want to keep the main hive strong for production, so you take two or three frames of brood with bees and put them into the center of the new box. One of those frames needs to have the original queen on it. Give them a frame of honey, from the hive, from another hive, or from your stored stash of frames. install your inner cover and tele cover. Block any upper entrance. Move this hive to another location preferably. If you do not have another location, change the orientation of the box, meaning, face it a different direction. Lean something across the entrance, another inner cover or a piece of plywood etc so the bees cant just fly out and away, they have to take notice something has changed so they will re orient. It will also lessen the chance that this hive will be robbed out. If you have a robbing screen, now is the best time to use it.
You just artificially swarmed your hive...
If you have enough queen cells being prepared;
You can move the iffy queens into nucs, and put one or two of those queen cells in each hive you want a better queen in. Check on them in two weeks. the queens should have emerged, and be about mating flights, MAYBE even laying already. You should certainly see eggs by three weeks.
In the event one of the new queens did not hatch, was eaten by a bird etc, etc, you re combine one of the nucs with the old queen..
If all is well and you have a NEW daughter queen, AXE the old queens and re combine those bees with their original hives using the newspaper combine method.
You COULD simply order replacement queens. Or even go with the queens you have if they all did well enough to make you happy.
step by step..
Once the brood boxes are cleaned and reversed. You are simply keeping an eye on them. Watching for problems, and watching that they do not get overly crowded. That they have room for brood, and nectar. Keeping supers on the hive ahead of their need.
From the spring of year two forward, this is what you will be doing as necessary;
Cleaning, Replacing and repairing equipment.
Watching for signs of trouble/disease.
Keeping at least one super ahead of the bees.
Replacing older or deficient queens.
Attempting to keep them from swarming.
Treating for mites in spring and early fall.
Extracting HONEY!
If all goes well, you will be extracting honey this year from at least 4 of those hives. Because you already had the drawn comb to give the good original queen, she MAY produce enough bees to give you extra honey as well.
In your third and fourth years, maybe you want to begin trying to raise your own queens? In all honesty, the bees will raise the queens, you just have to be successful in persuading them to do it!
SO, in year two and beyond, you are looking for much the same thing as in year one. The difference is that they should have drawn comb, and will expand MUCH faster than they did in year one.... What you are looking for;
1. Does your hive have sufficient ROOM for growth or expansion?
If it does, nothing needs done. if it does NOT, then a super needs to be placed on the hive.
2. Is the queen there? Do you see evidence of her? IE; New eggs in cells?
If she is, nothing needs to be done. If she is NOT, a more detailed inspection is necessary to insure that there is no queen...
Options include, buying a queen. If you have nucs, combining a nuc with the queenless hive, OR, giving them a frame of eggs so they can raise their own queen.
3. Is the queen laying a good pattern and quantity of eggs?
If she is, nothing needs done. if she is NOT, you need to see if there is a reason why? Is she damaged? Is there a disease in this hive? If no problems can be found the hive needs re queened, see the answers to #2
4. If early in the season, is this hive building up in size and numbers as fast as your other hive/hives?
If it is, nothing needs to be done. if it is NOT, you need to determine why. disease, bad queen? etc, and take the necessary actions to fix the situation.
5. Later spring, check for queen cells!
If there are none, nothing needs done, if you FIND queen cells, then you need to artificially swarm the hive.
6. Does the hive look healthy? Are there any problems and diseases?
If they look healthy, nothing needs done. If they do not look healthy, then you need to determine why, what is the problem or disease, and treat them to cure the problem. In example, Treating them for an overload of Varroa Mites.
7. Does the hive have enough reserves to last until you can check on them again?
Preferably they are gathering and increasing the reserves in the hive, and or building
comb to store more reserves in. If they are doing that, nothing needs done. if they are not, then you may need to FEED them! This also stands true when you do your LAST inspection of the year.. do they have enough reserves to last until you DO inspect again in the spring? IF NOT, then get the sugar, sugar cakes, candy board, winter patties etc on them!
Generally, if you deal with those 7 things your hives will do well.
Progression is now up to you.. how much do you want to learn as a beekeeper? You truly need not learn more, but learning to read a frame... looking at it and saying, this queen sucks! Saying I need another queen may not be the right answer if your bees have some hygienic traits.. They may be uncapping cells and removing larvae that have mites, which will make it look like your queen is not laying well.. LOOK Closer, are those empty cells all refilled? Are there eggs and young larvae in those cells? if there are, your queen is probably FINE. Always being able to learn more is the fun and exciting part of beekeeping. Once you have the basics, its not over, but you can keep bees just knowing the basics.
Please check the Swarm Prevention tab for more information on... swarm management!
Please check the seasons tab to see what to do with the passing of each season!
Please check the queens tab if you are interested in raising your own queens!
If you have questions, PLEASE go to http://www.worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/
to ask your questions, and GET the answers you need!
I hope this helps! Please let me know if I have missed something!
Scott
As I already stated, swarming is how the honey bee multiplies. Many beekeepers consider themselves, and others a FAILURE as a beekeeper if their hive or hives SWARM...
I disagree completely.
To begin with, you are working to make sure your hive doesn't swarm, so you are giving them extra room, frames to draw, keeping the bees busy and making sure the queen has room to lay.... and they swarm...
Do you understand the significance of that?
No, you did NOT fail.. Those bees under your care, face the threat of contamination from the outside, pesticides, fungicides, neonics, Varroa Mites, Tracheal mites, two different types of Nosema, Foul brood, both American and Eurpoean.. the odds stacked against your bees is incredible, and yet.. YOU guided them to THRIVE so much, that they swarmed!!
My friend, my hat is off to you! None of us want our bees to swarm, but if they do, it is not because you failed, it is because YOU did something right!
From May, to July in my area of SE Iowa is considered Swarm season. Find out what your swarm season is, and set up an inspection schedule to suit. When you are certain the season is over, do another weekly before you switch to two week inspections.
Once swarm season is over, you are inspecting to insure the continued growth of the hive, and their progress at storing their winter supplies. The entire purpose of your bees at this time should be preparing for winter. No more splits. NOW you make sure they are storing honey. If you have NO FLOW, then you may need to begin supplemental feeding.
When to begin?
Much depends on your weather. You want to give the bees time to dehydrate and CAP the syrup you feed them. If I do not have ample stores coming in by September first, I begin PUMPING the syrup to them. Syrup jars on top of each hive with multiple holes. MANY holes, 20 holes in the lids may not be too much. You want them to take the syrup FAST! Put it in cells, and get it capped.
Mix Fumagilin B with some of that syrup to help lessen the chance of getting Nosema. By October, the days are getting colder, shorter, and the bees will stop taking the syrup, so you NEED to have the resources on the hives that will carry them through the winter.
Here, I want 120 lbs of honey/syrup. They may not need that much! If we have a mild winter, they may only go through 60 lbs of honey....
So lets say the winter is mild, what do I do with the rest of the honey come spring?
I can use it to start nucs.
I can put it in the freezer to use for emergencies next fall.
If it IS honey, I can extract it.
I personally prefer to keep it aside, and use it as necessary. A frame of capped honey/syrup gives a new nuc an unbelievable boost. Putting one of these frames into a queen rearing hive insures the nurse bees have all they need to produce royal jelly.. In fact, I will decap part of a frame before popping it into a queen rearing nuc/hive. It will NOT go to waste. If you have these frames come fall, you will be a step ahead of the game when you put it on the hives that may not have enough stored for winter..
In a worst case scenario, if the winter is BAD, cold, and LONG... YOU will be confident that you have prepared your hives to the best of your ability.
Prepare them for winter as I outline in my wintering section, and you will be capable of standing in that window, hot cup of coffee in hand, with a big smile on your face, because YOU did all you could do, the best you could to prepare your bees for winter, once again.
Spring, step by step;
The first chore of spring beyond feeding and pollen sub to get brood ramped up as early as possible (Yes I will split and make nucs most years) is to inspect your hives. You need to know which ones survived and which ones didnt.
This is an important inspection for more reasons than one. Pay attention to those hives that look good. The ones that came through the winter well are the ones you want to proliferate.
Lets say you have 5 hives, One did fantastic! One died of starvation, and three of them SKIMPED and SCRAPED through to spring...
At this point, you have one empty hive. Clean it all up and store it where the wax moth will not destroy it. Use Xentari BT or paramoth crystals, or even put the frames in the freezer. You will refill this hive soon.
You have one well to do hive that came through the winter great! And three hives that came through... ok. At this point, the bees should be in the top box.
Go through the hives, clean them, scrape the bottom boards replace any bad equipment etc.. Place the TOP BOX on the bottom board. Put the old bottom box on top of that, and the second box on the top. Rotate out any old comb at this time. I try to replace a couple frames in the new bottom box, about 4 frames in the second box and 4 frames in the top box. (remember I use three mediums) Putting each frame in between well drawn frames. Put syrup on the hives. They may not take it if its still early, but try! You want them building up. Put the pollen sub out as well. They will be desperate for it early.
Now, you can wait and watch, checking your hives every 7 days, waiting for the GOOD hive to begin swarm prep.
Weekly inspections are to see how crowded they are becoming, and to see if they have started swarm prep.. You will have supers on the hives by now..
Pop the supers loose, tilt them up. In Example; Break them loose with your hive tool, and slide them toward you an inch, then lift the back (if your standing behind the hive) high enough you can see the bottoms of the frames comfortably. Give a light puff of smoke across the bottom of the frames causing the bees to move up into the super. you can now SEE to a certain extent.. are there any queen cells? Is there even any brood in the super? hopefully not, hopefully you will see nectar, or honey, or even better, capped honey! so now you will know if you need to add another super or not.
Set the super aside and check the next one the same way.
Then you get to the brood chamber.. You still do the same thing. You dont really need to go through the hive, frame by frame at this point. Tilt the box up, light puff of smoke to move the bees, and look.
How much brood can you see? Capped brood? If you need to, you can pry lightly on the bottom of the frame, and push it over, like opening the pages of a book. This will allow you to see a little more.. You are also looking for SWARM cells hanging down from the bottom of the frame. Once a week inspection means the cell should NOT be capped yet. It should be fairly easy to spot, and you should see the new queen glistening pearly white on her bed of royal jelly.
Queen cells further up on the frame "usually" means the queen is being superseded. If I find cells higher up on the frames, I will usually leave them alone. I only take action when I find cells on the bottom, or near the bottom of the frame.
On the day you found the queen cells....
IF... you use wax foundation, or natural comb, you can cut these cells out and use them in the three hives that had iffy queens. You leave one or two cells in the original hive, and you take that GOOD queen that survived so well, and move her, along with a few frames of brood and bees to the dead out hive. Take a single box of the drawn comb, put it on a bottom board nearby. Swap a drawn frame with the frames you take from the main hive. I am assuming you want to keep the main hive strong for production, so you take two or three frames of brood with bees and put them into the center of the new box. One of those frames needs to have the original queen on it. Give them a frame of honey, from the hive, from another hive, or from your stored stash of frames. install your inner cover and tele cover. Block any upper entrance. Move this hive to another location preferably. If you do not have another location, change the orientation of the box, meaning, face it a different direction. Lean something across the entrance, another inner cover or a piece of plywood etc so the bees cant just fly out and away, they have to take notice something has changed so they will re orient. It will also lessen the chance that this hive will be robbed out. If you have a robbing screen, now is the best time to use it.
You just artificially swarmed your hive...
If you have enough queen cells being prepared;
You can move the iffy queens into nucs, and put one or two of those queen cells in each hive you want a better queen in. Check on them in two weeks. the queens should have emerged, and be about mating flights, MAYBE even laying already. You should certainly see eggs by three weeks.
In the event one of the new queens did not hatch, was eaten by a bird etc, etc, you re combine one of the nucs with the old queen..
If all is well and you have a NEW daughter queen, AXE the old queens and re combine those bees with their original hives using the newspaper combine method.
You COULD simply order replacement queens. Or even go with the queens you have if they all did well enough to make you happy.
step by step..
Once the brood boxes are cleaned and reversed. You are simply keeping an eye on them. Watching for problems, and watching that they do not get overly crowded. That they have room for brood, and nectar. Keeping supers on the hive ahead of their need.
From the spring of year two forward, this is what you will be doing as necessary;
Cleaning, Replacing and repairing equipment.
Watching for signs of trouble/disease.
Keeping at least one super ahead of the bees.
Replacing older or deficient queens.
Attempting to keep them from swarming.
Treating for mites in spring and early fall.
Extracting HONEY!
If all goes well, you will be extracting honey this year from at least 4 of those hives. Because you already had the drawn comb to give the good original queen, she MAY produce enough bees to give you extra honey as well.
In your third and fourth years, maybe you want to begin trying to raise your own queens? In all honesty, the bees will raise the queens, you just have to be successful in persuading them to do it!
SO, in year two and beyond, you are looking for much the same thing as in year one. The difference is that they should have drawn comb, and will expand MUCH faster than they did in year one.... What you are looking for;
1. Does your hive have sufficient ROOM for growth or expansion?
If it does, nothing needs done. if it does NOT, then a super needs to be placed on the hive.
2. Is the queen there? Do you see evidence of her? IE; New eggs in cells?
If she is, nothing needs to be done. If she is NOT, a more detailed inspection is necessary to insure that there is no queen...
Options include, buying a queen. If you have nucs, combining a nuc with the queenless hive, OR, giving them a frame of eggs so they can raise their own queen.
3. Is the queen laying a good pattern and quantity of eggs?
If she is, nothing needs done. if she is NOT, you need to see if there is a reason why? Is she damaged? Is there a disease in this hive? If no problems can be found the hive needs re queened, see the answers to #2
4. If early in the season, is this hive building up in size and numbers as fast as your other hive/hives?
If it is, nothing needs to be done. if it is NOT, you need to determine why. disease, bad queen? etc, and take the necessary actions to fix the situation.
5. Later spring, check for queen cells!
If there are none, nothing needs done, if you FIND queen cells, then you need to artificially swarm the hive.
6. Does the hive look healthy? Are there any problems and diseases?
If they look healthy, nothing needs done. If they do not look healthy, then you need to determine why, what is the problem or disease, and treat them to cure the problem. In example, Treating them for an overload of Varroa Mites.
7. Does the hive have enough reserves to last until you can check on them again?
Preferably they are gathering and increasing the reserves in the hive, and or building
comb to store more reserves in. If they are doing that, nothing needs done. if they are not, then you may need to FEED them! This also stands true when you do your LAST inspection of the year.. do they have enough reserves to last until you DO inspect again in the spring? IF NOT, then get the sugar, sugar cakes, candy board, winter patties etc on them!
Generally, if you deal with those 7 things your hives will do well.
Progression is now up to you.. how much do you want to learn as a beekeeper? You truly need not learn more, but learning to read a frame... looking at it and saying, this queen sucks! Saying I need another queen may not be the right answer if your bees have some hygienic traits.. They may be uncapping cells and removing larvae that have mites, which will make it look like your queen is not laying well.. LOOK Closer, are those empty cells all refilled? Are there eggs and young larvae in those cells? if there are, your queen is probably FINE. Always being able to learn more is the fun and exciting part of beekeeping. Once you have the basics, its not over, but you can keep bees just knowing the basics.
Please check the Swarm Prevention tab for more information on... swarm management!
Please check the seasons tab to see what to do with the passing of each season!
Please check the queens tab if you are interested in raising your own queens!
If you have questions, PLEASE go to http://www.worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/
to ask your questions, and GET the answers you need!
I hope this helps! Please let me know if I have missed something!
Scott