This year a friend of mine and I intend to introduce Carniolan's to our apriaries using Nucs. We want to use Nucs to supplement our existing colonies with comb, bees and whole colonies. I'm tired of buying bees. Decades ago, beekeepers where, by and large, fairly independent and self-supporting. They performed their own splits with their own queens. Between us we purchased 6 colonies which we will house in three double Nucs. They will arrive around the first of May and I suspect that by the end of June they will be ready to be split. Looking forward to this project.
Speaking of queens. We are going to raise and breed queens from one of our existing production hives. Kermit purchased it last year and it is a beaut! The colony is massive, they produced a ton of honey, and appear to be (for the most part) pest and disease free. What a great queen! We need to propagate her genes.
I already lost a dink of a colony this winter. After I had already lost it I was advised by a bee keeping friend that I can use dinks to supplement existing colonies in preparation for winter. Live and learn.
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