Growth Planning

Growth planning is planning to increase the number of colonies in the apiary at a rate that matches forage capacity, labour, equipment and the market. Unplanned growth leads to less frequent checks, falling yields and the spread of disease. The soundest way to grow is to make splits from your own colonies; it is cheap and brings in no disease from outside.

Why does growing an apiary need a plan?

Increasing the number of colonies is a natural goal in beekeeping. But if colony numbers grow faster than the infrastructure that supports them, the operation does not get stronger – it gets weaker. The common story of many people who give up beekeeping is that they grew rapidly over a few years and then lost, one after another, colonies they could not keep on top of.

Four things limit growth: forage capacity, labour, equipment and capital/market. Whichever of these is tightest sets your rate of growth.

The four factors that limit growth

1. Forage capacity

The number of colonies that can be placed in an apiary is limited by the nectar and pollen sources around it. Overcrowding:

• Lowers the yield per colony,
• Increases robbing and bees moving between hives (drifting),
• Speeds up the spread of disease and varroa,
• Intensifies competition for forage with wild bees.

A hive scale shows this limit clearly: if the weight gain per colony falls as the number of colonies rises, capacity has been exceeded. The solution is not to put more hives in the same place but to open a new apiary site.

2. Labour

This is the most underestimated limit. During the swarming season every colony needs to be checked once a week. Work out how many colonies you can really check at that interval; that is your growth limit. A beekeeper who cannot keep up checks less often; swarms get away, disease is spotted late and losses increase.

3. Equipment

As the number of colonies grows, so must the number of hives, frames, supers, feeders and nuc boxes and the extraction capacity. The most common bottleneck is drawn comb: bees can only draw a limited amount of comb in a season, and splits need it most.

4. Capital and market

As production increases, sales channels must grow too. Honey that cannot be sold is more expensive than honey that was never produced: jars, storage and labour have been spent without any return.

In what ways can the number of colonies be increased?

Of these methods, splitting is the soundest in terms of both cost and biosecurity. Every colony brought in from outside can carry diseases and pests into the apiary; so it should be bought from a reliable source and monitored separately from the others for a while.

Growing by splitting, step by step

1. Choose the time: In spring, when colonies have become strong and drones are plentiful; the splits must have time to build up before the main nectar flow.
2. Choose the donor colony: Healthy, gentle, productive colonies; never split a colony showing signs of disease.
3. Set up the nuc: Give it frame(s) of brood, a frame of honey and pollen and plenty of young bees.
4. Provide a queen: A ripe queen cell, a mated queen, or let the nuc rear its own queen.
5. Feed and protect: Reduce the entrance, be careful about robbing, give syrup if necessary.
6. Check: Confirm that the new queen has started laying; unite nucs that have failed.

What is a realistic rate of growth?

Technically it is possible to double the number of colonies in a year; but that means giving up most of that year's honey yield. For most operations the healthy balance is to devote part of the season to growth and part to production: for example, making splits from some of the colonies in spring and keeping the rest for honey.

Review the growth plan every year in this order: first make up the winter losses, then complete your target of back-up nucs, and only then move on to net increase.

Back-ups are part of growth too

Growth is not just an increase in numbers but the capacity to absorb losses. Winter loss is normal; keeping enough nucs in the apiary to make up for it is both cheaper and safer than looking for colonies from outside in spring. Laying spare queens also stop the loss of a queen from turning into a crisis.

Common mistakes

• Splitting every colony: That year you are left with neither honey nor strong colonies.
• Splitting a weak colony: Two weak colonies produce less than one strong colony and have a harder time getting through the winter.
• Making splits too late: Nucs that cannot build up by autumn are lost over winter.
• Buying colonies or comb from an unknown source: This can bring notifiable diseases such as foulbrood into the apiary.
• Thinking about equipment afterwards: Missing frames and boxes on splitting day is the most common gap in a plan.