Increasing hive numbers with aggressive splitting.

[kalium]

I'm keen to get the most number of hives (20-30) in my apiary as soon as possible (without purchasing hives outright...).

I'm looking to split my strong single (well, single deep+ideal) hive in the next couple of weeks. I'm hoping this will give me a bit of a headstart
on spring.

I'm willing to buy mated queens and buy some pollen (if it is required) to make up some patties, as well as feed sugar syrup.
I now have an urban site where I can keep two hives, so that may help.

I'm looking at putting single nuc hives into 10 frame deeps with a vertical divider board, which should allow me to easily expand their space frame by frame as it
is required (and saves on having seperate nuc boxes).

I'll also of course be laying swarm traps as well.

Is this the right strategy to increase my hive numbers? Can I expect to gain much by adopting this, rather than just waiting until spring (or whenever
the forage starts becoming available) and doing splits then and let them take care of everything?

Cheers

[kanga]

My thoughts are that it is now getting a bit late to start splitting and making up nuts etc with winter just around the corner. You may even have difficulty getting queens.

I would look at splitting early September, but you may need to look at ordering queen/s early as they are generally in short supply at that time of the year.

Just my thoughts others may disagree.

[Rooky25]

Unless your on good flow, (channel country central / western qld) I wouldn't be splitting, you may get away with splitting and supplement feeding both syrup & patties, but would wait until the spring, or ekka time at least.

[Anybrew2]

Wrong time of the year for sure.

[kalium]

Wrong time of the year for sure.

There are still plenty of flowering plants and trees in Brisbane (the golden prenda that the council have planted everywhere are covered in bees at the moment) but I have not gotten around to building more boxes and decided to play it safe so will wait until august/september

[Lone]

Main thing is make sure there are drones around.  There's forage all year round in QLD, but not usually drones.  And you'd be risking poor flying conditions with the odd cold snap.  Good idea to wait. You could put in an order with a queen supplier now if you want to buy queens.  Don't worry.  Soon you will have reached your hive limit and wonder how to stop splitting and making new boxes.  Swarm lists are also a good way to increase bee hives.

Lone

[rawfind]

Personally unless you know you have good sites that are going to keep them alive and thriving then i don't believe there is much
point to having heaps of hives, do you really want to be having to feed them? it costs money to do that its far better to have your sites first know what flowers at what time of year and have some kind of plan in mind to ensure the bees don't suffer, i was tempted when i first started to build up fast but have seen others with more hives desperate to find a place with food for them, slowly but surely wins the race they say,
still this is just my own opinion there may be others that dont agree, cheers re Neil   :-D