1. Keep Bees on a Budget
Keeping bees is expensive and I don't have the funds to keep the apiary by subsidizing it with money so I need to be creative to keep the wife happy. I cannot keep buying package bees year after year.
Keep an eye on the Expenses for 2022 - I'll be curious to see what a year of hobby bee keeping will cost.
2. Use Nucs to Propagate Hives
Michael Palmer started using Nucs to propagate this apiary and never looked back. I look to follow his lead. The key to this approach is being able to produce Nucs and hives on the cheap. At the moment I can support up to five hives, I'll plan on building the rest of my boxes to get my count up to 7.
3. End the Year with 6-7 Hives
Going into the 2022 season I started the winter with 4 hives. One hive was overtaken by Mites it seems, the population plummeted and the hive didn't make it past January. The lost of the hive will provide the next year with 10 frames of drawn out comb to use in nucs.