Choose Your Method of Expansion
From 2 to 10 Hives: Scaling Up Your Honey Harvest the Smart Way | |
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Check our your favourite social media platform below and get access to the best and widest South African Beekeeping Experience Online! | | | | From 2-10 Hives - Part 2 of a 4-part series! | From 2 to 10 Hives: Scaling Up Your Honey Harvest the Smart Way
[Part 2/4] Following our first post of four...
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🏆 Step 2: Choose Your Expansion Method Wisely
When you’re ready to expand, you have 3 main options:
1️⃣ Splitting Your Own Hives (Best for Self-Sustained Growth)
🔹 Wait for strong colonies with plenty of brood and stored honey before splitting.
🔹 Use queen-rearing techniques or introduce a mated queen to speed up colony development.
🔹 Keep newly split hives well-fed and protected—they are weaker and more vulnerable to pests and robbing.
💡 Best for: Beekeepers comfortable with hive manipulation who want to expand at minimal cost.
2️⃣ Buying Nucs or Swarms (Fastest Expansion Route)
🔹 Purchasing nucleus colonies (nucs) allows you to scale faster without weakening existing hives.
🔹 Ensure disease-free, pest-free and strong diversified genetics when sourcing bees [get from different breeders].
🔹 Place new hives strategically—quarantine new 'incoming' colonies from existing hives to avoid introduction of pests like varroa mites.
💡 Best for: Beekeepers who want to grow fast and have a budget for new colonies.
3️⃣ Catching Wild Swarms (Cost-Free But Subject to Chance)
🔹 Swarms are an affordable way to add bees, but they come with unknown genetics - often good benefits - and potential disease risks.
🔹 Trekking colonies usually have an old queen or virgin queen
🔹 Wild colonies can also carry symbiotic partners like bee scorpions which have been shown to eat and predate young varroa mites!
🔹 Only keep strong, healthy swarms—weak swarms often struggle to survive [feeding helps].
🔹 Requeen if necessary—wild colonies may have aggressive genetics.
🔹 Wild colonies also carry beneficial adaptations in their genetics which a breeder colony would have likely lost over time due to lack of new genetic material.
🔹 Keep wild colonies away from established colonies until inspected for diseases, pests and issues.
🔹 DO NOT KILL bee scorpions inside the wild colonies**
💡 Best for: Experienced beekeepers who can assess and manage unpredictable colonies.
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