I used to buy bees, lots and lots of bees; singles from South Carolina, nuclei from Florida and frames of brood from New York. I used to buy queens, lots and lots of queens; queens from Georgia, queens from Texas and queens from California. Every year it was the same. Pick up the pieces of my apiary in the Spring, send a big check to southern queen breeders, split up my best colonies, and hope I made enough of a honey crop to pay the bills. Some years I did, some years I did not.
Read full article here: Over Wintering Nucs- A Better Way — BEEKeeping: Your First Three Years
Beekeeping365 
Read this article, and instinctively know, I need to grasp what he is saying better. This is my second season attempting to raise bees. My mentor last year was not a good communicator..think he tends to fly by the seat of his pants…lost the split I got from him…maybe too small, maybe because we never treated for mites,,.,just not sure..so in May I picked up a new nuc from another local bee keeper..4 frames, starting over. He said to keep feeding them to help build comb..(sent home one of those inside the box feeders, took it out after a couple of days and replaced with a home made ice cream bucket with holes…even with a stick in the other feeder, they were drowning like crazy….We have a small orchard, (80 trees), plus surrounded by farmland (eastern Iowa) Lots to learn…I love the energy I see in that little hive…Just feel like I wish I had a better handle on the basics…Enjoyed this post especially. (even though I only understand a portion of what he is talking about ) 🙂 DM
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There is so much to learn it can be overwhelming. And you never know what you don’t know until something goes wrong. I tell people much of what I know is a result of making mistakes and that’s okay. If you are able to attend meetings and network with others it helps. I like to say I have many mentors. Anyway, give yourself three years for things to start falling into place. Many times I see the lightbulb come on in the third year. Then you you start to get it while at the same time realize you’ve barely scratched the surface. You’ll find people all over the place when it comes to mites. I treat because in my experience about 80% of the colonies untreated die. But I’m not saying treatment free isn’t possible – I’m just saying my plate is full learning as much as I can without taking on the treatment free program. Maybe one day but for now I treat them and beat the national survival rates.
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