In the idea of moving from vertical to horizontal it would seem there are a few issues that need addressing. Hopefully, someone can help. For the time being I will ignore the issues of varroa mites and shb, since it would appear that keeping a boiling over hive of locally acclimatized feral
bees theoretically takes care of this, but I will ask about those issues in a different topic.
When doing vertical hives, normally when you come into sprint and they do build-up the urge to swarm seems to be pretty strong, and unless one does something to quell that urge they do so and you are left with a very small colony, with a reasonable chance of getting the virgin eaten by a bird or
dragon fly before making it back, and other issues that go with your colony getting cut in half, with the hopes that they will get re-queened on their own just about time for the summer dearth (in my area).
One of the major ways of effecting swarm control is to split early on, perhaps making nucs, or simply a new stack. There are a few ways of doing this, but most of the time it involves **MOVING** one hive somewhere and setting up a split hive in the original position. Grabbing a couple deep boxes may be a bit inconvenient, but still very doable.
When reading Lazutin's and subsequently Layen's book, the one recommendation I see was this A,B, C sort of split. That involved introducing a new hive, dumping all the
bees and moving the frames to it, then swapping it with positions of another. (Read the book for details) .... I still consider a 25 kg to 30 kg brood box as a mobile thing. On the other hand, the thought of doing this described split with a hive that weighs upwards of 115-120 kg and up somewhat of a permanent fixture.
In addition to that, some people do want to sideline. So the making of nuclear colonies , using common format equipment (especially if your state designates what sold items are described as) seems to be inconvenient at best. I assume this is why people may wish to go with the Lazutin style of extra deep frames that can somehow be made up of 2 Langstroth deeps, or even a modified Layens that is a little deeper than designed so that you can use doubled Langstroth medium frames connected together. Otherwise people are either left with the long Langstroth or double deep Long Langstroth. But this strategy has not been appropriately addressed in either of these
books.
So what is the actual recommended strategy for "increase", queen rearing, creating salable nucs to pass on to other new beekeepers or earn back some of the cost of the bees expenses, or sideline a little money into one's pocket?
Or perhaps I am mistaken in what the strategy is. Are you constantly catching and collecting swarms, that by the time a queen is laid out, you have other colonies in her place?
I found both of these books quite enjoyable reading. I am dubious how well it applies to me in my area. Or relative to what I have already begun and tried to do. I am open minded
enough to consider new strategies, I just don't think after reading these books I have a "Day 1" strategy.
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