I want a second hive, because for some reason, for me, one just isn’t enough. I’ve tried explaining this to my wife but she just thinks I’m mad (and sometimes she thinks I’m just greedy).
There is some logic about having a second hive so you can compare hives … but rest assured, my need has nothing to do with logic.
Postscript: And then I tried to build it.
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You are right though – two hives are much better than one – so if you need to raise a queen in an emergency you can take eggs from one hive and put them in the other.
Of course, once you get two the question will become three or four!
Do it! As you say, two hives are better because you can compare and if one hive starts to fail the other hive is there to help. Emily and me may be getting another colony next week after recently combining our hives this weekend.
Will there come a time when two is just not enough? I started with one and over the swarming season which started really early for me (April’s Fool would you believe?) I was running 4 colonies at one stage, albeit 2 of them in 6 frame nucs in my hopeless attempts at artificial swarming. I say hopeless as one managed to swarm. When a secondary swarm issued I felt it was getting out of hand and decided to combine some of the colonies.
Surprisingly, coming to the end of my first season, two hives is actually feeling enough right now. Might get a third brood box so that I can capture swarms and reunite hives.