The bee year was very hard. Due to enormous Varroa mite pressure the winter losses were about 50% and - totally in one years time 70% of hives were lost (from 150 to 45 hives)!  Because of this, soon after midsummer, all hives were transported into a new place and divided into 3 or 4 equal size nucs. Only few of the best older breeder queens were saved and placed into their own yards.  Most of the new nucs got a ripe queencell and their queens were freemated.

The matings succeeded very well and in a short time, and therefore in most of the hives the broodless period was less than a week.  By the mid September there is in average one collapsed nuc in each yard.