Mice and Men

Having now finished reading Hooper and Waring and mostly read Yates the old adage "ask eight beekeepers how to do something and you'll get ten answers" is finally dawning on me.  In my head I've been trying to plan ahead for my apiary development over the next 3-4 years.  Reading the books and seeing the scope of opinion online has left me feeling that I have an overwhelming amount of learning to go before I'll be able plan even one or two years ahead.  Certainly the plans I was thinking of are now seeming far too ambitious.

I want at least two crop producing colonies.  I want to practise queen rearing on a small scale with a double mating nuc that I can winter a couple of queens in.

I need at least a national and a nuc (for swarm control) for the first season.

Not looking forward to a Rape crop from the BKA apiary in the first year.  Should I hold off starting until after the rape flow finishes?

If I start from foundation then my colony may not have moved into the supers by the time the rape flow finishes.  If they use up any stored rape honey as summer food the problem is deferred until year two.

Granulated stores as winter food seems to be a contentious point.  I have read opinions from some who readily feed granulated stores to the bees as winter food rather than scrape the combs; others say it causes dysentry.

It is no wonder that people can do this for 50 or more years and still consider themselves students.