I was informed that now the lt. shoulder is pooping out on me, even after repairs done in January. When I can't stand the pain anymore, I have a shoulder replacement in my future. There is no way I am giving up beekeeping, so I am thinking maybe just raise my bees in double NUCS and then use smaller NUC boxes as honey supers. Anybody have any thoughts on whether or not this would be feasible? Since I am a hobby beek, I am not looking for large honey harvests. Just enough to keep us supplied and for gifts.
****I'm going down fighting all the way**
Would 8 frame langstroths be an option? Or are you already using those?
Another option might be Top Bar hives. You might have to convert to crush and strain for extraction, but you would just be dealing with one frame at a time, rather than large boxes.
We have a local beek who has been using top bars for 8 years and swears by them.
He builds them himself using old fencing.
The triangular shaped object on the table is one of his swarm traps, and that's how his hives used to look, only longer.
The thing on four legs on the right of the picture is what he uses now for his hives. Not sure what kind of top bar hive it is called, but still a top bar. Seems like you could build something like that, and maybe even continue to use foundations, more like a really long langstroth, using following boards to determine the size of the hive, rather than stacking new boxes on top.