The conventional wisdom is that beginners should start with two or three colonies.
One is not enough, since with one hive you have no point of comparison.
It’s hard for a beginner to know if a single hive is better or worse than average.
With two or three hives you can compare their condition and performance to get a
better sense of how each one is doing.
Also, having more than one hive helps improve your odds for early success.
At least one is likely to do well.
More than three hives are not recommended for beginners since you can’t know what
style of equipment you will prefer until you’ve tried a few things.
For example, starting small minimizes the cost if you decide you want to
switch from deep supers to mediums because the deeps are too heavy to handle.
It’s better to make such discoveries before you have made a sizeable investment.
