A task: you buy a 2.0 kg swarm. How many bees you have there

[Finman]

That doesn't take into account the foundation size the bees were raised in. I used 4.9 foundation for 11 years and could easily tell my bees apart by their size. I'd guess my bees were lighter by weight about 20% less than bees raised in 5.4 foundation.

IT really takes into count... Even your special bees.


The Key Word is : weight them and do not guess.


This is same debating like can you calibrate you digital balance with a coin.
.somebody can and some not.
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Are your hives able to do 2 kg swarms?
.
.

 

[Finman]

.
Practical way to count bees of a swarm is to put 20 bees into queen cell cage and weigh it.

It is better than a bet.
.

 

[Into the lions den]

Hivemakers number early in the thread was a pretty good mean value....it is said in the package trade that they average 8000 per kilo.


BUT


What is in their bellies?

1.5Kg of bees on arrival in the UK starts out as 1.8 kg of bees at source.

Same number of bees. The difference is loss through respiration and using of the resources they have with them...even with a feed supply to keep them alive. They lose less weight if transported in a fridge truck.

1.5 Kg covers approx 6 bars in a Lang deep while its foundation, 2 kg about 8. As they draw it 1.5Kg goes up to an average of 8 and 2Kg covers the box. A bit of a dip follows until the first new brood hatches, then they go like a rocket..

As Finman stated, 2Kg will draw and fill the whole deep, even more easily in BS sizes, where it is common to have to add a super after as little as a week.

 

[Beefriendly]

How are you going to use that "totally accurate" knowledge ?
.

I'm not going to use that "totally accurate" information as it has little practical value to me.
However, it was you who first asked the question, so I presume you wanted to use that knowledge.

 

[Fusion_power]

Are your hives able to do 2 kg swarms?

I do my best to prevent swarming, but not always successfully. I had 2 swarms this year that would have gone over 2 kg. One of them filled up a square Dadant box with bees so I would guess it ran a bit over 3 kg.

 

[Finman]

Hivemakers number early in the thread was a pretty good mean value.

As Finman stated, 2Kg will draw and fill the whole deep, even more easily in BS sizes, where it is common to have to add a super after as little as a week.

When I started 50 years ago my real beekeeping, I bought tens of swarms.
I made 18 hives and I formed 2 langstroth box hives by uniting swarms to 4 kg bees/hive.

Sometimes I needed to unite 2 swarms and sometimes 3 swarms. They were all black bee mongrels from small hives.

After 4 weeks I can add a third box. Before the new bees started to emerge, the swarm bees could keep hardly alive the brood. They we so few in two boxes.

Each colony got 40 kg honey and drew 3 boxes foundations. But first two boxes they made with sugar, and I noticed that bees used 6 kg sugar go draw one box.

In those days I read from a book that kilo has 10 000 bees. Book was "Modern Beekeeping" from year 1962 . I have managed succesfully hives 50 years with that fact.

But along all time beekeepers have discussed who has small bees and who has big bees, but they have never measured how big their bees really are. That accurate balance is quite expencive, not now but 10-20 years ago.

This story tells that you can manage bees succesfully with poor knowledge.
Bees take care themselves when they get a proper start.
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And bees stand many kind of beekeepers and many kind of methods.
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[Finman]

I do my best to prevent swarming, but not always successfully. I had 2 swarms this year that would have gone over 2 kg. One of them filled up a square Dadant box with bees so I would guess it ran a bit over 3 kg.

When I do artificial swarms, mostly I must give 2 langstroth boxes to flying swarms.

 

[alldigging]

An impossible question to answer accurately,

It's a bit of a Schrodinger question.

The only way to count them all would be make them easy to count. And dead bees are easier to count than live ones, but in killing them they'd not be a swarm any more, just dead bees.

 

[alldigging]

.
Practical way to count bees of a swarm is to put 20 bees into queen cell cage and weigh it.

It is better than a bet.
.

Statistically you'd probably want to put 20 lots of 20 into queen cell cages and weigh them.

 

[REDWOOD]

Do people buy swarms without first seeing sealed brood ? fools if they do

 

[Finman]

It's a bit of a Schrodinger question.

The only way to count them all ....

There are many ways to count. It depend where you need that information..

You can take an example and weigh them.then taka 3 same size excample and look can you trust on them.

You need nowhere accurate number.
When 2.0 kg swarm works, during first day 450 bees will , because the worker has such life time as it has.

The most stupid thing is if course to kill them. The most important goal is to produce honey, it does not work with dead bees.

 

[Finman]

As they draw it 1.5Kg goes up to an average of 8 and 2Kg covers the box..

I had 9 frame boxes. So our experinces are practically same

.

 

[sipa]

Empty 8800 per kg
Well fed 6600 per kg
Average 7700 per kg

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Didn't realise we were getting revved up for 'the most pointless thread of the year' awards already

 

[Finman]

Didn't realise we were getting revved up for 'the most pointless thread of the year' awards already

I can see that your writing has no point either. Brilliant idea. As you see, my writing has 3 points and one comma.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Whilst yours has a colon (or seems to emanate from one anyway )

 

[Finman]

Whilst yours has a colon (or seems to emanate from one anyway )

Thanks to Lord I have

 

[For want of a better word]

You seem to be confusing mass with weight... bees would have the same mass but a different weight if weight was assessed on Pluto... which is as far away as finland is from the greatgreygreengreaseytamarriverallsetaboutwithunsaleablesecondhomes as you can be!

80% of the people who live in Aberisthwith speak Welsh!

Nos da

 

[Fusion_power]

80% of the people who live in Aberisthwith speak Welsh!

Seems that even in a thread about beekeeping, hoppy can't quite get past his heritage. The least he could do is stay on topic, or failing that, hang his head and scuff his toe a bit when he says where he is from. JBM suffers from a similar malady, perhaps a result of failing health. Gout does that to a man I hear.

Finman, why is the number of bees per kg so important to you? Does it change the way you manage your bees in any way?

 

[mbc]

Only instance I can think of where it would have a practical bearing would be weighing up bees for packages, you'd get much better value if the bees where weighed "empty".