Brother adams hive

[Hivemaker.]

You are joking with me, aren't you

With regards to just the queens age.....nope, i'm not joking..not even slightly,and often have them four years old.

 

[wightbees]

Did the queen have a pin stuck through her and embedded onto a piece of card

 

[Hombre]

Im looking for a new out apiary do you think Phil and Kirsty will give me a hand

Wrong forum Johnandyrob,this is for bee keeping, and doesn't cover mind reading, although you could be forgiven for thinking that it does at times . . .

Mr Del Monte, he says "YES".

 

[Finman]

.
i have never counted hom much the queen lays. how you do that?

I count how many boxes the hive need for honey production. Then my fingers are enough.

 

[Norton]

so you can only count up to 5?

 

[Norton]

The queen belonged to bright yellow italian line and despite the amount of brood the hive was not so populous as one could expect to be. I still have (but don't use it anymore) the hive wich i build specially for this queen

Not surprising at all about the population. The bright yellow Italians are short lived and come down with acarine easily.
It is important to distinguish between the number of frames that a queen lays in and the actual brood AREA. When it is said that the TOTAL brood area is about 5 Langstroth frames, of course this brood is spread over 8 or more frames.
Any hives that produce more brood probably have two queens laying in them and should be carefully checked. I once found a hive with 3 queens in it all happily laying away - they were sister queens though.
Best regards
norton.

 

[Finman]

so you can only count up to 5?

jep. I guess the rest

if the queen lays only 8 frames, it does not lay any more in the evening.

 

[drstitson]

it is notoriously difficult to estimate visually the proportion of a fixed area occupied vs free space and often leads to overestimates.

for example in my field, the degree of narrowing of diseased coronary arteries is difficult to assess without reference to a series of example images.

for assessment of amount of bone vs fat/marrow in a bone biopsy one can use special grids to overlay on images where you only need to quantitate the number of times what you are interested in crosses the grid.

Perhaps it might be useful to produce a nomogram on an acetate sheet which could be used to estimate brood area more reliably? anyone interested?

 

[Finman]

it is notoriously difficult to estimate visually the proportion of a fixed area occupied vs free space and often leads to overestimates.
?

The area of brood flutuates. If it is a rainy week, laying drop to half.

If the hives has heavy flow, and store room is missing, the brood area will be smaller. Before swaming queen lays less and it will be soon almost finish.

Small colony has small brood area.

It needs only rough sight to estimate is there everything OK.

I cannot understand how someone calculates bee eggs.

 

[Scutellator]

Not surprising at all about the population. The bright yellow Italians are short lived and come down with acarine easily.
It is important to distinguish between the number of frames that a queen lays in and the actual brood AREA. When it is said that the TOTAL brood area is about 5 Langstroth frames, of course this brood is spread over 8 or more frames.
Any hives that produce more brood probably have two queens laying in them and should be carefully checked. I once found a hive with 3 queens in it all happily laying away - they were sister queens though.
Best regards
norton.

It is important to distinguish between the number of frames that a queen lays in and the actual brood AREA.

I know that. The queens from that line were vigorous layers without exception. They layed eggs vigorously even in the irregular cells - those deformed from the heat and the brood on the frame was pretty much square shaped, without honey in the frames - something that i still expect from my queens - storage of the honey separate from the brood.
Even when i consider the gaps in the brood area it is still too much.

Any hives that produce more brood probably have two queens laying in them

Only a fool could believe that if he puts 2 queens in one hive he will get more brood. Usually the queen is capable to lay much more eggs, than the bees allow her. Only with the poor ones the opposite is the case.

 

[Poly Hive]

There is a recorded instance of a queen living to 9 years.

I have had them to to four, not often but often enough.

PH

 

[wightbees]

I have read some older books i have, that until the queen is over a yr old it is not
classed as a proved queen. The stuff i read now suggest that a queen maybe renewed each season.

 

[Norton]

Only a fool could believe that if he puts 2 queens in one hive he will get more brood.

Haven't you ever heard of the two queen system?
Best regards
Norton

 

[Finman]

.
actually a strange debate about big hives.

A few knows how long a big hive takes time to build up. - Actually a small hive takes more time

I renew every summer my queens. I take care that they can lay 1,5 broods, but after winter, who knows what they do then. Nosema spoils many hives.

 

[Scutellator]

Haven't you ever heard of the two queen system?
Best regards
Norton

Yes. I don't know who invented it, but it was practised in Bulgaria (and probably in Serbia and Greece as well) more than 100 years ago, and is still widely practised. I was practising that sistem for a while too. I am not talking about that. The situation is very different when each queen has it own brood nest.


These pictures belong to a colleague beekeeper of mine - Svetlana. She overwinther many queens in a single hive without removing any parts of the queens. And they live happily together all year round.

 

[wightbees]

That interesting.I thought they had to be caged or they would kill the other Queens.

 

[Scutellator]

The Bulgarian scientists frequently estimate the egg laying rates (as part of the breeding program).
The they use method which includes 24 h confinement of the queen to a single frame using 2QX (i can't remember the name of the device right now), then the eggs are counted. This procedure is repeated every few days or so and then at the end of the month is calculated the average rate for that month.

The actual brood area is more important factor to me. It doesn't matter really how fast car you drive when there is a speed limit.
According to the Bulgarian scientists the most fertile queens lay up to 3600 eggs per day (average), which is very ordinary queen to my understandings. Double that figuire is more close to the absolute maxumum (I almost can hear you laughing). Just because you can't lift 200 kg weight, it doesn't mean that there are not people who can't lift 500kg (Steve Goggins, Mike Millers, Andy Bolton... and many others).

It's not important how many eggs a queen can lay. It's much more important how much honey you will get. More eggs means only that you get more brood, not necessarily more bees and more bees not always mean more honey. With increasing fertility usually you get shorter lived bees. So you must find a balance between fertility and longevity, if you want more bees.

Also, is more important that the bee fits for the hive you're using, or you have to change something. You cannot expect any success by keeping prolific bee in a too small hive, or moderately fertile bee in a capacious hive.


The different strains of bees differ considerably in fertility.

 

[Norton]

Hello Donnie,
These hyper-prolific queens are the ones that are available now or are they the ones that were around 10 years ago. You have mentioned before that the native bee used to produce massive populations. The photographs are very interesting - thanks for attaching them to you posts.
Best regards
Norton.

 

[Finman]

.

Scutellator tells odd stories from old days.

I have nursed bees almost 50 years. What I have seen old hives and old colonies, they are small. The reason is that bees main goal is live and make 2 swarms a year.

During my beekeeping period colonies have grown 3-fold. Reason is that they do not swarm. Of course reason is that bees have breeded tens of years.

In nature colonies are small and swarmy and defensive. That is bees actual nature.

A langstroth box is 40 litre. 5 box hive is 200 litre. It is ordinary barrel.

Here is Romian beekeepeing http://www.thehoneygatherers.com/html/photolibrary15.html

Huge amounts of hives in one site.

 

[Finman]

.
More Romanian beekeeping system
http://thebeephotographer.photoshel...emian-Honey/G0000W1X6iwzxnlM/I0000qZEFSVoUUns

http://www.corbisimages.com/images/67/41EFF899-07F6-4235-9600-723B436B5D5C/AW001419.jpg