Buckfast on commercial.

[dano41]

Hi,was wondering if many on here use commercial hives to keep the buckfast type of bee, having prolific queens how do they find managing them on single brood boxes?

 

[REDWOOD]

The buckfast I had filled a 14x12 BB

 

[Erichalfbee]

That's where mine live

 

[oliver90owner]

Think here. What is the maximum lay rate of your queens? The cell cycle time is about 25 days.

Only one comic on the forum has queens which lay at a rate of 4000 eggs per day for 12 days, then immediately stop for a 'rest' (in a National deep). The rest of us have queens which might peak at a rate somewhat less than that and lay more consistently.

70k cells should accommodate most queens if the whole box is used for brooding. Frames of stores at each end are the first bottleneck..... Might depend on whether you use drone brood culling for varroa control (and when, of course) as well. Box construction may have a bearing, too - considering here the level of insulation.

Do some simple maths for yourself, is my advice. Some answers you will get will be from some who might be misleading, to say the least. Depends a bit on whether you want facts or unsubstantiated opinion.

 

[madasafish]

I have a jumbo Langstroth Poly hive (c 85000cells).. approx 80% full of brood + eggs in summer...all Buckfast .. or so they claimed to me..

 

[dano41]

Think here. What is the maximum lay rate of your queens? The cell cycle time is about 25 days.

Only one comic on the forum has queens which lay at a rate of 4000 eggs per day for 12 days, then immediately stop for a 'rest' (in a National deep). The rest of us have queens which might peak at a rate somewhat less than that and lay more consistently.

70k cells should accommodate most queens if the whole box is used for brooding. Frames of stores at each end are the first bottleneck..... Might depend on whether you use drone brood culling for varroa control (and when, of course) as well. Box construction may have a bearing, too - considering here the level of insulation.

Do some simple maths for yourself, is my advice. Some answers you will get will be from some who might be misleading, to say the least. Depends a bit on whether you want facts or unsubstantiated opinion.

Rab have been using commercial for over twenty years more than adequate for the black bees and as you say if only used for brooding grand for the buckfast.I'm finding that I have to take out a lot of brood frames of stores mainly pollen and freeze them and replace them with empty combs on a very regular basis.Are guys who are keeping a lot of commercial hives with prolific queens having to do this or are they using double commercial boxes or something else?

 

[itma]

... have been using commercial for over twenty years more than adequate for the black bees and as you say if only used for brooding grand for the buckfast.I'm finding that I have to take out a lot of brood frames of stores mainly pollen and freeze them and replace them with empty combs on a very regular basis.Are guys who are keeping a lot of commercial hives with prolific queens having to do this or are they using double commercial boxes or something else?

That sounds to me as though your commercials are bigger than your "black bees" really need.
You might try leaving them with a frame or two less in the brood box (but do use a decent dummy board). Give them another frame only when they look near to using all their brood space (obviously don't leave it until swarm cells start appearing - just see what they actually need).

But Buckfasts should be very happy in single brood Commercials. Double-Commercial brood is superbee territory. // or fantasy land …

 

[dano41]

Only keep Buckfast now no black bees thats why I posted hoping to find people keeping Buckfast on commercial who may have encountered what I have found having to change out so many pollen store frames and replace them with comb to give the queen room to lay.

 

[MuswellMetro]

We have both commercial and 14x12 hives and find there is not much difference in how bees fill out either frames, except different pollen arches

a strong laying queen will easliy lay up nine or ten frames in a 11 frame box +dummy and sometime if they are low proplises I remove the dummy board and insert a 12th frame on commercials

 

[DanBee]

Double brood commercials.

 

[dano41]

DanBee you mean you keep yours on double commercial so you don't agree with Itma when he says "Double-Commercial brood is superbee territory. // or fantasy land" could you tell a bit more how you get on with the double brood?

 

[itma]

DanBee you mean you keep yours on double commercial so you don't agree with Itma when he says "Double-Commercial brood is superbee territory. // or fantasy land" could you tell a bit more how you get on with the double brood?

Dan B has superbees!
His bees (from the photos he has shown) do (in peak season) use more than the one big box. This isn't just unusual, in my understanding its fairly exceptional.
A single 14x12 or commercial is plenty big enough for most strains of bee.


As I understand your posts, you are using single brood commercials and find that your bees aren't using all the brood space - filling plural frames with excess pollen.
I'd expect changing to double brood would not improve that situation.

 

[Stiffy]

I have all Buckfast and give the queens what they need as I dont think hard and fast rules apply. Some will be on double brood, others do fine with a single box.
S

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[oliver90owner]

Double brood commercials? That gives me a wry smile, just thinking about any colony needing 140 000 cells for a brood nest. I would think that more than half of those two boxes will be in use for storage, not brooding, for most of the year.

I think you might find that the bees store so much pollen because the space is there, not for any other reason.

One question I might ask, for those that think their queens are utilising more than 50k cells regularly, is what is the colony population? Over 100 000?

Fantasy comes into the equation at some point.