Foraging ability.

[Curly green fingers]

And I suppose each year is different to, from one year to the next forage is different due to weather temp , colony size etc..
The formula that they have used in the book is from 2008 and before , and I'm not sure if it was worked out over more than one season .

 

[Antipodes]

A general question to the forum community around the world and reactivating this thread about foraging ability, I wonder what is the maximum (record) honey produced by your best colonies in a week- in the best year?

I think form the previous posts above, Finman, as his record, has reached 50kg a week, for a maximum of 170 kg for the colony for the season, but I hope he can confirm this or perhaps correct it. I believe that was mainly from raspberry.

In the UK, is your summer honey mainly clover and blackberry? What can your best colonies get from that in a good year?

 

[Finman]

That's not many bees at all. Is my maths right?

Maths is right. Reasoning and assumptions leave a lot to be desired.

As Finny, I suppose. Not all of the bees return with a full load of pollen. Basically, they only need to collect enough pollen for brooding purposes. More to it than simple maths.

Not all return...

Right. If a colony gets 1000 new members in each day, there are days, when those bees do not return home any more. Simple biology.

 

[Wilco]

A general question to the forum community around the world and reactivating this thread about foraging ability, I wonder what is the maximum (record) honey produced by your best colonies in a week- in the best year?

I think form the previous posts above, Finman, as his record, has reached 50kg a week, for a maximum of 170 kg for the colony for the season, but I hope he can confirm this or perhaps correct it. I believe that was mainly from raspberry.

In the UK, is your summer honey mainly clover and blackberry? What can your best colonies get from that in a good year?

Depends where you are in the UK. In my area Summer potentially offers Heather, Blackberry, Sweet Chestnut and Linden depending on the apiary site and weather. Clover potentially, and the odd wildflower meadow. This year I'm proudest that I got two supers of heather honey (admittedly one had some sweet chestnut in with it) from one hive, it would have been three if I'd managed it better but it was my first attempt on heather. It worked out as two 10L buckets after pressing in a small apple press. That hive was headed by a queen from a swarm in the garden the year before which I'd split into a nuc in Spring as part of swarm control.

That's surplus, obviously bees collect more in order to rear brood as pointed out previously.

I believe @Curly green finger's had a rather impressive total from one colony this year.

 

[pargyle]

I believe @Curly green finger's had a rather impressive total from one colony this year.

Yes ... absolutely amazing Nuc to 150kg harvested in one season ... Fantastic achievement ...

 

[Antipodes]

Depends where you are in the UK. In my area Summer potentially offers Heather, Blackberry, Sweet Chestnut and Linden depending on the apiary site and weather. Clover potentially, and the odd wildflower meadow. This year I'm proudest that I got two supers of heather honey (admittedly one had some sweet chestnut in with it) from one hive, it would have been three if I'd managed it better but it was my first attempt on heather. It worked out as two 10L buckets after pressing in a small apple press. That hive was headed by a queen from a swarm in the garden the year before which I'd split into a nuc in Spring as part of swarm control.

That's surplus, obviously bees collect more in order to rear brood as pointed out previously.

I believe @Curly green finger's had a rather impressive total from one colony this year.

Let's call it 30kg That's good, particularly from a small start in the same season.

 

[elainemary]

The foraging ability of a honey bee colony.

I've found this very interesting to read in
A buzz about bees.

- a single forager transports 20-40mg in her crop.
-a single forager completes between three and ten flights per day.
-a single forager collects over a period of 10 to 20 days.
-a single colony deploys between 100,000 and 200,000 forager's per year.

From the above we can calculate the minimum and maximum values of expected nectar collection.

Min value 20mg X three flights per day for 10daysx100,000 bees would produce 60kg of nectar.
Max value 40mgx10 flights per day for 20 days X 200,000 bees would produce 1,600kg of nectar.

Conversion of a single unit of nectar into honey reduces the amount to about half, so that one could expect between 30 and 800kg of honey per colony each year.
The minimum amount calculated here is probably to low and the maximum to high, but the values show the range in which the real levels of nectar collection and honey production must lie .

A medium sized colony will collect about 30kg of pollen each year .this is an astounding quantity considering the "weightless" nature of pollen..

I'm finding this book a damn good read and would suggest it to anyone.
Cheers mark.

Some interesting stats from Juliana Rangel’s research on honeybee foraging (she was one of Tom Seeley’s PhD students)
The average colony consumes themselves 21kg pollen and 60kg of honey per annum. They make 1.3m pollen trips and 3m nectar trips pa. If a good site, other foragers will be recruited to it within 20 minutes and bees can amazingly discriminate differences in nectar concentration as little as 0.25ml sugar / lt

 

[Curly green finger's]

Interesting I forgot about this thread best colony from a nuc was over 220lbs
My best production colonys averaged 115lbs x 8 colonys.
Haven't weighed weekly on heather or through out the flows this season I have monthly weights.

 

[Sanntos]

Yes ... absolutely amazing Nuc to 150kg harvested in one season ... Fantastic achievement ...

A nuc sometimes has the advantage...

 

[Finman]

Some interesting stats from Juliana Rangel’s research on honeybee foraging (she was one of Tom Seeley’s PhD students)
The average colony consumes themselves 21kg pollen and 60kg of honey per annum. They make 1.3m pollen trips and 3m nectar trips pa. If a good site, other foragers will be recruited to it within 20 minutes and bees can amazingly discriminate differences in nectar concentration as little as 0.25ml sugar / lt

It depends, how long is the Summer in each place.

In Finland flowers start to bloom at the beginning of May and they stop blooming at the beginning of August.

 

[Finman]

Interesting I forgot about this thread best colony from a nuc was over 220lbs
My best production colonys averaged 115lbs x 8 colonys.

The yield depends on pastures.

 

[Finman]

Yes ... absolutely amazing Nuc to 150kg harvested in one season ... Fantastic achievement ...

I wonder what is such nuc? How many boxes the nuc had?

 

[Curly green finger's]

I wonder what is such nuc? How many boxes the nuc had?

6 x standard national brood frames.

 

[Curly green finger's]

The yield depends on pastures.

It does our forage at some apiaries lasts from April untill the ivy.
At others only really the summer flows.
It makes all the difference as does the weather, this season there was osr but the spring was to cold and some of it was ploughed back in, this coming season there is more osr and closer to the apiarys.

 

[Finman]

6 x standard national brood frames.

And 6 frames of bees gathered 150 kg honey?
Where did they stored that all honey and nectar?

When I have got 150 kg honey from one hive, in 6 weeks, the colony had 8 langstroth boxes. The hive was on balance.
.
When a hive gets one box capped honey, it needs two boxes, where they store nectar ti rippen. They use brood frames too to store nectar, and then larva tearing goes minimal and the colony swarms

 

[Finman]

6 x standard national brood frames.

When did you founded the nuc and when the nuc made the big yield? Was it the same summer?

 

[Curly green finger's]

And 6 frames of bees gathered 150 kg honey?
Where did they stored that all honey and nectar?

When I have got 150 kg honey from one hive, in 6 weeks, the colony had 8 langstroth boxes. The hive was on balance.
.
When a hive gets one box capped honey, it needs two boxes, where they store nectar ti rippen. They use brood frames too to store nectar, and then larva tearing goes minimal and the colony swarms

Both colonys in the photo were 6 frame nucs. The one on the right was my best colony over all.

 

[Finman]

View attachment 29785
Both colonys in the photo were 6 frame nucs. The one on the right was my best colony over all.

But those towers are not nucs.

 

[Curly green finger's]

But those towers are not nucs.

They were put on that site on the 21st of April 2021 and were poly 6 frame nucs then at that point.

 

[Finman]

They were put on that site on the 21st of April 2021 and were poly 6 frame nucs then at that point.

Ok. Then it was a splended nuc and splended pasture.