how strong hive Guide please

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wightbees

Queen Bee
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How long is a piece of string
When you talk of a week hive or strong hive can someone give me some sort of guide to this. I was thinking along the lines of 5 frames of bees would = X
8 frames = z and 10 frames = something lol
But you get the idea, i need something so i can judge what strenth my hives are.
There is then the issue of frame type maybe but base it on Nationals i can work out into MD :)
 
Is this a silly thing to ask help with? someone must be able to give me something to work with. Please
 
I don't rekon your far out with your calculations Wightbees.....i would say that 5 frames = X...8 frames would be very near = Z...and 10 frames would be more than both the previous one's so i would think = something.
 
Is this a silly thing to ask help with? someone must be able to give me something to work with. Please

my 14x12s in full flow, have 9 full frames of brood and two store frames, but on the inward side of each store frames has about 50% brood.

When i take the honey supers off, i have to leave an empty super above the QE for overnight brood space, without it they build swarm cells and the underside of the crown, on the dummy and walls of the hive look like a rugby scrum for bees

if really pushed, as the 14x12 are hoffmans, i have once had to clean up the hoffman spacer faces on the 11 frames and forced in a 12th hoffman frame in to give more brood space
 
Hivemaker can you tell me what X and Z = so i can work something out :p

MM thanks for that, from the looks of things i would say my hives are weak hives .
 
It also depends on whether they are clustered, how tightly they are clustered, and what size frames you have and what time of year it is......

Also whether you are in the middle of thymol/Apiguard treatment or not.

I would say a cluster the same size as a galia melon 4-5 inch diameter and four sides/2 frames of brood was small.

I'd say a cluster the size of a football with up to six frames of brood was medium...

And bigger than a football and 8+ frames of brood was a strong colony....let's see what other people say.
 
Ok based on what i have read so far i would say i need to overwinter these as small ( weak) colonys. As i first yr winter Beek what should i do :willy_nilly:

Do you treat small colonys different to any other ? Wrap them up maybe.
 

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