Large Scale Honey production.. Viable ?

[B+.]

Perhaps he means PER SUPER.
I expect about 7lbs per deep Langstroth frame which is 70lbs / box (~35Kgs)

 

[Finman]

I have weighed langstroth boxes and langstroth medium boxes before extracting and after extracting. Then it is simple to evaluate how much each hive has honey and how much I get in extracting.

Medium super gives maximum weight 16 kg honey in extracting. 15 or 16, round figures are easier to count.

 

[Into the lions den]

Perhaps he means PER SUPER.
I expect about 7lbs per deep Langstroth frame which is 70lbs / box (~35Kgs)

Last year, out of interest and in part to settle an argument with someone who claimed they got over 80lb of honey per Langstroth deep, I took one with the very rare 10 fully sealed frames (right into all four corners) of calluna honey on new foundation.

We then cut that into 140 pieces of 200g of comb honey, and all were adjusted to 0 to 10g overweight, and there was only 780g of leftover odds and ends. So the MAXIMUM yield is a shade under 30kg (this worked out at 28.8, plus maybe 500g of overweight on the combs) including all the wax.

We generally calculate that a stack of deeps home from the hill, waiting for extracting, will average in the 16 to 18kg region. I know Knud in Denmark who is very reliable in such matters works out a full deep as yielding 20Kg into the honey tank. Seems close to correct to me.

Stacked for extracting (in lbs) we generally consider a BS shallow to yield 20lb, a deep 30 lb A Langstroth medium 26lb, and a deep about 35lb. If we count it higher we get a let down. All stuffed completely full it would be more, but every box stuffed completely full is yet another of those things that happens in dreams. I know this. I have that dream often.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

As I said - last year was exceptional - this year, averaging 20 lbs per shallow as compared to close on 30 last year for the first (June) extraction

 

[Finman]

.
I keep minus one frame in supers. Langstroth medium 9 frame boxes have 15 kg. But my super have no pollen because bees store it into brood boxes.

Langstroth boxes with 10 frames have 25 kg as extracted. If there are much pollen, it of course restricts the honey volume.

If you are not satisfied, weigh you own and use own calculations.
It is simple.

If brood combs are old, pupa silk makes cells smaller.

Last extractions before autumn have half that amount in boxes than full combs. New white Langstroth frames are weak and slow to extract. Often much honey will stay in combs.

 

[Into the lions den]

.
If brood combs are old, pupa silk makes cells smaller.

In general I agree with much of what you say as you are plainly very experienced and know what you are talking about.

However, this one is a myth that is repeated so often it has become accepted as a fact.

Over the course of a season this has some truth to it, but the bees do a great job of cell cleaning each spring (its the fluffyish brown debris you see outside the entrance at first broodnest expansion in spring). They return the cell size to desired parameters every season.

The late and sadly missed Dave Cushman and I had an interesting exchange on this matter several years ago when we described some odd brood combs in our unit. They had been there as long as I could remember inherited from my father. They also had very distinctively wired foundation in them in a grid pattern. Dave identified the frames and wax as both being considerably pre war. I do not recall exactly without digging back but he thought the pattern dated from the 1920's.

The combs were black and hard, yet the bees raised perfectly normal sized brood in them. If they had been brood combs for even half their life, then at the time they were 80 years old so would have been brood combs for 40 years, so maybe 200 generations through them? Should have had tiny cells, but did not. All gone now, combination of a psycho extractor that was my most stupid purchase ever, and the extreme comb cull we now undertake to attempt to rid ourselves of EFB where all combs are dated and allowed only a limited life.

Further proof of the annual clean out came with the use of white Pierco plastic foundation. By season end they were as black and opaque as any old wax brood comb, yet at the spring clean out you could hold them up to the light and the cell bottoms were again translucent.

No Pierco now either, all got rid of as it was not sterilisable.

 

[B+.]

No Pierco now either, all got rid of as it was not sterilisable.

I don't have foulbrood anywhere near me (acording to APHA) but this is exactly the reason I am cycling mine out now too.

 

[Into the lions den]

.
I keep minus one frame in supers. Langstroth medium 9 frame boxes have 15 kg. But my super have no pollen because bees store it into brood boxes.
.

9 frames does cut the number of bee spaces down by one so you can get a little more honey in, and the combs are fatter so the uncapper works better.

However we give the queen a free run and at 9 frames the bee space is not right if they want to place brood in that box. In poly boxes the positioning of brood in the hive can be a bit random at times, much more so than in wood, so you have to consider that any box up to about the fourth could contain some brood, even just a single side sometimes. Some go down even to 8 frames, but this gives rise to annoying amounts of cross comb in our experience except in the fastest flows.

Changes in spacing also compromises the ventilation during rapid flows and you get more bees hanging outside. Maybe not a big issue but we have shown by experiment that the bees produce a few percent more honey if the spacing is the same all the way up the hive and the combs are thus aligned as if they were very long verticals.

Maybe some of our BS beekeepers would like to try the same experiment? Choose two hives (better several however) that are pretty well identical and treat them the same way. Avoid any variations that give rise to 'confirmation bias' which is all too common in beekeeping. Run one (set?) with a broodnest at conventional spacing and then add Manley spacing supers on top. Run the other half of the experiment running only boxes with the same spacing as the broodnest (probably all deeps?). There is a statistically significant difference in performance.

But then...... against that there is the extra work ( a cost) of the extra frames, the extra clingage, and it is almost impossible to decide exactly which is best.

 

[stucat]

ITLD , you can't possibly be saying Finman is wrong could you ?
That's busted a myth for me, but I have a query. Blackened comb would imply to me they don't remove all the debris. So on a frame that old (not likely to be seen again) I'd love to know if they had lost cells at the sidessides because at that age , it may have shown in a whole cell or more from each edge.
I guess if you didn't have others like it or hadn't seen one before(or for a long time) it would be impossible to compare cell counts.

 

[Into the lions den]

ITLD , you can't possibly be saying Finman is wrong could you ?
That's busted a myth for me, but I have a query. Blackened comb would imply to me they don't remove all the debris. So on a frame that old (not likely to be seen again) I'd love to know if they had lost cells at the sidessides because at that age , it may have shown in a whole cell or more from each edge.
I guess if you didn't have others like it or hadn't seen one before(or for a long time) it would be impossible to compare cell counts.

No. They were just normal cells. We measured a lot of cells in combs of all ages including those in ferals and some very old comb in a museum at the time of the 4.9mm foundation size debate in which I was participating. The number of cells across would change as you say if the cob was expanding. It did not and the actual mechanics of such a concept is hopelessly complex anyway so it could not happen.

Not sure of the mechanism, probably some kind of permeation or impregnation of the cocoons by the wax, but they seem to somehow lose the wax both from the sidewalls and the midrib to the point the comb becomes largely composed of cocoon remnant rather than wax and is very papery and the midrib can be like cardboard. Render down a truly ancient brood comb and you get very little wax.

Finman is actually very rarely wrong. Presentation issues apart at times, I actually agree with much of what he has to say but maybe not the way he says it. C'est la vie. A lot of people do not seem to make allowances for the fact he is in another country and a native speaker of another language, and you always have to bear in mind he operates in a very different climate and floral situation. So do I from a lot of the regulars on here, so knowledge is only transferable if you take your local situation into account, and that of the person whose knowledge you are interpreting.

 

[Finman]

.
I keep brood combs as long as sun light comes through. Then I discard them. I keep brood combs about 2-3 years.

I have seen how bees brake down black combs. But it was 50 years ago in skeps.

So we have a myth, how much a hive box can have honey.
You just weigh it with bathroom balance before and after extracting. It is as impossible task as make your own 1:1 syrup.

And of course cells become smaller when larva generations make silk. And bees not do any spring cleaning, but if combs are moulded they tear it down.

I have next apparatus to evaluate my extracted honey: 200 litre stainless steel barrel.

 

[Finman]

9 frames does cut the number of bee spaces down by one so you can get a little more honey in, and the combs are fatter so the uncapper works better.

However we give the queen a free run and at 9 frames the bee space is not right if they want to place brood in that box. In poly boxes the positioning of brood in the hive can be a bit random at times, much more so than in wood, so you have to consider that any box up to about the fourth could contain some brood, even just a single side sometimes. Some go down even to 8 frames, but this gives rise to annoying amounts of cross comb in our experience except in the fastest flows.

Changes in spacing also compromises the ventilation during rapid flows and you get more bees hanging outside. Maybe not a big issue but we have shown by experiment that the bees produce a few percent more honey if the spacing is the same all the way up the hive and the combs are thus aligned as if they were very long verticals.

Maybe some of our BS beekeepers would like to try the same experiment? Choose two hives (better several however) that are pretty well identical and treat them the same way. Avoid any variations that give rise to 'confirmation bias' which is all too common in beekeeping. Run one (set?) with a broodnest at conventional spacing and then add Manley spacing supers on top. Run the other half of the experiment running only boxes with the same spacing as the broodnest (probably all deeps?). There is a statistically significant difference in performance.

But then...... against that there is the extra work ( a cost) of the extra frames, the extra clingage, and it is almost impossible to decide exactly which is best.

9 frame/10 is easy to uncap with electric knife.
Of course bees carry same honey from fields.

Amount of combs to store nectar is important. Mostly beginners do not know that, and not even experienced. When bees bring daily 5 kg more honey, volume of nectar is huge..

 

[mbc]

9 frame/10 is easy to uncap with electric knife.
Of course bees carry same honey from fields.

Amount of combs to store nectar is important. Mostly beginners do not know that, and not even experienced. When bees bring daily 5 kg more honey, volume of nectar is huge..

Begginers are also quite often short of drawn comb and sheets of foundation are no good for processing all that nectar .

 

[Finman]

Begginers are also quite often short of drawn comb and sheets of foundation are no good for processing all that nectar .

In strong flow it is usual that comb store of experienced beekeeper is finish too. At least guys tell so often.
Bees start to hang on outer walls and a loss in yield is huge.

 

[wessexmario]

If brood combs are old, pupa silk makes cells smaller.

I disagree.

Yes, while the pupae is developing the silk occupies space inside the wax cell, but once the bee emerges, the nursery bees refurbish the cells, polishing pushes the cell walls including the silk back out to the original size.

As brood comb gets older, then the proportion of silk increases, but so too the proportion of wax decreases. When you melt down old black combs you get very little wax out in comparison.
Comparing fresh and black combs, I don't see any difference in cell size. If anything, the old brood black cell walls are thinner and stronger than those made of fresh wax.

 

[Finman]

I disagree.

Yes, while the pupae is developing the silk occupies space inside the wax cell, but once the bee emerges, the nursery bees refurbish the cells, polishing pushes the cell walls including the silk back out to the original size.

As brood comb gets older, then the proportion of silk increases, but so too the proportion of wax decreases. When you melt down old black combs you get very little wax out in comparison.
Comparing fresh and black combs, I don't see any difference in cell size. If anything, the old brood black cell walls are thinner and stronger than those made of fresh wax.

You may disagree but you are 100% wrong.

When you melt the wax comb, the silk tube remains.
Where the wax goes ny itself?
.
There are too a small amount of larva poo between silk layers, which tells that larva does not eate much pollen grains.

.

 

[Finman]

I disagree.

Yes, while the pupae is developing the silk occupies space inside the wax cell, but once the bee emerges, the nursery bees refurbish the cells, polishing pushes the cell walls including the silk back out to the original size.

As brood comb gets older, then the proportion of silk increases, but so too the proportion of wax decreases. When you melt down old black combs you get very little wax out in comparison.
Comparing fresh and black combs, I don't see any difference in cell size. If anything, the old brood black cell walls are thinner and stronger than those made of fresh wax.

You may disagree but you are 100% wrong.

When you melt the wax comb, the silk tube remains.
Where the wax goes?
.

 

[BrianO]

To resurrect this old, but fascinating thread !

What hive type do larger scale producers use, Langstroth seems to be chosen design.

Is this because Hive parts can be purchased across Europe and probably cheaper ?

Is this hive more conducive to easy manipulations ? better for large scale hive honey production ?

Other types large scale operators use and why ?

 

[Hivemaker.]

What hive type do larger scale producers use

In this country....

National.
Commercial.
Langstroth.

 

[BrianO]

In this country....

National.
Commercial.
Langstroth.

Thanks.

Think you are what would be classed as a larger producer ?

Which would you consider best, any particular reasons ?