Liebefelder estimation

[Obee1]

Just been bringing them back in the last few days, they have already fed themselves on heather honey, they don't have much time to rebound and compare in strength with those colonies that did not go to the moors, and they don't, plus don't forget the colonies that remained behind will also be getting stronger themselves, it is in the spring the heather going colonies are more advanced, i think it has more to do with the heather honey.

So going by this numbers thing should we be shaking a load of bees out of the strong colonies that remained behind, in October, to weaken them to the same degree as the heather going bees, so as to make them stronger in spring as well?

It might be interesting to experiment to see if the heather honey is what makes the colonies more advanced in spring. Or it could be the hard graft wearing them out that gives them the advantage later on.

 

[B+.]

The "winter resistence" test I do is the difference between the number of bees in mid October and mid March (willow bloom time when brood rearing starts again). Colonies are scored:
1 point <= 30%
2 points <= 70%
3 points <= 90%
4 points > 90%

Of course, you'll get a normal distribution but its the high scoring groups of colonies (sister queens) that you can select overwintering ability from

You can see what I'm talking about here 8:15 onwards https://av.getinfo.de/media/9234?0