Number of hives sustained by OSR

[John Twidle]

A colleague has been approached by a farmer who has planted / is planting around 90 acres of OSR and has offered to share the site. How many hives would members believe such a site would support?

 

[masterBK]

If you are migrating hives to and just for the crop then 90 acres of OSR will support quite a few (maybe 20 or more hives) for the three weeks it is yielding. However if you are thinking longer term eg permanent out apiary then need to think about the other forage for spring build up and the other weeks of the active season. Some areas of the countryside can be a Bee flower desert in the weeks before and after the OSR. I have seen colonies starve when the only available crop is OSR. Also if the crop flowers very early or there is cold, windy or wet weather during the flowering period then not a good place for the bees.

 

[Ian123]

If you have 90 acres I don’t think you’ll be able to put enough!!! I’ve seen 1 hive per hec asked for. Many that grow osr also follow up with beans. So go ahead and good luck if the weather is crap keep an eye on food levels but in fairness there’s normally some patch that’s sheltered and in sun that’s yielding to some degree. If the weather is good you won’t have enough as above 20-30 plus you will be fine. Biggest issue is keeping them in the hive

 

[smok]

usely its one strong hive best double brood box with tower of suppers per 5 acre

 

[Patrick1]

Treat it like a hit and go, a monoculture is not a good crop necessarily it will boost the hive and increase the swarming instincts, it is a good early crop to build nucs on, unfortunately well bred queens will not be available early enough for splits. It is usually part of a 3 year rotation crop in our area, if you can in the future remember or ask what they are planting near you then you can really benefit from over wintered queens.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

A colleague has been approached by a farmer who has planted / is planting around 90 acres of OSR and has offered to share the site. How many hives would members believe such a site would support?

90 acres (plus probably more not far away if other nearby farms also grow rape) - how many hives have you and he/she got? If it turns out to be a good growing year you might need to take plenty of spare equipment for swarm control plus every spare super available to keep pace with the possible flow if nectar blocking prompting swarm preparations is to be avoided A lot will depend on the strain of rape grown as I've heard some beekeeper mutterings about lesser nectar yield from selfie strains. Do you have access to the possibly required extraction capacity if it's a high yield variety?

 

[Amari]

Yes, we often read that some strains of OSR yield more honey than others. It would be good to see the evidence though I doubt that there is any.

 

[Wingy]

Have myself just been given 2 sites for OSR next season. I will be looking at 3 hives per site but will be combining 2 hives into 1 to give an instant strong work force. So will be 12 hives in total. I then bank my spare 6 Queens in nucs with a few bees to build up for the main summer flow. You also need to plan ahead and use young productive queens, I bread mine last year and monitored their build up last season