Ratio of foraging to house/nurse bees

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

domino

Queen Bee
***
Joined
Dec 21, 2011
Messages
2,332
Reaction score
105
Location
South London
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
10
My google-fu is rubbish, I've had a look but not found a good answer.

I'm looking for some reference on the proportion of flying bees (i.e. foraging) to housework type bees.

If you moved a hive without shutting it up in the middle of the day roughly how many flying bees would you lose?

Not a question about moving hives, just population ratios.

Cheers
 
I think that there is no such ratio.

In spring there lots of young bees because winter bees are dead. Then brooding is growing and produce more young bees.

Then swarming happens. They are mostly young because emerging curve has been up. Older bees leave the hive and they are in the swarm hive. Swarm bees become old before new bees emerge.

Then two swarms leave the hive and there are only young bees and brood in the old hive. No larvae.

A swarm makes brood, and it takes about 4 weeks that new bees start to emerge. The cast takes lots of time , that new bees start to emerge. It takes sbout 5 weeks

And so on.

If you are going to get honey, you must join different type colonies so that the hive has brood and foragers.

- brood gives continuous flow nurser bees
- nurser bees turn to foragers.

3 weeks as nurser bees and 3 weeks as foragers.

With swarm control operations you can mix ratio just like you want.
 
Last edited:
And don’t forget that a swarm is composed mainly of young bees.
These are needed immediately as wax workers and feeders of new brood. Not much point in taking a huge cohort of clapped out old foragers.
There is an interesting set of figures in this post

https://www.theapiarist.org/natural-and-artificial-swarms/
 
And don’t forget that a swarm is composed mainly of young bees.

Because colony is growing.
And then young swarm bees become soon old.

After 3 weeks all swarm bees are at the age of foragers, but somebody must nurse the brood. And half of swarm bees have died after 3 weeks. No new bees yet.
 
Last edited:
You might find this interesting, we link to it on our website but for convenience here it is, free to download : https://beehave-model.net/


BEEHAVE is a computer model to simulate the development of a honeybee colony and its nectar and pollen foraging behavior in different landscapes.

The purpose of BEEHAVE is to allow multiple stressors of honeybee colonies within a hive and in the landscape to be represented, either alone or in combination, to understand their potential influence on colony development and survival: e.g. varroa mites transmitting deformed wing virus (DVW) or acute paralysis virus (APV), effects of several beekeeping practices, poor forage availability or even forage gaps in the landscape, and pesticide-induced losses of in-hive bees and foragers, in-hive bees, or brood.
 
.
You might find this interesting, we link to it on our website but for convenience here it is, free to download : https://beehave-model.net/


BEEHAVE is a computer model to simulate the development of a honeybee colony and its nectar and pollen foraging behavior in different landscapes.

The purpose of BEEHAVE is to allow multiple stressors of honeybee colonies within a hive and in the landscape to be represented, either alone or in combination, to understand their potential influence on colony development and survival: e.g. varroa mites transmitting deformed wing virus (DVW) or acute paralysis virus (APV), effects of several beekeeping practices, poor forage availability or even forage gaps in the landscape, and pesticide-induced losses of in-hive bees and foragers, in-hive bees, or brood.

Sounds a miracle to me. Like Mr Phantom.
From where you get data into the program?
.
 
Sounds a miracle to me. Like Mr Phantom.
From where you get data into the program?.

You are always sooo positive !
I thought you were a clever bloke.... read the website
 
You are always sooo positive !
I thought you were a clever bloke.... read the website


Even as a joke terrible to read.

I know so much beekeeping and biology that I do not mind. If you keep humbug as positive, you are really happy man

That system is rubbish in and cold out.
I prefer Welsh cheep jokes
 
Last edited:
While I was starting to learn about bees, in literature is mentioned that somewhat optimal ratio in strong forages is 2:1 receivers:foragers. There is one excellent text if You want to read:

When home bees live 3 weeks and foragers 3 weeks, how do you get optimal ratio 2:1

Ratio is moving all the time.
 
Yet another poorly thought through question.

Closed up on a winters day - no losses. Nor any flying bees to worry about, for that matter.

Population matters are easy to work out. There is a huge number of references out there.

The simplistc answer to your question of how many? ALL OF THEM, OF COURSE!!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top