most of the below was taken from the book , Practical bee keeping by Clive de Bruyn, one of the better books to learn from
If one works on the princible that an average queen can lay 2000 eggs per day. Some strain will lay less and a few a little more but 2000 eggs in a day is a standard figure that most will not be able to match, so we now go to the following simple agrement that after egg has been laid the worker will occupy the cell for 21 days, so we need 2000 cells per day and 21 days long thats 42,000 cells needed before she can reuse the old and first cell again, if we also allow for drone cells 500 and honey stores 10,000 and some pollen 10,000 and lets have some unused or unwanted cells 9,500,
we now have to supply in a brood box at least 72,000 cells for the girls to use roughly
has that made your head hurt yet, well theres more
now lets talk cell sizes each cell is 5mm so thats for cells to a square centimetre and a standard british brood frame can hold 5,200 so we now have what the girls want size wise and what we can supply, where have i heard that conversation before ??
so lets see what we have for the ladies
National size brood box of 11 frame will have around 57,100 cells so that is a bit cramped and with todays super ? bees far to small
we could use the extra deep like the ones i have and will always use 12 x 14 frames will give us 78,550 cells so thats 5,000 more than needed still enough for a normal bee but maybe a little tight for our so called super bees, we could add a half frame or a hony super to the brood box but that will only add 35,000 more cells to our brood
wbc is tiny only haveing 52,000 very cramped!!
smith hive will give use a brood of 57,000 cells but the scotish are always tight and never give the ladies what they realy want ( only jokeing)
how about a commercial hive she will give us 74,250 cells for the ladies so thats around 2,000 more but with our new super bees maybe not enough
langstroth hive is used the world over and will produce 72,250 cells a lovely fit but maybe a little small for our modern bee perhaps so we are left with brother adams dadant hive , easily producing 93,700 cells without evan trying,
so why have we not all burnt our hives and run out to get dadants
instead ??? simple the bees i have are able to live very happily in my simple 78,550 cell home and have done for years ago and to come, there is alot of new? bee strains and breeds coming into the market and these new bees start earlier and breed quicker and do everything differant than the hives of old, that is also why we keep getting new hive designs from every where, but i have noticed they are mainly from the uk not europe, now does that realy cofuse you or what, now sit back and watch the arguements start about double drood boxes and all sorts of other junk, from someone who has looked at bee keeping from a commercial point of view time is money etc, think of this why double the amount of work you have to do from looking at 10 or 12 frames to 20 to 24 frames and having to shift another box and causing alsorts of problems for the ladies when we can do it with one
