Starting to like to 8 frame deeps and mediums, any down side?

[Acebird]

You better have six or seven super on. Where the average yield is roughly 200 pounds per hive.

That is nuts.  Split the hive, use the same number of boxes and get 100 pounds off from each hive.  Way easier to work.

[cao]

I know this is getting a little off topic but it is interesting. 

Back to one brood box, our good queens will fill a frame totally with brood, two teaspoons of honey in the top corners, and will fill 6 frames like this, even will layout the insides of frames 1 and 8. Very rarely will they lay on the outside of 1 and 8.

It would be interesting if you would get more than double the honey if you gave your good queens a second box to lay in.  I know my larger hives that are laying in multiple boxes produce much more than my small to average hives.  I don't use excluders so the larger hives are laying in 2-3 boxes.  I have 5 hives that are 6-7 boxes tall right now(2-3 for brood, 1 empty just added last week and 3 boxes of partially capped honey).  I will probably get 5-6 boxes of honey off each of these hives this year.  By the end of the year they will bee back to 2-3 boxes for winter.

     If you do not have enough room on. You will slow the bees down. What happens bees can bring in nectar faster than they can evaporate the water.

That's what I've found with my larger hives.  They can draw out, fill and cap a medium box in about 2 weeks during a good flow.

That is nuts.  Split the hive, use the same number of boxes and get 100 pounds off from each hive.  Way easier to work.

The problem with that is if you split, you won't get 100 lbs per hive.  My smaller hives only give about 1/4 -1/3 as much honey as the bigger one.

[Oldbeavo]

We don't stack them, may be a hive might get to 3 supers, but as they fill one we take it and replace it with an empty.. This also allows us to keep varieties of honey separate for marketing.
We wouldn't have enough supers to stack 6-7 high, on average we run 2.5 supers per hive and keep a rotation going. It would be a big cost in supers and frames for us to run 6-7 supers per hive.
Also our extraction system runs best at a max. of 70 supers per run per day.

[Jim134]

You better have six or seven super on. Where the average yield is roughly 200 pounds per hive.

That is nuts.  Split the hive, use the same number of boxes and get 100 pounds off from each hive.  Way easier to work.

    If I did as you suggested. It would be lucky if I got 40 to 60 pounds of honey per hive. I really do not want to grow bees anymore. As a beekeeper you can do one of three things you might like to do with your bees. Grow bees, do pollination or make honey,


                       BEE HAPPY Jim 134 

[Acebird]

We don't stack them, may be a hive might get to 3 supers, but as they fill one we take it and replace it with an empty.. This also allows us to keep varieties of honey separate for marketing.

That is what I said in the first place.  You pull boxes off unless you want bragging rights.

  If I did as you suggested. It would be lucky if I got 40 to 60 pounds of honey per hive. I really do not want to grow bees anymore.

Good luck with that theory Jim.  You have to grow bees to make honey no way around it.
There are many beekeepers that use QE's and limit the size of the brood nest to one deep.  Then there are those that don't use a QE and the brood nest grows to 2 or 3 deeps.  They both make about the same amount of honey.  Logic says that if you let the hive grow to two deeps and split it in half it will make more honey than not splitting it.  Obviously a mated queen has to be introduced.  The purpose for managing the hives like this is to limit the height of the hives so you don't have to pull the honey AND to cover losses for overwintering.  If you end up with too many hives in the spring you sell them off at a very high premium.
This is something a hobbyist can do if they are running 8 frame equipment and don't want to work that hard.

[Oldbeavo]

I suppose to get back to the original topic, the thing that has come out of the discussion is that there are many systems to harvest honey. Therefore you need to develop a system that suits you and your nectar sources.
As a bee keeper that was around when the Beatles and Stones were the biggest thing around, I need a system that suits my ability to lift and move hives, 6-7 high is too high for me in a migratory system and to shift bees it is better at two high.
This also means that I favour 8 fr due to weight and then use full depth to lessen the number of frames that we handle at extraction.
If I was a stationary bee keeper then I would still run 8fr, maybe 2 brood boxes ( as I would be interested to see what area of brood the queen would use compared with one brood box). Even 2 brood boxes I would still run a Qx for ease of management at harvesting time.
The system you develop must be a compromise of honey yield and efficient management, this is related to the number of hives you run. At hobby level the system may be different to us that have a small business of 300 hives and have moved bees 6-7 times since the end of August.
We have a range of production per hive due to circumstances (lost queen, poor honey location) and genetic quality, we have expanded rapidly in the last 2 seasons, 130 hives to 300 in two seasons. So our range of yield per hive would be 40lb at the bottom to 220lb from our best hives. Need them all at the top end.

[little john]

  If I did as you suggested. It would be lucky if I got 40 to 60 pounds of honey per hive. I really do not want to grow bees anymore.

Good luck with that theory Jim.  You have to grow bees to make honey no way around it.
There are many beekeepers that use QE's and limit the size of the brood nest to one deep.  Then there are those that don't use a QE and the brood nest grows to 2 or 3 deeps.  They both make about the same amount of honey.  Logic says that if you let the hive grow to two deeps and split it in half it will make more honey than not splitting it.  Obviously a mated queen has to be introduced.

Hi Brian.
What you appear to be saying is that if you take a hive of 2x-strength, and divide it into 2 hives each of 1x-strength, then - after supplying the obligatory queen - by working independently of each other their combined honey yield will be greater than that of the '2x hive'.  Hope I've got that right.

I'm not a honey-farmer, and restrict myself only to 'growing bees' and raising queens. One system currently on trial here has 3 queens in one box - that's one 'mother' queen with 2 of her daughters separated behind mesh partitions.  If this trial is successful, then that system will be maxed-out to 5 queens per box (one mother with 4 daughters similarly housed).
Because of this large number of laying queens (even for a relatively short time), an abnormally large concentration of various queen pheromones will exist within the box, and so I've been researching the possible consequences of this.

The only information I've gathered so far has been related to 2-queen systems - meaning '2-queen honey production systems' in which, by the taking of two 1x-strength hives, and putting them close together with a single stack of supers over, common to both hives - the honey yield has then vastly increased, well in excess of '2x'. In several articles, the increase in the amount of honey returned by effectively doubling the brood strength was dramatic - several hundred pounds per 'twin-hive', contrasted with seventy or eighty per individual hive.  Thus it would appear that there is an exponential correlation between brood box strength and honey-gathering potential.

The only down-side to this mode of operation appears to be that it's something of a hassle to set-up and run, and as such doesn't lend itself well to migratory operation.
LJ

[Jim134]

This is something a hobbyist can do if they are running 8 frame equipment and don't want to work that hard.

     If this is your goal, I would definitely look into AZ Hives. Where you only lift one frame at a time.Also you are on a continuous Harvest cycle.


            BEE HAPPY Jim 134   

[Acebird]

Hi Brian.
What you appear to be saying is that if you take a hive of 2x-strength, and divide it into 2 hives each of 1x-strength, then - after supplying the obligatory queen - by working independently of each other their combined honey yield will be greater than that of the '2x hive'.  Hope I've got that right.

Or at least equal.
Assumptions:
1  The 1x split must be large enough that it does not impede either queens capacity to lay eggs.
2  This must occur before the first major flow so it is not lost.

Item 2 just about forces the need for an overwintered hive with a good queen.  It is unlikely, especially where I am to accomplish this with a package or nuc.  But if we are talking a package or nuc then the problem of a hive getting too high isn't going to happen anyway even with 8 frame equipment.  Just about the time the package or nuc gets to the 1x size the major flow is over.  The colony goes into winter survival mode and usually won't swarm unless the beekeeper makes a mistake.

A 2x hive after the major flow can become a robber hive and pounce on the little guys next to it making it continue to grow into a bragger hive.  Michael P suggest making nucs in July and August for overwintering and I wonder how he avoids this potential problem.  My only guess is that he robs the production hives of honey which will knock them down and then crams them full of sugar water in September to build the hive and the stores back up for winter.

[Jim134]

  If you want to keep danks and give out bad advice that's okay. I just hope someone does there own homework. Hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend.


             BEE HAPPY Jim 134 

[Oldbeavo]

Please translate "danks"!
Not in Oz dictionary.

[Acebird]

Danks are colonies that don't amount to anything.  The discussion has nothing to do with danks. 

[Jim134]

Danks are caused by Nature as well as poor management practices. When caused by Nature it's usually the bottom 10% of your production. This term is used by all kinds of farmers at least here in New England in the USA. I do realize this is the slang term.


          BEE HAPPY Jim 134

[Fusion_power]

We call them dinks down here in Alabama, aka duds, aka no honey crop.

I'm with Jim.  Big hives = big honey crops.  Brother Adam made a point of telling exactly why small hives inevitably restrict the queens laying and reduce the honey crop.  If anyone thinks a single 8 frame box has enough room for a productive queen, I'd invite you to take a look inside my square Dadant (Brother Adam) hives with 12 frames of brood.  8 Langstroth frames have roughly 56,000 cells for the queen to lay in.  I'm seeing up to 90,000 cells of brood in the best colonies.  When a queen is laying to her max, she can plop out over 4000 eggs per day.  That only takes a queen 14 days to fill up an 8 frame Langstroth box.

[Oldbeavo]

So what does your 12fr brood box produce in lbs of honey in a season?
As migratory bee keepers the size of the hive and lifting become important but I also think that a good 8fr box can be very efficient in collecting honey.
Our better hives have done about 200lb in a pretty tough season, with 6 shifts since pollenating almonds. Best hive 8 stickies, full and capped in 12 days.

[Acebird]

So many variables.  If you are migratory you are bringing the bees to the nectar source.  Foragers are flying short distances so it takes less bees per pound of nectar then open fields of wild flowers.  If your hives have 90000 cells for brood then you have to get rid of those bees when the nectar tapers off or they will consume the crop.  So like all things it will depend on what you are doing for the conditions you have for maximum yield.

[D Semple]

The downside. I see the hive needs to be stacked taller.

The beekeeper dictates how high the hive gets with the decision to pull or not pull.  Some would consider pulling sooner an advantage.  Especially if you are going after pure sources.

Oh, if it was just that easy.

Can't pull boxes until the honey is capped Ace 


Combination of Stacked too high (along with a narrower boxes) does make for some extra work and special care to keep them from wanting to become leaners.


Don

 

[Fusion_power]

This is my first full year with the square Dadant hives.  My best colony has put up 1 full square deep and one shallow of honey.  That will extract somewhere close to 120 pounds of honey.  Not bad for Alabama and non-migratory beekeeping.  I am raising queens from the best producers this year to requeen colonies for next year.

If your hives have 90000 cells for brood then you have to get rid of those bees when the nectar tapers off or they will consume the crop.

  My bees naturally shut down brood rearing when the flow ends.  By early July, they are back down to a size to fill a single box again.

[Oldbeavo]

Ace bird
You are absolutely correct, the variable of you area and system will determine the size of your equipment.
Where I live in Northern Victoria in Australia, I can't think of an area within 100 mile of home that would sustain a group of ours, 50 hives, for 12 months of the year. The variability of the trees between seasons is what makes us migratory. Some sites may not be used for 3 or4 years and every second year is common. So we are always looking for bud and trying to plan the rest of the season.

[Jim134]

So many variables.  If you are migratory you are bringing the bees to the nectar source.  Foragers are flying short distances so it takes less bees per pound of nectar then open fields of wild flowers.  If your hives have 90000 cells for brood then you have to get rid of those bees when the nectar tapers off or they will consume the crop.  So like all things it will depend on what you are doing for the conditions you have for maximum yield.

      Something I learned a long time ago. Location location location. Most likely you do not have a very good one. At least that's the way it sounds from your description.


                   BEE HAPPY Jim 134