> no beekeeper making a living from bees could devote 2 hours and forty
minutes to each hive or even a hour to each hive.

I'm pretty sure they mean per season, not per visit.

Still the figure is way off from U.S. commercial beekeeping time spent per
season per hive at an hour.
To brag they have reduced the time spent from 2 hours & forty minutes per
hive to an hour seems ludicrous. Time is money (if you are they person 
paying
the help.)

All to *supposedly* reduce swarming from 15 to 2 swarms per year in 60 
hives.

Exchanging 4 solid drone comb  frames for four worker brood frames *in the 
middle
of the brood nest* could not possibly increase the yield of honey.

If you figure the amount of stores needed to care for all the drone brood
plus feed the non productive drones lounging around and the strength of the
hive less due to the loss of the workers even a new beekeeper should see
through such an absurd plan just to prevent swarming.

Maybe in Slovakia the plan seems reasonable but I sent the email to a couple
commercial beekeepers and they thought it was a joke. A total waste of time!

I have explained many times the way commercial beekeepers set up their hives
in spring and run through the year.(in the archives). The method has been
used for generations and I have never found a superior method.

bob h.

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