Chris said: > Is there any correlation between numbers of hives kept > in a small area and the relative difficulty in getting > them through lean times? I guess if one were to keep bees in the Sahara Desert, with the only forage within flight range in a limited area around an oasis, one might "overload" the area with hives to the point of having some hives in danger of starving. In a less extreme case, it seems reasonable to think that one could "saturate" a specific area with hives, and see a lower yield per hive. There has to be a "Nth hive", which, if placed in the area, adds nothing to the net harvest. But has anyone ever seen this, or even attempted to find the exact "productive limit" for any one area? I doubt it. Too many variables. A typical bee has a "lifetime" that appears to be limited by distance flown. (A. Neukirch, 1982. "Dependence of the life span of the honey bee (Apis mellifica) upon flight performance and energy consumption". [J. Comp. Physiology] 146B:35-40) Bees are estimated to only fly 140 to 500 miles in a lifetime. So, even though bees can forage at long distances from the hive (I recall the "record" being 15 miles from the hive for marked bees, but I don't remember where I read this), long distances clearly reduce both the number of completed sorties per bee, and the number of trips per bee lifetime. Bees are said to be able to carry a maximum "payload" of 90 milligrams of nectar, so if you estimate the bees, the blossoms, and the average amount of nectar per blossom, I'd guess you could get a rough idea. But the "poor foraging conditions" I spoke of had nothing to do with limited available forage. What I spoke of was seemingly unending daytime rain, limiting flight hours. The rain continues here in Virginia. I can barely keep the grass cut between rains. Things have grown and bloomed better than in the past 5 years. But flight ops are grounded more often than they are not, and there is nothing to do but crank up the stereo and play the song "Who'll Stop The Rain?" by "Creedence Clearwater Revival", or better yet, "Riders on the Storm" by the Doors. For the past 5 years or so, things were so dry that there was nothing to do but play a different song by Creedence - "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?". The neat thing about replacing one's CD player with an old Sun Sparc 4 server and a big disc array is that one can set up entire days of "appropriate" music for one's mood with a single "Google"-like query. Other good music to play if one the lacks the scuba gear apparently required to work one's hives includes: Song/Artist ------------ Always the sun/The Stranglers Blame it on the weatherman/B*witched Candle in the wind/Elton John Cloudbusting/Kate Bush Cloud Nine/Temptations Cruel Summer/Bananarama Crying in the rain/A-ha Don't let the sun go down on me/Elton John Here comes that rainy day feeling again/The Fortunes Here comes the rain again/Eurythmics Here comes the sun/George Harrison I can't stand the rain/Eruption Invisible sun/The Police It never rains/Dire Straits It's raining again/Supertramp I wish it would rain/Temptations Just walking in the rain/Johnny Ray Like a hurricane/The Mission Like the weather/10000 Maniacs November rain/Guns n Roses Once upon the weather/Agnes Poetry No rain/Sting Purple rain/Prince ** Rain/Madonna Rain/Orange Juice Jones ** Rain/The Cult Rain and tears/Aphrodite's Child Raindrops keep falling on my head/Dionne Warwick ** Rain in May/Max Werner Rainy day in London/Boulevard Rainy days and Mondays/Carpenters Rock you like a hurricane/Scorpions Run like the wind/Mike Batt Rythm of the falling rain/The Cascades Seasons in the sun/Terry Jacks Shadows in the rain/The Police She like's the weather/Counting Crows She's a rainbow/Rolling Stones Song of the wind/Project Pitchfork Standin' in the rain/ELO Summer and lightning/ELO Summer rain/Alphaville The sun ain't gonna shine any more/The Walker Brothers Thunder/East 17 Thunder in my heart/Leo Sayer Thunderstruck/ AC/DC Waiting for the hurricane/Chris de Burgh Waiting for the sun/The Doors When the rain begins to fall/Pia Zadora & Jermaine Jackson ** White clouds/Tangerine Dream You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows/Dylan (** Indicates songs that one should avoid. I fear that the entire system would self-destruct rather than play such music.) jim :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::