In message <000001c3f696$d68eb5b0$11e5fea9@your>, Tom Martin <[log in to unmask]> writes > This mention of 3rd year queens out-producing young queens is an >interesting observation. > Do you have any ideas as to why this is? I have no idea, but will consult a friend with whom I co-operate in beekeeping and teaching a course, who reports the same thing (we are not talking about a general rule, but that we have some 3rd year queens which outperform first years). He does as a rule, stimulate his colonies in the spring and even gives them a new frame of foundation in the middle of the nest, long before I would. Like most of my hives, he works to the British National hive, in single boxes, and reports at least one static apiary with 160lb averages each year plus nuclei made up from them. He can have 3 major nectar flows in at least one apiary, though the heather flow merges with the later summer flow. Generally I have young queens, first year (technically second season), and the excellent performance came from a line which always performed well and had evidently some degree of hybridisation and possibly therefore increased hybrid vigour. Though I do everything I can to maintain valuable local traits, there is variability. Neither that colony nor the majority of the others had been fed that year, as it has not been by practice to feed a production colony except in emergency in a poor spring. It had gone into the winter with around 90lb of stores, on account of the large size of frame. This is more than double the norm for our area, which has mild winters and early springs. The year of the excellent performance was particularly good, with any colony that built up rapidly in the spring getting a good spring crop. In this season, the best colonies had a head start on the others, with around and in some cases, in excess of 50lb before the end of spring in the supers, also high fro the area. I think now, that with the earlier springs we are getting, that a rapid spring build up makes all the difference to the honey crop. The colony I mentioned may have been marginally faster off the mark and with the deep frames, had that many more foraging bees in spring than its deep frame neighbours and certainly many more than its standard frame rivals in other apiaries. In other words it is not the norm, but noticeable when it happens. Nowadays, I will stimulate a selection of colonies in early spring (as soon as the temperature rises again - we seem to have returned to winter here, with non-flying temperatures of 4-6C or so, having had a period with 12C+ in the middle of the day), starting with the over-wintered old and new queen nucs. I am replacing queens annually where the mite count is higher anyway, so I replace more queens than hitherto and my average queen age will go down. I am rearing from those with the lowest mite counts and other good traits. I see no reason to replace a good performing queen that hasn't made swarming preparations, in the hope that she will eventually supersede, or at least get to 3 years before the colony sets up swarming! BTW, I have had years when virtually all my first season queens (one year old) made swarming preparations! But it may just have been the steadily earlier spring build up that stimulated this situation and a resulting laying space problem. My practice being to replace 1/3 of frames each year with foundation, allows me to put frames of foundation in the centre of the nest each week for 3-4 weeks. Usually this keeps the space fine and I have never seen a 14" sq framed hive run out of space to lay with this regime, though it may have been a close thing at times. The boxes for 14" sq frames are too large to run to a second brood chamber and the queen rarely lays over the top in a super (if I remove the queen excluder) unless I don't have a honey barrier! However, increasingly, where I have the standard size brood chamber (8 1/2" deep frames x 14" wide) I am adding a second box which gives me further options for a while. -- James Kilty :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::