On Fri, 14 Jan 2000 17:41:08 -0700, Allen Dick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> While in San Diego, I bought Bee Culture's pollination video "The
> Honey Bee -- A growers Guide".  It's a great video, but one thing
> bothered me: the part about brood area.  Frankly, I'd be afraid
> to show it to a grower -- and that was my intent in buying it.

I've had some more thoughts on this since then and written a bit more about
it at http://www.internode.net/HoneyBee/ in Friday's diary.  This whole
matter concerns me quite a bit.  For one thing, it makes me realize how
unobservant we are, and what a bad job we do of estimations sometimes, and
how unscientific and subjective our business is.

I also am amazed that, after calculating possible brood area from numbers
given by good authorities, and after counting the cells on a normal frame,
that I want, somehow to believe that I have seen more brood in a hive than
I can possibly have seen.

I'd like to believe in as many as eight full frames of brood sometimes.
But when I calculate it out I realise that my mind must have been playing
tricks.  I also realise that estimating areas of circles or elipses on
rectangles is tricky.

What are the true numbers on how many eggs a good queen can lay for weeks
on end?  Is it the 1,500 to 2,000 that I found in the books, or some other
number?

Has anyone here actually measured brood areas in hives scientifically for a
period of time or counted the egg output of a queen?  Or do we all just go
by what we think we see?

Anyone?

allen