At 09:42 AM 1/6/98 -0500, you wrote:
 
Hi Gene & All, Good Questions!
 
>It is curious to me how small a hive could be to start off and survive.
 
The best size package of bees to start off with in most areas of the US and Canada in the early spring is two pounds and a young mated queen. In two months this hive will under good conditions be a very strong and productive hive for any summer honey flows. Of course areas of the southwest US that have the main honey flow in the spring such as Mesquite, or even Citrus will be disappointed with spring package bees.
 
>Could  queen and an "handful" of workers of different ages establish a hive?
>What would be the smallest number of workers required?
 
Four onces of bees in a small nuc box and a queen cell can in the spring build up to a full hive by summer and make enough stores to survive the winter.
 
>In nature, I would imagine, such a small colony would not survive or would it. It seems bees are quite
>adaptable under different kind of stresses.
 
Survival rates on healthy established colonies with young queens are the same today as they ever were.
The secret is in having that young queen and a healthy hive, anything less the survival rate dramatically reduced. Today a hundred hives of bees with no care in California will all die by the 2nd or 3rd year and few if any will be restocked by swarms.
 
>Could a queen by her self survive?Could a queen by herself actually raise a new colony?
 
A queen can not even fed herself. A queen is no more then an egg laying machine and she is helpless without worker bees.
 
 
Years ago when there was a good, happy, trade with Canadian beekeepers in package bees from California someone in Canada got excited about getting short weighted packages.
 
At the time we all used balance scales that were not very accurate and in tests over several seasons packages were taken from many different loads of packages and from many different shippers to see who was getting what. (It is well to remember that both package bee men and most package bee buyers were happy with the results of receiving these package up to that time.)
 
The results of these test's indeed showed that packages were arriving in Canada lighter then what beekeepers there were paying for, or they were short in weight. Some were as much as 1/2 a pound light in a 2 pound packages to 3/4 or more over. The bees were installed in government hives and tracked for a season, (No use wasting them.)
 
THE REST OF THE STORY,...California beekeepers went to more expensive and very accurate scales costing at the time $150.00 each and all packages shipped were from that day accurate in weight. I paid for my own the first week in recovering the bees that I was giving away with the old scales.
 
The results of the government hives that season surprised everyone, the poor beekeeper who was branded as short weighing all his packages had the packages that made the greatest amount of honey by far. In the end everyone was a winner as with the new scales a good package shipper could pay for them in a few days by the saying in bees that he was giving away and the Canadian beekeepers were got enlightenment both in mind and pocketbook by having the knowledge that small packages were capable of building strong hive and producing big crops and paying for the extra bees he once got for nothing.
 
Both sides should have been happy, but the extra money has never made the difference to the California beekeepers who were accused of short weighing packages by their brother beekeepers in Canada.
 
All was made a mute point when responding to the hype of a few Northern California package beekeepers spreading the Gospel of Fear to the Canadian beekeepers on the dreaded mites, maybe only to gain a edge or advantage over souther state bee breeders found the response a little different then they expected and ALL bees from the US were prohibited in an bee health embargo and this continues to this day.
 
I guess it would be fair to say that if total bee population in Canada are down it is directly due to the mites and today the fear of Afro bees they say they don't have or did not have at one time. One thing that for sure don't have in Canada is package bees and queens from California and the US but they now most Canadian beekeepers can with the rest of us enjoy the adventure of wintering bees and the costs to do it.
 
ttul, the OLd Drone
Los Banos, California
 
 
(c)Permission is given to copy this document
in any form, or to print for any use.
 
(w)OPINIONS are not necessarily facts. USE  AT OWN RISK!