For the last couple of years, we have been conducting a survey of the weight of the package bees that were picked up by various beeks in this area from a various suppliers. The protocol is to weigh the package of bees as received​; package, syrup can, bees, queen and cage, everything just before shaking the bees into a colony. This can be done with a kitchen scale right in the bee yard. Then weighing everything again, making certain that all of the components of the package are kept together (without the queen cage). A Benton queen cage weighs about 1/2 ounce and a JZ-BZ queen cage weighs about 1/8 ounce. The weight of the cage is not a significant factor in the weighing package bees. My assumptions have been that as long as the package has ample food / syrup or other nutrition sources, subtracting the before installation weight and after installation package weights would give not only the weight of the bees in the package as installed but also close to the initial weight of bees in the package as long as there were few dead bees. The amount of syrup consumed is used by the bees to maintain their metabolic functions and the weight of the bees would remain a relative constant as long as there was sufficient nutrition. This year I have been challenged by a supplier in that the initial weight of the bees in the package is equal to the final weight of the bees in the package PLUS the weight of the syrup consumed. I do not believe that this is correct. But my assumptions may be flawed. I do believe that there may be some weight losses due to the stresses of bees in packages ans in shipping but... The example specifically being cited was the purchase of a package that the supplier states that had #3 of bees shipped. The package was weighed per the above protocol and the weight of the bees were 2#-4 oz, when installed. The syrup can was less than 1/2 full and ( in my opinion by happenstance), the calculated weight of syrup missing added to the 2#-4 oz of bees almost equaled 3#. But this would mean that the bees lost 25% of their weight [(final weight-initial weight) / initial weight] or in other words, the weight of the bees at installation is 75% of their initial weight (final weight / initial weight) Historically (2-3 years worth of sketchy data) indicates that a local vendor that purchases bees from a Georgia apiary constantly has packages with 2.5# of bees (syrup cans over 1.2 full) and that a different vendor that purchase bees from a California apiary has packages that weigh consistently over 3# and as high as 4# with syrup cans at 1/4 full or less. Limited data set for both though. This weighing of packages is the only QC we have as to what is the weight of bees are actually in a package of bees. Our only attempt to verify that the suppliers as shipping what the state they are shipping. Comments on anticipated weight loss on a packages with ample nutritional stores or other comments are invited. Dennis very western New York State, USA *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html