I was driving yesterday,  and pondering this question.   Randys wondering
about average size of northern colonies,  what would we say is average for
southern??  Obviously in most yards the size is limited as they are shaken
or split when they grow to large?  So what are we comparing too??

FYI  I shook about 200 hives completely in sept OH,  the hive average was
about 4lbs, so in the area of 14,000 bees.

Early spring hives from GA/FL package guys will have about 9-10lbs of bees.
Typicaly one shakes right at 2 3lb pacakages,  and leaves 3-4 lbs in the
hive.   That should put the early spring population around the 32-35k
average.  It should be noted that these are quite ready to swarm hives.



Charles

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