Peter wrote:
"I get the impression that you folks feed an awful lot more than me 
(rarely more than 12lbs equivalent of sugar)."

Not me!  I haven't routinely fed my bees for years and very rarely lose 
bees to starvation, except occasionally isolation starvation when there 
are adequate stores but not within reach of the cluster.  If you rob 
them too heavily and then feed sugar either you will feed too little 
and they will starve; you will feed the right amount, in which case 
there is a career opening for you at the Meteorological Office; or you 
will feed too much and you will end up bottling and selling partially 
recycled sugar.  In my opinion any sugar/syrup fed to bees should be 
tinted with food dye (blue's a good colour as there are few foods that 
naturally are blue) to make it obvious where the artificial stores end 
up.

You get what you select for.  If you don't allow Darwin to de-select 
the bees that need artificial feeding, you will always need to feed 
your bees.

I tend to take my crop later than the books recommend in order to allow 
them to reduce the brood nest and pack it around with stores. Then 
everything above the QE (in National hives) is mine.  I also run a few 
top bar hives.  They seem to do well and I take my crop from them at 
dandelion/willow time.

Honey production varies tremendously between hives: you might get a 
hundredweight from one hive and a couple of stones from the one next to 
it.  I have had the occasional hive supered to be taller than me but 
that is unusual.  It is years since I recorded the honey crop per hive 
but, as I recall, the average over several years was about 45lb per 
hive.

Chris




  

             ***********************************************
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