Don't post much, anymore - too much travel and barely enough free time to maintain the property and take care of the bees. Catch up on Bee-L, when I can. But, thought I would add what I remember from my 'bee math' from years ago, when I first wanted to answer the question "How many bees are in a hive?" These days, I care more about overall colony health, rather than size, but it was a simple spreadsheet exercise that I just reproduced to generate the numbers below. Please shoot holes as necessary. Note: I did search the archives before posting, but could not find this info specifically. Probably there, just did not use the right search terms.
Rate limiters on bee population:
1) Life span of a bee - once a queen is laying throughout one bee lifecycle, it becomes a steady-state process - bees are born, bees die - unless her egg-laying rate changes or the bee life-span changes.
2) Egg-laying rate of the queen - the more she can bang out during one bee lifecycle, the more total bees there will be - so to speak.
3) Available egg-laying space - queen may be an egg-laying machine, but without sufficient space - fewer eggs. One of the reasons I run three deeps is to allow for maximum egg-laying by trying to minimize over-filling of the brood chamber with food stores. Might also lower the urge to swarm, if they don't become overcrowded (I know other factors are at play, but thought I would mention in the interest of full disclosure).
Assumptions:
#1) The most common average lifespan number I have seen for bees during the active season is 42 days - 6 weeks. Some quote less, some more, but it is not 2 weeks and it is not 30 weeks.
#2) The numbers I have seen for egg-laying rate of a queen are all over the map, ranging from 1,000 per day to 3,000+ per day. Al little math shows the following:
Rate per day Rate per hour Rate per minute
1000 41.7 0.7
1500 62.5 1.0
2000 83.3 1.4
2500 104.2 1.7
3000 125.0 2.1
I leave it to others to determine the sustainability of numbers much over 1.5 / minute, given the need to find available cells, especially across frames, the time for maintenance by her entourage, ability to lay continuously 24 hours a day, etc. For the math below, the assumption is that egg-laying rate remains constant. Does not assume slow-downs due to lack of incoming food, season, etc. Focus is on max. production under optimal conditions.
#3) The assumption is that there is no limitation on egg-laying space from encroaching stores, etc. and that it is all readily accessible by the queen. Best case scenario.
#4) There are no 'unusual' events - no pesticide kills, no double-queen laying, no supercedure, no swarms, no skunk attacks......
The numbers using 1,000 to 3,000 eggs per day Rates and Avg. (42D), Max. (49D) and Min. (35D) Lifespans:
Rate Lifespan Total
1,000 42 42,000
1,500 42 63,000
2,000 42 84,000
2,500 42 105,000
3,000 42 126,000
1,000 49 49,000
1,500 49 73,500
2,000 49 98,000
2,500 49 122,500
3,000 49 147,000
1,000 35 35,000
1,500 35 52,500
2,000 35 70,000
2,500 35 87,500
3,000 35 105,000
Again, years ago, I read that the typical maximum colony size, base on the above factors, was around 60,000 bees. If you assume 1,500 per day, with a lifespan of 42 days, that's just about on that number, and is what I have used for my own bench-marking. Over the years, I have had queens, which I believe were laying over 2,000 per day, just based on the total frames of eggs I found during a full hive breakdown for splits, but I don't consider that typical. I know others have reported colonies over 100,000 bees, and I don't doubt it; the math above shows it is certainly possible, even without extraordinary conditions. I just have not seen it myself. After a week of rain, I have seen LOTS of bees flying from a hive, since there's almost a week's worth of 'extra' foragers alive in the hive. But, the numbers soon adjust.
So, that's my math. YMMV. Have fun shooting it down.
Bill
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