Michael,
The hive caused quite a stir from me and my friend Glenn Davis. I have been 
a long time customer of queens from Glenda & Shannon Wooten ( Homer Park 
line).
The story starts with a 100 lot of queens. I have to admit I joke with 
Glenda when ordering and told her to send me the queens she sends to her 
best customers but I placed the order the fall before so I hardly think she 
sent me other than regular run queens.
Anyway I installed the queens in four yards and they all performed above 
average. All hives were treated exactly alike. Started with same amount of 
brood. Treated exactly alike.
While verifing queens I noticed this one queen was a dynamo. Hell she was 
filling two boxes with bees. Big slabs of brood out to the edges. I finally 
gave her a 6 5/8 extra to give her room to lay.
When the honey flow started her hive started filling supers and never 
slowed down. In fact I placed two deeps of foundation to try slow her down. 
We tried to weight the total supers ( and weigh empties after extraction) 
and we figured the weight was over 400 pounds and close to 420.
I told Shannon Wooten about the queen and he wanted her back as a breeder 
but I hate to admit I got busy getting hives ready to send to almonds and 
she was sent. I did not mark the hive so lost track of her. Very dumb on my 
part as I would love to have used her in a breeding program.
 
I read the book about the 404 record hive. The boys documented all the way 
through. By the time I knew she was going to set a record for me proper 
documentation for a record was past.

I have had hives which made well over 400 pounds in a year while keeping 
bees in Florida but the bees were on Orange, Gallberry, Palmata, Mangrove, 
wildflower and the clover fields of Ocala horse farms. 5 or 6 moves in a 
year. I never made 400 pounds on a single flow in Florida,kansas or 
Missouri before her. 


I never cared about a record nor did I record but my friend Glenn Davis 
(Bell Hill Honey ) remembers the hive and will back up what I say.
What Glenn remembers the most is when the main honey flow had stopped I put 
a deep of foundation on and the bes drew out and plugged the hive. Bees are 
amazing at times.

bob
 

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---