Lloyd Spear wrote:
>  They reduced the herd by 30
> head; *total* production went up (with 30 fewer head to milk) by 5%, and
> average production per head went up by 15%!  Feed costs, of course,
> decreased significantly.
>   
Lloyd has a good point, but I come to a different conclusion: The 
optimum bee is not the one with the maximum honey production, but the 
one with the best honey-to-effort ratio. With that strategy we may 
already have the optimum bee. For a better bee the workload must 
increase less than the gain. Healthy bees are the key to less effort.

How many hives can a single beekeeper keep now? How many 100 years ago?

-Jorg

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