Greets All
 
I just read your post Ted and liked it, but would like to differ
where you mentioned that wild hives produce less honey.
 
A distinction has to be made here. One gets wild hives in post boxes
and other 'bad' places that produce maybe thirty kg maximum of
surplus. The bees have a stationary comb structure so they canot move
their combs around. After three or four years most of the combs in
the hive are filthy and the hive loses vigour.
 
A beehive in a large, insulated cavity however is a different story.
They have a lot of space - therefore lots of ventilation. They have
no draughts, therefore no problem keepeing the cluster warm with
their bee screen. They have no problem cleaing over winter because
they can just let stuff drop.
 
I remember once removing a huge swarm from a room that had been
closed for two year because a large swarm had established in there.
The bees themselves when removed filled just over one and a half
langstroth hive bodies without anything in them, plus half of a laser
paper box the next day. The honey combs removed totalled just over a
115kg, and brood are of at least a square meter.
 
The hived bees were given a two hive bodies, a super and five frames
of brood and then a few drawn combs and foundation. They have
produced about ten kilos surpluss this year, although they have
requeaned.
 
In the same area beekeepers were getting about 20kg a year if lucky,
so seeing as this hive had been there two years it had produced at
least three times as much honey.
 
 
Sorry to be a spanner in the works, but I believe given a decent
shelter wild bees are more productive than kept bees.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
Eastern Cape Prov.
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
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