allen dick wrote:

> "From all indications
> healthy" and "filled to the brim with honey and pollen" may or may not be
> accurate descriptions.  Such descriptions can be highly subjective. I've
> often found my own observations to be at odds with reports like this when
> visiting other beekeepers.
>
> We'll likely never know exactly what happened here, but we do know that
> competent commercial producers seldom encounter a robbing incident of this
> sort, even when using open feeding methods, due to the things we commercials
> do automatically, as a matter of course.  We reduce the hive volume in fall,
> keep our hives at similar strengths, medicate and treat for mites as
> required, feed well and early, eliminate or manage weak colonies, and reduce
> entrances as indicated.


Excellent post ( since I agree with it). I see no difference between
what Allen says a good commercial beekeeper does in the fall with what a
good hobby beekeeper does.

I know when I started keeping bees, I had a robbing incident which fit
right into Allen's comment on the subjectivity of observations,
especially for an inexperienced beekeeper. I had little idea what a
strong or weak colony really looked like and thought the colony being
robbed was equal in strength to the robber. My guess is that this is the
case here and is not a criticism but exactly what I encountered and not
unusual.

I recently was asked to inspect a neighbor's colonies since they said
they had one weak and one strong hive. It turned out that one was
queenless and nearly gone and the other barely filled eight frames of
one deep.

I have overwintered with three deeps and gave that up as a waste of time
and effort. Two deeps are just fine here in Maine. There are studies
that show three can be better in cold climates but I go by the stores
available in either, and you can have adequate stores with two, if
managed properly. I have "excess" honey in the spring with either two or
three. (I do not feed in either spring or fall.) Three just added to the
lifting.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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