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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Bill Truesdell <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 28 Sep 2004 07:35:58 -0400
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Will Crow wrote:
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the queen is most certainly not the
> limiting factor.  It's the size of the cluster of bees in spring.

And race, and winter conditions, and health, and colony size going in,
and type of hive (open bottom, styro, etc.), management techniques, and
wrapping/no wrap, and moisture control, and hive location (valley,
slope, sun), and frame spacing, and frame configuration (holes, top
bar...) ...and there are obviously more than that to consider.

If you have 40,000 bees going in to the winter, all those factors come
into play and it does not matter what the cell size is.

In the spring, all things being equal, it will be the queen that limits
the size of the colony. If there are 3,000 empty cells and she will lay
3,000 eggs, then you will get 3,000 bees no matter what the cell size.
(It would be interesting to see, from a mathematical point of view, just
how much difference there is with smaller bees covering small cells
compared to larger bees covering larger cells and cluster size.)

Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine

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