>What size are your boxes???   I had a very interesting discussion a cpl
years back about cube hives.  The claim was the bees use the whole space
much better than a standard lang.

We use the British Modified National Hive - most beekeepers in the UK use
this.  It was developed to be the right size for our native bees and we
normally only use a single brood box.  Our average crop over 30+ years is a
fraction under 70lbs per colony based on the number of colonies fed the
previous autumn.

Using a larger box or double brood results in a substantial amount of honey
being stored around the brood.

If we were to keep Italians then we would have to run double brood, but
would be very unlikely to get a larger crop.  What is certain is that they
would need probably 5 times the amount of winter feed - some of our natives
require none at all.  Cost of that feed would mean that we would be worse
off.  (12.5 kg of bakers' fondant was around £12 last year).

Box and frame sizes can be found here:

http://www.thorne.co.uk/image/data/catalogue/Thorne-2014-Catalogue.pdf

but the basic measurements for the British hive are:

Brood box 18 1/8" square, 8 7/8" deep.
Supers are 5 7/8" deep

Brood area (11 frames) is 2200 sq in (Langstroth is 2750 sq in for 10
frames).

A super probably holds on average 27-28lbs of honey - just over 30lbs if it
is really full.

Yes, crop depends very much on location.  I know some in the UK who would be
happy to fill 1 super a year!  I think the US published average is around
66lbs, but not sure whether that is based on autumn count, spring count, or
some other count!

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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