Robert writes, "American friends can't understand why I
use such 'weak' colonies. I assume that the reason is climatic; imported
American bees don't have a good track record in the UK, with most of the few
people to have tried them reporting that they produced loads of bees and no
honey. Given the climatic range in North America, this seems surprising; can
anyone pin the reason down a bit closer?"

I have been fortunate to spend a reasonable amount of time in England during the past 30 years, so perhaps I can add something.

With the possible exception of the area immediately around Seattle, Washington (the northwest portion of our country, just below Canada), I do not believe there is a portion of our country with a climate consistently similar to your conditions.  As I understand it, the climate in England, and much of northern Europe, is primarily effected by the combination of the Gulf Stream and prevailing winds blowing west to east.  This leads to conditions that, on average, are considerably more wet and with temperatures that do not have the extremes of our own.   

While a portion of our West Coast states enjoy the more even temperatures that prevail in Northern Europe, primarily because of the winds blowing from the Pacific, our Rocky Mountains quickly disrupt the wind pattern and, as you know, most of the US is East of the Rocky Mountains.

So, in "most" of the US our climate is not moderated by any nearby large body of water and we get very hot summers and very cold winters.  (As a student of history, I am continually impressed by what a shock this was to our early European settlers.)  As honey bees are not native to the US, our early settlers experimented with several strains before largely settling on Italians, which thrive in our very hot summers and collect huge amounts of nectar.  Only in the past 20-30 years have Americans selected and developed Carnolian strains that can collect equal amounts of nectar and overcome the Italian tendency to over-winter with brood and accompanying huge clusters.

As to the benefits of huge amounts of bees, in the early 20th century a number of researchers documented that hives of 40,000-50,000 bees would not just collect double the amount of honey of a hive with 20,000-25,000 bees, but triple or quadruple!  I forget the exact reasons but it has to be with an almost finite number of bees being required for nurses, guards, etc. with all remaining bees being available for foraging.  So, to make numbers up, 5,000 bees might be needed as nurses, etc. in a hive of either 20,000 or 40,000 bees.  This means with the small hive only 15,000 are available for foraging while 35,000 are available in the larger hive.

As I understand it, the English climate (and population relative to land size) does not encourage the same kind of summer surge we get here in the US, where bloom just explodes following a short spring.  Thus, a hive with a large population of foragers really has not enough nectar to collect so the bees just sit around and eat...or more accurately, just collect enough nectar to feed themselves and not accumulate stores for the winter.  American beekeepers visiting England for the first time are always impressed at how dark your bees are compared to our own.  I have been buying Carnolian queens for more than 20 years, and still my bees, on average, are not as dark as the average bees I have seen in England.  I believe that is due to the Italian influence, of which we have a lot.

I hope this helps.   

   


Lloyd
Lloyd Spear, Owner of Ross Rounds, Inc.
Manufacturer of round comb honey equipment and Sundance pollen traps