In article <002601c3b03e$50aecdc0$48a59bd0@BusyBeeAcres>, Bob Harrison
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>The reason *in my opinion* is in the way you manipulate your bees and
>possibly lack of labor needed to do the kind of kind manipulation we follow.
>
> In the circles I travel in we all work our bees in the same manner. Very
>labor intensive.

This seems a little presumptive Bob. I am not sure you know what the
nature of our management is (nor I yours of course), but it is intensive
for sure, as we cannot get a honey crop which keeps a roof over your
head here without doing so.

We do not keep colonies 5 boxes high all year, or even aspire to: That
is misreading what I wrote.

We manage our colonies closely, using established and understood (but
ever evolving) systems all through spring and early summer, using known
brood areas and excluders. They are an essential management tool. They
remain this way till the end of June or early July.

We have a major value honey crop, heather, in August here which has
returns proportional to bee power. The more bees of the correct type and
age, the more honey. To maximise exploitation of this harvest we take
away the excluders 5 to 6 weeks ahead of the onset of the flow (the flow
itself is in a window about 4 weeks long), and allow the queen
unrestricted laying area. This provides a large wave of young bees for
the middle and late part of the flow in August.

There is an old saying that 'heather eats bees'. A colony on a
restricted brood area gives a crop over a part of the period, but late
on the strength declines sharply. Plenty brood coming forward and the
colony has more staying power. Hence my delight if the colonies were of
massive power *at this time*.

As the heather season wears on to its end the bees 'fill in' with honey
down the colony as they retreat to the lower boxes and it is rare for
the queen to be found in other than  the bottom two boxes. By the end of
the heather season in early Sept your colonies are down to wintering
size and queen finding is simple. We generally, but not without
exception, winter on singles, as this is adequate for our type of bee,
and their relatively low winter stores consumption. they will eat a
third as much as an Italian strain colony.

The five boxes bit was just a romantic musing (as bee men do out of
season), nothing more, and as has been pointed out, not a thing you
really want to be faced with controlling except in a few specific
circumstances.


Murray


--
Murray McGregor

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