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Date: | Sat, 25 Nov 2006 19:35:33 -0500 |
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Michael,
The hive caused quite a stir from me and my friend Glenn Davis. I have been
a long time customer of queens from Glenda & Shannon Wooten ( Homer Park
line).
The story starts with a 100 lot of queens. I have to admit I joke with
Glenda when ordering and told her to send me the queens she sends to her
best customers but I placed the order the fall before so I hardly think she
sent me other than regular run queens.
Anyway I installed the queens in four yards and they all performed above
average. All hives were treated exactly alike. Started with same amount of
brood. Treated exactly alike.
While verifing queens I noticed this one queen was a dynamo. Hell she was
filling two boxes with bees. Big slabs of brood out to the edges. I finally
gave her a 6 5/8 extra to give her room to lay.
When the honey flow started her hive started filling supers and never
slowed down. In fact I placed two deeps of foundation to try slow her down.
We tried to weight the total supers ( and weigh empties after extraction)
and we figured the weight was over 400 pounds and close to 420.
I told Shannon Wooten about the queen and he wanted her back as a breeder
but I hate to admit I got busy getting hives ready to send to almonds and
she was sent. I did not mark the hive so lost track of her. Very dumb on my
part as I would love to have used her in a breeding program.
I read the book about the 404 record hive. The boys documented all the way
through. By the time I knew she was going to set a record for me proper
documentation for a record was past.
I have had hives which made well over 400 pounds in a year while keeping
bees in Florida but the bees were on Orange, Gallberry, Palmata, Mangrove,
wildflower and the clover fields of Ocala horse farms. 5 or 6 moves in a
year. I never made 400 pounds on a single flow in Florida,kansas or
Missouri before her.
I never cared about a record nor did I record but my friend Glenn Davis
(Bell Hill Honey ) remembers the hive and will back up what I say.
What Glenn remembers the most is when the main honey flow had stopped I put
a deep of foundation on and the bes drew out and plugged the hive. Bees are
amazing at times.
bob
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