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Date: | Fri, 30 May 2014 23:45:33 +0100 |
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>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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