On 13-Mar-07, at 8:36 PM, John & Christy Horton wrote:

> I was looking through my hives and was wondering if anybody knows  
> tha normal amount of brood + eggs that one would find in a hive in  
> springtime conditions.
> What would the maximum?
>
> I have seen one with about 1000 square inches in one of my few  
> hives thats a double-this is all brood and all aggs.

Hello John and all,
Of course this is an all depends type  situation involving lattitude, race of queen, colony health, condidion of equipment and a host of other variables but:

It has been my experience that on average, sometime around Apr. 15th to May 15th, swarming time,  I will see the maximum number of brood for the season which coincides with the approximate beginning of the honey flow here in southern Kansas.  If you are working with a young fertile queen who might be able to deposit as many as 2,000 eggs a day over the 21 day average brood cycle for workers then you might have a maximum of 42-45,000 cells of brood which would occupy, at approx. 6500 - 7000 cells per frame if all filled, 6 frames.  I have used 2,000 eggs per day as the maximum referring to Eckert & Shaw on “Beekeeping”  pub. 1960  by Macmillian.  The more likely scenario would be frames that are about 2/3 filled with brood and the rest containing honey, pollen and mouse holes, which would translate into 8-10 frames of brood.  Queens that cannot produce 5 frames of brood by April 15th in my area get pinched.
If you are looking for square inches, I guess that would translate into the following:
Assuming 260 sq.in / frame, 2/3 would be approx. 170 sq. in./ frame, times 8 would be 1360 sq. in.  It has been my experience that for really good queens, 8 - 2/3 filled frames of brood with a couple of them being wall to wallers, is about the best they get for me and that involves some manipulation of frames or boxes and timely management, which usually isn't the case.   
With 1000 sq. in. of brood presently, I think you have an excellent queen doing a great job for this early in the season.   Better watch her close for the next few weeks or she may be gone!
Good luck.

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