Agree, large colonies devote a higher percentage of their population to foraging. It's the biology behind why two-queen systems can make a lot more than two separate colonies of the same size. I run two-queen colonies against strong singles every year and the two-queen systems consistently make more honey.
I disagree. While it may be true a larger portion is free to forage, 2 queens system advantage is having more bees of foraging age, not more bees in totality. I see these larger hives just have more bees inside, or festooning, not huge populations leaving the hive en masse to forage? Seems to the casual eye while there is more coming and going, the proportion remains similar. Simple math and thinking would explain that a 2 queen hive should have roughly 2 times as many foragers of the right age during the flows.
Its an interesting discussion, as in many parts of the country larger hives do worse, large populations may forage more, but they also eat more and die faster in a dearth.
Using forager traps at the hive entrance, Danka et al. (1986) found that the proportion of European bees foraging remained largely constant as colony size varied (although the proportion varied with respect to nectar flow), and an average foraging population constitutes about 4.1% of the adult bees (30–90 g for Colony 1 and 60–140 g for Colony 2). During large nectar flows, a greater percentage of the population forages, constituting about 9.6% of the adult bees (60–210 g for Colony 1 and 140–320 g for Colony 2); these values are consistent with the typical amplitudes of the daily weight cycles observed here.
W. G. Meikle, N. Holst, G. Mercadier, F. Derouané & R. R. James (2006) Using balances linked to dataloggers to monitor honey bee colonies, Journal of Apicultural Research, 45:1, 39-41, DOI: 10.1080/00218839.2006.11101311
This link/ information from Peter seems to be pretty on target with what I see here. That said hives that don't have populations of bees of the right age at the right time, its all moot.
Charles
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