good work on the weight loss sun

no idea what ur on about with the honey chat tbh

well done elffi - does that mean you are back on pints and pies?

I feel your excitement.  Is this your first year harvesting?

We haven't harvested yet - we're generally about a fortnight to a month behind the "normal" schedule where I am (not sure exactly why, but that's how it goes) and due to an unfortunate combination of bad luck and stupid mistakes we're starting again with a new (non-overwintered) nuc, which was fairly slow developing because of the rubbish weather earlier this year.

They've pretty much filled out a brood and a half within just a few weeks, filled one super and drawn out but not really started filling the next.

So not sure if we'll get anything this year, but once the summer got going it's definitely been an ace year for the bees.  The wildflower planting we did also seems to have gone down well.

And no swarms this year - which is both good and bad (we caught two swarms - not from our hives - the year before last - everyone loves a free-bee).

How many bees do you need for this sort of yield? 

what's that in real numbers?

10kg it's the easiest conversion ever as it is 2.2lbs to the kg

75% of one Yoda

yeah but I'm only 40 Tom so I've never used lbs

How many bees do you need for this sort of yield? 

One healthy hive.  In fact, a healthy hive in a good year will usually give you more.

Coffers: pints I never stopped completely. Pies lamentably not.

Sissyfuss.  Basically yes - first harvest. Last year I only took one frame before the wasps stole the rest.  I expect to get twice as much again from the next two supers in September.  I did a split in May. But the queen I moved out decided to swarm and it seems that I didn’t do a good job of leaving the nurse bees with eggs/young larvae in the original hive. So instead of two queenright hives I had two queenless hives :(.  I tried to find a new queen, but nobody had one.  Dwindling numbers for the next four weeks.  I despondently did an inspection to see what stores there were worth salvaging before they all died, and found some brood!  I put the two colonies back together and it’s thrived throughout June and July.

blindtom, as sissyfuss says - one hive. That’s 20,000 to 30,000 bees, or a lot more with some species. Hard to count - they don’t fill out attendance cards or time sheets.  But they do work astonishingly hard. It’s hard to measure, but typical estimates are:

• A honey bee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as fifteen miles per hour. (That’s faster than me for sure)

•The average worker bee produces about 1/12th teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.

• A hive of bees will collect nectar from two million flowers and fly 40,000 miles, more than once around the earth, to collect one pound of honey.

• It takes one ounce of honey to fuel a bee’s flight around the world.

• A honey bee visits 50 to 100 flowers during a collection trip.

Our very own bee expert. 

I think my favourite bee fact is that the ideal hive temperature is similar to (bit lower than) human body temperature and they can regulate it by fanning their wings (sometimes over collected water for an evaporative effect) for cooling, or vibrating their flight muscles for warming.

I can't even get my home office temperature right.

Mind blown.

Sissyfuss.  Basically yes - first harvest. Last year I only took one frame before the wasps stole the rest.  I expect to get twice as much again from the next two supers in September.  I did a split in May. But the queen I moved out decided to swarm and it seems that I didn’t do a good job of leaving the nurse bees with eggs/young larvae in the original hive. So instead of two queenright hives I had two queenless hives :(.  I tried to find a new queen, but nobody had one.  Dwindling numbers for the next four weeks.  I despondently did an inspection to see what stores there were worth salvaging before they all died, and found some brood!  I put the two colonies back together and it’s thrived throughout June and July.

Wow - that's quite a drama - and quite a recovery.

If you ever need to buy in a queen (or any bees in general), I've found BS Honey Bees (based near Gloucester and will mail to you) to be brilliant, and their bees have a lovely temperament. (I did have one hive which got robbed one year then turned pscyho-homicidal-vengeance-muthafooka - a total Jekyll and Hyde switch - probably can't blame that one on the supplier though.)

Thanks for the recommendation.

But I support the logic that the native Irish Apis mellifera mellifera are best suited for the Irish climate. Because I have no experience with hybrids, I’m not convinced that they are always less docile, but it is a widely-held maxim amongst beekeepers.

And due to importations there are of course hybrids in the Drone Congregation Areas.

Thanks for the recommendation.

But I support the logic that the native Irish Apis mellifera mellifera are best suited for the Irish climate. Because I have no experience with hybrids, I’m not convinced that they are always less docile, but it is a widely-held maxim amongst beekeepers.

And due to importations there are of course hybrids in the Drone Congregation Areas.