The Colony as a Productive Unit

The colony consisting of a queen, 10 thousand to 60 thousand workers, and sometimes several thousand drones should be viewed as a unit organism. The individuals making up the colony are as subject to change as the cells within the animal body. Their ability to function apart from the colony is extremely limited. The object of management is to maintain the colony in a maximum state of productivity, even though this means that both the queen and workers will wear out more quickly.

The honey production for any given number of bees increases as the population of the colony increases. For example: While 4 colonies each with 15,000 bees are producing 100 pounds of honey, 1 colony with 60,000 bees will produce more than 150 pounds of honey. A larger proportion of the total population engages in brood rearing in the small colony than in the full-strength colony. The greater gain made by the large colony is due to the larger proportion of field bees available to gather nectar.

The colony population is limited by the queen's capacity to lay eggs, the time of development from egg to the adult, and the duration of life of the bees. A colony's development may be further limited by insufficient food (both pollen and honey), by insufficient space for the rearing of brood, or by disease. Insufficient space or its improper organization may seriously affect the working morale.

The most important recent advance made in colony management came from a study of the pollen requirements. Experiments on wintering bees demonstrated that the survival of overwintering populations was largely proportional to the amount of reserve pollen present in the hive. Surveys of pollen reserves in widely separated geographical areas showed that most colonies did not have enough pollen for the overwintering of highly productive colonies.

Further investigations showed us a way to supplement pollen with soybean flour. No satisfactory complete substitute for pollen has yet-been devised, but when 3 pounds of expeller-processed soybean flour is mixed with 1 pound of pollen, approximately 30 thousand bees can be reared, as compared with 4,500 bees from 1 pound of pollen alone. The pollen for supplemental feeding is trapped by forcing the bees to pass through a grid that has 5 openings to the inch. From 1 colony approximately 20 pounds of pollen can be obtained; that is enough to supply the critical needs of 50 colonies when 3 parts of the soybean flour are added.

The supplemented pollen is fed in cake form by mixing 1 part of dry matter (1 part pollen and 3 parts soybean flour) with 2 parts of sugar sirup (2 parts sugar and 1 part water).

Brood rearing, which is the basis for colony development, can be regulated independent of weather conditions by feeding these pollen cakes. Thus, we have a means of timing the development of the colony so that it can reach full strength for any expected honey-flow period.

Because brood rearing increases the consumption of honey by the colony, it is necessary to provide more reserve honey for colonies that are to be developed early through pollen feeding. In most northern locations, a reserve of 90 pounds is desirable to carry the colony from the end of brood rearing in October until the spring honey flow. The problem is not how much a colony consumes but how much it produces over and above consumption. The higher consuming colonies produce the largest surplus.

Supplemental pollen feeding is equally important for the development of new colonies from package bees. Packages installed in April should be provided with all the pollen cakes and reserve honey they will consume to insure uninterrupted brood rearing before the honey flow. In most seasons they will require 25 to 40 pounds of honey and more or less continuous pollen feeding if they are to be built to full productive strength for a June honey flow.

The high-producing colony must be headed by a queen that can lay 1,500 or more eggs a day. The queen's physical development, as well as her genetic constitution, determines her capacity to produce eggs.

The mating habits of bees have made it difficult to improve honeybee stock. Selective breeding has been limited to the queen, because there was no way of choosing the drone or male with which she mates. Progress has been made, however, since production tests have shown some commercial lines of stock to yield two to five times as much honey as other lines. The great variability within both high- and low-producing lines is suggestive of the progress that may be made through careful selection and controlled breeding.

The market demand for queens and the ease with which they can be reared have established standards of quantity rather than quality. Great variation in the physical development of sister queens is evidence that they are subject to environmental influences while they are being reared. The best small queen is never so productive as the best large queen. Before real progress can be expected through selection and controlled breeding, it will be essential to establish standards for rearing that will insure full physical development of the queens.