Alternatives to Two Queen Hive - population increase

[Culley]

I've been reading about two queen hive systems. It occurred to me, would it make more sense to just combine hives at the right time?

Alternatively, and it still seems easier, what about just 'feeding' a colony with eggs from other colonies?
If a colony has plenty of stores, what effect will the gradual supply of extra eggs have on the population?
They'd have to get busy raising all the new brood.
Then more brood hatching = more nurse bees = larger cluster of bees etc
What effects will the gradual removal of eggs have on the parent colonies, and would it be reduced by using many parent colonies? My experience is that a good queen can quickly replace removed eggs. Taking older brood is a setback because the colony loses the time it took to raise the brood to that point.

Provided there are nurse bees, food, large enough cluster; Is there an exponential relationship between the number of eggs and the increase of the population?

Just wondering... Any thoughts?

[FRAMEshift]

Provided there are nurse bees, food, large enough cluster; Is there an exponential relationship between the number of eggs and the increase of the population?

It's an exponential power of 2 relationship.  Each nurse can, at most, cover two cells with her body in order to avoid chill brood.  So the number of nurse bees in a hive can, at most, double with each brood cycle.  Since the foragers don't increase until after a 40 day lag (time from egg to forager) the rate of growth for the hive as a whole is less than power of 2.

Adding brood is a great way to perk up a hive.  If you move frames of brood from a strong hive to a weak one, you are "equalizing" your hives.  Done carefully, that is a good way to get optimum performance from your bees.  It tends to prevent swarming and robbing and maximize the number of new bees.

[Culley]

Thanks FRAMEshift  :)
So, during the buildup season;

Moving capped brood from strong colonies to weak ones;

• wont dent the strong colony too much
• will have a greater improvement on the weaker hive than the detriment to the strong hive

Moving eggs from average hive to strong hive

• wont dent the average hive too much
• will improve the strong hive? after the eggs are nurse bees? after the eggs are foragers? or not at all?

..obviously too many eggs would be a waste. Eggs would either be chilled or eaten.

Seems that the buildup would be fastest and greatest in an already strong colony. Do people combine hives in spring to get a faster buildup? What is a good way to combine and split to increase population of bees in the whole beeyard?

What are the limits to buildup? What are the limits to population size?
I suspect there would be an optimum size for a cluster - least effort as a whole to keep temperature regulated. Would there be an optimum size to the population, would there be an optimum physical hive size, and how would they be related?

Two queen hives are said to bring in 150% of the honey that the two colonies would've on their own. How would this work with more than two brood nests?
How much of the improvement is because of twice the eggs, and how much is because of twice the bees?

Seems that the math of this is quite complicated. I wonder if anyone can direct me to articles or forum posts specifically about the mathematics of bee colony populations.

[FRAMEshift]

Moving eggs from average hive to strong hive

• wont dent the average hive too much
• will improve the strong hive? after the eggs are nurse bees? after the eggs are foragers? or not at all?

..obviously too many eggs would be a waste. Eggs would either be chilled or eaten.

Seems that the buildup would be fastest and greatest in an already strong colony. Do people combine hives in spring to get a faster buildup? What is a good way to combine and split to increase population of bees in the whole beeyard?

What are the limits to buildup? What are the limits to population size?
I suspect there would be an optimum size for a cluster - least effort as a whole to keep temperature regulated. Would there be an optimum size to the population, would there be an optimum physical hive size, and how would they be related?

You are correct that a larger hive will produce proportionately more honey per bee.  There are efficiencies of scale.  But there are problems with unequal hive sizes.  The stronger hives will rob the weak ones, to the point of destroying them.  And there are limits to size.  A mature hive is 60k bees and 100k is considered large, although you occasionally hear stories of much larger hives.  Crowding causes hives to swarm so a major goal of beekeeping is swarm prevention.  I guess the least labor intensive method would be to split a hive when it gets over 60-100k bees. 

Multiple queens are usually mother/daughter.  Having genetically distinct queens would lead to conflict.  And I would say you don't want all your eggs (or larvae) in one basket.  If you have queen or disease problems in your one big hive, more damage may be done than if you have multiple equal hives which you can then use to support each other.  I think equalization is a good strategy overall.

PS- Cullz, I visited Dubbo two years ago and really liked it. 

[Michael Bush]

http://bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#cutdowncombine

http://bushfarms.com/beestwoqueenhive.htm