Most productive hive question?

[Woody Roberts]

I've not been at this long enough to form an opinion yet. Traditionally I've started nucs in mid/late summer, get them into a 10 frame deep before frost and overwinter. Spring comes they will explode. Most will draw out two more deeps early. I take one of these and leave this hive in two deeps. The top deep I extract mostly and the comb goes to help my late summer nucs into a full size box. As of yet I've never had to store comb, I just build another hive with it.

Now my question. It seems my most productive hive in any given year will be one of my overwintered singles. It also won't be the one I think it will be. Often it will be one that barely made it thru.

My double deeps seem to go / stay in maintenance mode or they want to supersede or swarm or some such foolishness.

My theory ( I have lots of theory's) and most have been proved wrong is that these young hives know their behind and intend to catch up no matter what.

My best this year was an old queen( 4 this fall) that overwintered in a single. Came into spring with 4 frames of honey and enough bees to cover one side of one frame. I wouldent have gave a dime for their chances. I gave them 6 quarts of 1/1 and didn't check them for some time due to work. When I did they covered 6 frames. Their in four deeps now and I hope the top one is capped enough to take this weekend. It was full ten days ago but only capped halfway down. I gave them another deep of drawn comb. So they only drew out 25 frames ( I pulled a five frame nuc off of them when the blackberries bloomed )

What are your most productive hive configuration?

[Perry]

Not sure if my answer makes sense but.....
This year I did not move hives to pollination. They were booming from the get go. I pulled nucs hard, some I pulled 2 nucs out of, and then just supered. I've lost a bunch to swarms by keeping them so strong, but I am in the process of adding my third honey super to many. The ones that threw swarms have requeened, and in the mean time with no brood to feed they have been packing it in.

[pistolpete]

I also don't have a long enough track record to know for sure.   Woody: I think that your most productive hives are that way because of the age of the queens.  Your summer queens get raised and mated at a time when there is an abundance of resources and drones, then they lay for a couple of months and shut down for winter.  Come spring they are hitting their peak and rearing to prove it.    Of course you had to throw in the exceptional 4 year old queen as an example, but are you sure she's the original one?

So far my most productive hive was my very first one.  Started as a 4 frame Nuc at the end of May and had 5 deep boxes drawn and filled by the end of August.

[Woody Roberts]

I don't mark my queens so I could never say for sure. I don't remember if she was a July or aug queen. Came into spring in a single deep. First summer I took 64 lbs and 3 nucs. I pulled her the following spring and put her in a nuc. I've robbed brood to make nucs from her ever since. This year when it was time to pull her I couldent find her. So I pulled a nuc anyway and kept the broodnest open so she wouldent swarm.

As to my double deep hives. My later queens have a tendency to get superseded at around a year old. So they go into winter with a new queen. If they don't supersede I put the queen in the nuc and let the hive raise one. I believe I get bigger queens like this. Maybe,maybe not. I can build a strong enough nuc to build a good queen.

I raised another queen the same year that I gave to my neighbor. She's still going gangbusters also. I haven't been able to repeat it but I'm working on it.

[tecumseh]

a snip...
My theory ( I have lots of theory's) and most have been proved wrong is that these young hives know their behind and intend to catch up no matter what.

tecumseh....
my wife at one time did a couple of summer gigs with one of the fellows who won the nobel with frisch.  he would quite often say.... you need to toss out one good hypothesis each and every morning.

I suspect what you are primarily seeing is the positive effects of a young queen in the box (and perhaps it is not so odd that the old guys often recommended this in each and every bee keeping book I ever read) and with a smaller population there is no starvation bump to overcome in the late spring.  the kind of flow at your location is also a part of the equation.  due to the difference in our flow here (Texas) you would never see a low populated hive like this produce any nucs or any surplus honey.