How many bees are in one hive: the average number of individuals in a family, the composition and life of a swarm

Many people who are interested in beekeeping wonder how many bees live in one hive. It is impossible to determine this amount by eye. Insects are small and constantly moving. To get accurate values, it is important to study the details of the hierarchy of bees. After that, you can use special calculation methods.

What is a bee colony?

It's no secret that bees live in families. They can be grown in the Dadan frame or standard construction. Moreover, each bee colony is arranged in a certain way. Includes:

• one queen - responsible for the reproduction of insects in a swarm;
• worker bees - responsible for obtaining food and feeding the queen and young individuals;
• drones - fertilize the uterus.

The work of each individual in the family is subject to the functions of the entire structure. At the same time, the tasks of insects include not only the collection of honey and pollen, but also protection from enemies, maintaining suitable temperature and humidity parameters in the hive, reproduction.

In addition to the smell, each bee colony is characterized by the following features:

• performance at the honey harvesting stage;
• amount of wax released;
• ability to reproduce;
• aggressive behavior;
• disease resistance.

How many bees can there be in it?

Only one bee family lives in 1 hive. The only exception is the breeding period, since at this time a new queen appears and the formation of another swarm begins. After the process is complete, it leaves the hive.

To see the whole family, you should wait for the evening. At this time, the entire colony flies into the hive. However, even at this time it is difficult to name the exact number of bees in the hive. In addition, the number of insects depends on the seasonal factor.

At the height of the honey harvest, one bee family has an average of 80,000 individuals. In some hives, 100-110 thousand insects live. Such families are considered very strong and appear only when optimal conditions are created. To do this, it is important to provide a temperature of +35 degrees and low humidity.

Determination methods

There are a number of methods that make it possible to determine the number of bees in a hive. This helps to monitor the development of the bee colony and predict the amount of honey. When doing this, beekeepers usually use 2 main methods that help to get the most accurate results.

To count the number of insects, you can take the frames installed in the hive as a basis. The standard design includes 6600 cells. The length of one adult insect is approximately 1.5 centimeters, which corresponds to the size of 3 cells. This means that 1100 bees can be located on one side of the frame, and 2200 bees on two sides. This number must be multiplied by the number of frames.

You can also use another method. This requires the following steps:

• weigh the beehive with insects;
• take away the mass of the hive itself with frames;
• divide the resulting value by the average weight of one insect - it may differ depending on the breed.

What is it for?

Calculating the number of bees in a hive may be due to simple curiosity. However, this issue also has practical implications. The number of bees allows you to determine a number of important parameters:

• womb strength;
• strength of the family;
• conditions for breeding bees;
• feed quality;
• weather conditions.

If the actual number of bees is less than expected, this means that changes are required in the work of the apiary - for example, to analyze the integrity of the hive structure or assess the level of humidity.

What can affect the quantity

The number of insects depends on a number of factors. These include the following:

1. The presence of weakened queens. Such individuals lead to the appearance of weak offspring. This negatively affects the performance of the entire family and causes the hive to lag behind in development.
2. Problems of maintaining strong families at a certain level. With a constant change in numbers, insects are not able to reproduce strong offspring themselves.
3. Lack of nectar, perga and water. Lack of bribes is bad for the uterus. Her brood becomes weak, which negatively affects the number of bees in the hive.
4. Air temperature when brood appears. Offspring should appear in warm weather. Only in this case, a high-quality influx of queens and worker bees is possible.
5. A large number of queens. The quality of queen bees affects the strength of the brood.
6. Presence of open brood. This is very important for the full feeding of queens by worker bees. All this helps to get strong individuals in the family.

The number of bees in a hive depends on many factors. This is influenced by the quality and strength of the uterus, the amount of feed, the weather. It is important to periodically count the number of insects in the hive, using special methods. This will help to identify problems in time and find ways to solve them.

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