When to put in the honeycomb? Ask the 3Bee Scales!

An important help comes to us from the 3Bee sensors. The scales in fact tell us what the weight of a strong hive is and how much honey it imports in a day. By cross-referencing this data we have the information we need to decide whether or not to go and put in the honeycomb, optimising work, time, travel. And it is also an advantage for the bees, who will not be subjected to unnecessary stress. They will not be opened unnecessarily and they will not find themselves with a honeycomb that they cannot fill and that becomes just an empty space to be controlled.

And the risk is not only of putting it too early, but also of putting it too late. If a bloom starts off well, within a few days the bees risk clogging the whole nest with the honey collected, taking away space even for the queen to lay her eggs, so that the brood may actually stall. What's more, you can lose all the honey that the bees will stop collecting because they have no space. Choose your 3Bee product now to monitor your hives during the production season.

Let us therefore see how best to use the data provided by 3Bee sensors. First of all, it is important to know the weight of a strong family, ready to produce. Typically this weight ranges from 24-26Kg for a hive reared on 8 frames to 28-30Kg for a hive reared on 10 frames. When, having reached this weight, honey imports tend to be around 200 g for a couple of days, it is a good time to bring in the honeycombs and put them in, making the most of the flowering. And for second and maybe third honeycombs? The procedure is very similar, estimating about 10 kg of honey per honeycomb, and seeing what the daily import is, one can easily decide when to bring in the other honeycombs, avoiding bringing them in late, or bringing them in unnecessarily. Bringing them late in fact results in a loss of honey, that which the bees did not collect because they had no space.