Crush and Strain v.s. Extraction in terms of resource use

[susan rudnicki]

Here is a helpful discussion from the Org. Beeks Yahoo group on the resource requirement to recover wax comb after crush and strain v.s. extracting the combs and giving them back to the bees. As much as I liked the lo-tech crush and strain method, I have converted to the extractor to save the bees all that work. Also, with 8 hives now, I could not stay up with the C & S.

2a
Crush and Strain vs extraction
Tue Jul 22, 2014 10:46 am (PDT) . Posted by:
mdudley
We all know that the amount of honey one will have surplus is much lower with crush and strain. I figured I would do some math and see what the reallocation of resources to building comb costs the bees.

In a hive where they are filling comb from extraction we have 3 foragers bees, which will fill one cell each with nectar (or honey) in a certain amount of time. In the hive having to build comb we have one bee making wax, one building comb, and one foraging. So in the same amount of time we have about 1/3 as much nectar coming in as with that which is refilling comb. Now, it take a pound of wax to hold 22 pounds of honey, and about 7 pounds of honey to make a pound of wax. This means it takes about .3 pound of honey to make the wax to hold a pound of honey. Thus one cell of honey will result in about 3/4 cell of honey and the other 1/4 will be used to make the wax to hold the honey. That is one quarter of the honey goes to make wax to build the comb.

If we add all this up, we get that for filling empty comb, we get 3 cells of honey and for building the comb we get 3/4 cell. The difference is 4 : 1. That is a pretty severe penalty for crush and strain. This is probably a bit overboard, as it is likely that the making of wax and building comb will not actually drop the foragers by 2/3. But on the other hand bees are often reluctant to build more comb, putting nectar into cells that are needed for brood and restricting the brood nest, resulting in lower population than optimum, and much of the incoming nectar goes to raising brood, amplifying the difference of the surplus. Between the two I would not be surprised if the difference is not close to 4:1.

Marshall

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