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How much brood space

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1.4K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  Ross  
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#1 ·
I've been doing some bee math trying to figure out how much brood space a queen could use. The simplistic answer I came up with was 21 +/- 1 days worth of egg laying since all workers emerge within 21 days and the cells can be reused. Assuming 80% of a fully drawn frame is used for eggs and a queen ~1000-1200 eggs/day, this comes out to about 1 1/2 mediums (5.4mm cells). Because there a lot of variables I'm not taking into account I fudged the numbers up to 3 mediums.

Would anyone like to comment/extend these thoughts?
 
#2 ·
Three ten frame mediums or four eight frame mediums or two deeps is all the same amount of space and, in my experience that is about right.

Although they often don't fill each box all the way out, so they could have brood in four or five ten frame mediums if they go more up the middle.

One twelve frame Dadant deep is only a little smaller than that. :)
 
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