Counting Bees

[papabear]

Is there any way of counting or estimating how many bees are in a hive or colony? I once read that if you count the bees comeing and going for 1 min. then multiply the # of bees times 1000. That would give you an estimate. Would that be about right? Thanks

[Mici]

where did you get "times 1000"?
i'm pretty sure it can't be right.
the best way to approximate the number of the bees would be to shake them out, weight them and divide the number with the weight of one bee (don't know how much that is)
but, this is very stressful for the bees so i'd say...ignorance is bliss :-D

other than that, you can inspect the hive, note how many bees per comb there are (eg, 1st comb has 3/4 of bees, 2nd is full) and find info about how many bees "fit" onto a comb.
counting...well, you can try, and let us know how it went 8-)

[MrILoveTheAnts]

I know this doesn't exactly help but I have herd one pound of bees equals 3000 large workers or 4000 small workers.

I suppose if you knew the average number of eggs your queen lays in a day (usually 1500 to 2000) and then how long the workers live (I forget.  :-\ ) you could calculate what the population could be.

An easy method I think would be to take a picture of a full frame. And then dot the heads in Photoshop as you count them. Estimate how many frames you had full of bees in the hive and you should get something close.

[Michael Bush]

A pretty good booming hive at the peak of the flow is usually about 70,000 to 100,000 bees.  If it's not it won't make much honey.