Colony Size and Efficiency

You can probably appreciate that only the older worker bees in a colony serve as foragers. As a colony grows in worker population, the proportion of bees old enough for foraging increases.

As a general rule, smaller colonies send out a smaller percentage of bees as foragers. On the other hand, larger colonies send out not only more bees but also a higher proportion of the population as foragers. The greater value of larger colonies for pollination can be illustrated by the amount of honey produced by colonies of different populations. The ability of a direct result of the number of bees foraging and the amount of forage available. It is the foragers that pollinate the flowers they visit.

Research has brought us these figures: ·

One colony of 30,000 bees produces  1 1/2  times as much honey as the sum of two colonies with 15,000 bees each. ·

One colony of 45,000 bees produces  1 1/2 times as much honey as three colonies with 15,000 bees each. ·

One colony of 60,000 bees produces  1 1/2  times as much honey as four colonies with 15,000 bees each