Go ahead and crush the honey comb

I was recently at South Florida Bee college and among other topics, the idea of spinning vs crushing comb for honey came up.  I frequently hear how it takes 8 pounds of honey for a pound of wax. This is data taken form research done over 150 years ago. Might still be true but a pound of wax, drawn into comb is a lot. One pound of wax can fill 6 or 7 deep frames.   Randy Oliver at Scientific beekeeping did some tests and the results show about 1 1/2 pounds of sugar for a deep frame. I've also heard, and I've even said myself that it makes more work for the bees. But does it really?
 God made bees with the equipment to make wax, and it's what they do first when the colony swarms.  Maybe bees like to draw comb. Maybe the festooning while they draw is actually exercise, no need for a bee Planet Fitness.   From a commercial aspect, one in which gathering as much honey as possible is the objective, it makes more sense to preserve comb as long as possible.  But the conversation was with some hobbyists. Someone asked me about using foundation or just comb.  I told them I don't use foundation any more. We did some tests last year between some wax coated starter sticks and coated foundation. We found that in all of the colonies, the bees drew wax on the strips before the plastic. So I decided to forgo foundation. So how do you get out the honey? I was asked. Being a machinist, I made a cage of sorts to support spinning frames. And if you add wire or fishing string, it will help.  But I'm still not the typical backyard beek. What about the home-schooling mom, who only wants one or two beehives? Should she really worry about spinning honey? The average yield in Florida is 50 pounds per colony, that's a lot of honey for most people. Double that for two colonies. What is this home-school mom going to do with 100 pounds of honey?  So our focus needs to be on why we have bees. If you're a hobbyist, back yard beek, just cut the comb out of the frames and crush it. When I do extractions and there is comb honey, I simply put it in paint strainer bags and hang it for a day or so. Pretty easy to do this. So maybe you get 75 pounds and not 100. You'll also have maybe two pounds of wax. And you won't need to worry so much about wax moths during the off season.

How long should my bees stay in the nuc?

I get that and a similar question. When can I add a super?  a lot. The standard answer is when the bees fill all of the gaps between the frames. But that really isn't what people want to know. We want numbers, weeks, days, months, how long? So we'll do some math. Things will be different depending on what type nuc you have. If you bought a commercial nuc, you'll already have a laying queen and it should be close to full of bees. In this case it will probably just be a week or two. Might even directly put them in a full sized box. But what about splits? You'll need to wait for your queen to start laying, and then for enough brood to cover the frames. It takes about 1200 bees to cover a deep frame, around 800 for a medium. So to fill the gap you need about 2000 bees. A good queen can lay up to 2000 eggs a day but more typically 1200-1500. There will also be a daily attrition of several hundred. So in reality we can expect daily increases of 500 - 700 bees. This starts after our queen begins to lay. So if you have a walk away type split, one with no queen but suitable larvae to make a queen. It will be 12 days before any queen can come out, then 10 days to mate. We won't see brood for 21 days after she begins laying, then another 12-15 days to get the numbers up. So for a new nuc, walk away split, expect them to be in that box for 2 months. If you start with an unmated queen you can subtract 12-15 days, and a mated queen 22-25 days.  Using theses same formulas we can make some good guesses for when to add the super. If I look in my 8 frame box and they cover the gaps of 5, I need another 6000 bees, so about 10 days, or 3 1/2 days for every space that isn't filled.