Comparative analysis of profitability of honey production...

[Solomon]

Here's a study comparing hive types that I randomly found. Claims that box type hives produce double the honey as traditional hive types.

Now of course our world is dominated by concerns other than brute honey production, so there's that. I do find that box type hives (Langstroth) and surely other framed styles hives are also quite efficient for splitting, increase, management, and what not. But they may not be the most healthy for the bees, if that is what you are looking for. 150 years of boxed beekeeping does demonstrate that they do work acceptably.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5478371/

[Neill Sayers]

Thanks Solomon,

saved a pdf to read later but looks interesting

[atollerson]

Lol!
”the majority (89.9%) of the traditional hive owners own local bee race, whereas the majority (46%) of box hive owners own imported bee races. Across all types of hive owners, numbers of beekeepers own crossbreeds race are generally low. The traditional hive owners mainly preferred local honeybee race due to their better adaptability to the local hive types. The country imports 200,000 exotic package bees annually due to the shortage of local bees. However, the imported colonies are only surviving for one honey harvest or season (Al-Ghamdi and Nuru, 2013b).”
So...the non local high producing breeds were used in the boxes and they make great honey but die that same season? Sounds like the weak but prolific Italians. No thanks!
Is it the boxes or the bees then?