Speed of Work
Honeybees visit up to about 40 flowers per minute depending on floral type, nectar availability and weather conditions. Floral visitation rate by honeybees of some important crops:
| Flower | Seconds per visit |
|---|---|
| Apricot | 10 |
| Apple | 68 |
| Cherry | 82 |
| Raspberry | 116 |
| Black currant | 134 |
The longer the time period, the greater the nectar availability. It takes twice as much time to collect a load of nectar compared with a load of pollen. A bee will visit 100–1000 flowers per trip from the hive.
There is general agreement that a single bee will do an average of 10 trips per day (range 7–13). Large single loads of nectar may weigh 70 mg for Italian bees. Sometimes a hive may gain 4–10 kg in a single day. For a 5 kg (11 pounds) gain this means:
In two days a strong hive with more than 20,000 foragers may fill a honey super. This is for nectar, ripe honey has its water fraction reduced significantly.
Read more about this topic: Honey Flow
Famous quotes containing the words speed of, speed and/or work:
“For myself and my loved ones, I want the heat, which comes at the speed of light. I don’t want to have to hang about for the blast, which idles along at the speed of sound.”
—Martin Amis (b. 1949)
“If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honor in one eye, and death i’th’ other,
And I will look on both indifferently;
For let the gods so speed me as I love
The name of honor more than I fear death.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I move my thin legs into your office
and we work over the cadaver of my soul.
We make a stage set out of my past
and stuff painted puppets into it.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)