Special thanks to Murray Reid, Andrew Matheson, Cliff Van Eaton and other Apicultural Advisory Officers of New Zealand for making many of these 'rules of thumb' available!

Beekeeping Conversions and 'Ready Reckoner'

Early 'paper' versions of many of these conversions appeared in:

Beekeepers Bulletin 6(1)84:11-19

Van Eaton, C. (1996) Beekeeping ready reckoners. BeeBiz 2:16-17.

These conversion tables are a combination of straight mathematical conversions that 'can't be argued with' but many also contain some expert knowledge. That is, some involve beekeeping rules of thumb. Obviously, you may not agree with the assumptions! If you're not sure what is being assumed, put a 1 in the first box of a table and calculate it...

You can put your 'starting' number into any of the boxes, and the calculation will convert it to the other units...

Contents

Volume - Metric/imperial conversions for volume.

Weight - Metric/imperial weight conversions.

Small Length - Short distance conversion factors.

Long Distance - Longer distance conversions.

Area - Converting areas (both metric and imperial).

Frame Wire - Relating number of frames to the amount of wire needed to wire them.

Frame Nailing - Relating quantity of nails needed for a given number of frames.

Frame Wire - Frame wiring speed estimates.

Super Nailing - Quantities of nails needed to make bee boxes.

Super Painting - Paint required for bee boxes.

Paraffin Wax - Paraffin needed for preservation or disease dipping.

Brood Production - Relating egg laying rate to size of brood area.

Temperature - Convert between celcius and fahrenheit.

Useful Temperatures - Some useful temperatures related to beekeeping.

Sugar Syrup (Metric) - Mixing sugar syrup (metric).

Sugar Syrup (US) - Mixing sugar syrup (Imperial).

Sugar (Metric) - How much stores from sugar syrup (metric).

Sugar Stored (US) - How much stores from sugar syrup (Imperial).

Foundation Drawing (Metric) - Quantity of syrup needed to draw foundation (metric).

Foundation Drawing (US) - Quantity of syrup needed to draw foundation (Imperial).

PDB - Using paradichlorabenzene for wax moth control.

Pfund Scale - Honey colour scale.

Moisture Equilibrium - When is honey 'stable' with the atmosphere?

Supers/Honey/Wax - Weights of honey and supers, including the wax when you extract.

Volume Conversion    

Sample question:

"How many litres in an Imperial gallon?"

Weight Conversion    

Sample question:

"How many ounces in a kilogram?"

Small Length Conversion    

Sample question:

"How many inches in a metre?"

Longer Distance Conversion    

Sample question:

"How many kilometres in a mile?"

Area    

Sample question:

"How much larger is a hectare than an acre?"

Frame Wire    

Sample question:

"How many kilograms of frame wire will I need to wire 100 full depth frames with 3 wires in each?"

Frame Nails    

Sample question:

"How many frames will I be able to nail up with 1 lb of nails?"

Frame Wiring    

Sample question:

"How long is it going to take me to wire these 500 frames?"

Super Nails    

Sample question:

"How many kilograms of nails will I need to do 100 full depth boxes with 7 nails in each corner?"

Paint (two coats per box)    

Sample question:

"How many litres of paint will I need for 100 full depth boxes?"

Paraffin Wax (for timber preservation and/or AFB sterilisation)    

Sample question:

"How many kilograms of wax will I need to preserve 150 FD boxes?"

Brood Production And Egg-Laying Rates    

Sample question:

"If I have 5 FD frames of brood, how many eggs/day is the queen laying?"

Note: Average egg-laying rate of a young well-mated queen: 1500 eggs/day

Since the egg-laying rate of a queen decreases as she ages, this calculation shows why it is very important to requeen beehives on a regular basis.

Sugar Syrup (Metric)    

Sample question:

"I want to mix a 5 litre container of syrup - how much sugar for a heavy syrup?"

Note: 65% concentration is normally the highest sugar concentration which can be achieved by beekeepers mixing their own syrup. At concentrations above this, sugar is likely to come back out of solution, especially at lower temperatures. Fine liquid sugar (FLS) is available from sugar refineries at 67% concentration.

Sugar Syrup (US)    

Sample question:

"I want to mix a 10 gallon container of syrup - how much sugar for a heavy syrup?"

Note: 65% concentration is normally the highest sugar concentration which can be achieved by beekeepers mixing their own syrup. At concentrations above this, sugar is likely to come back out of solution, especially at lower temperatures. Fine liquid sugar (FLS) is available from sugar refineries at 67% concentration.

Sugar Stored (Metric)    

Sample question:

"I want to add 10kg of stores to the hive - how much do I need to feed?"

Note: To evaporate off the water and invert the sugar, bees use 0.3 kg of sugar for every litre of water in syrup.

Sugar Stored (US)    

Sample question:

"I want to add 10lb of stores to the hive - how much do I need to feed?"

Note: To evaporate off the water and invert the sugar, bees use .6 lb of sugar for every quart of water in syrup.

Foundation Drawing (Metric)    

Sample question:

"How much sugar will be used to draw out 10 supers of foundation?"

Note: Calculations based on 9:5 sugar syrup.

Foundation Drawing (US)    

Sample question:

"How much syrup will be used to draw out 10 supers of foundation?"

Note: Calculations based on 9:5 sugar syrup.

Paradichlorobenzene    

Sample question:

"How much PDB will I need for 20 full depth supers?"

Note: Best applied on piece of paper on top bars of top box of stack of 5 FD or 7 3/4 depth boxes, with bottom of stack sealed.

Honey/Supers/Wax    

Sample question:

"How much honey and wax can I expect from a load of 100 supers?"

Note: Based on full depth supers, 8 frames per box in extracting supers, mix of old/new combs.

Temperature    

Sample question:

What is 73 degrees fahrenheit in Celsius?"

Useful Temperatures    

Useful 'rules of thumb' for temperatures in beekeeping

Pfund Readings    

International scale for honey colour.

Moisture Equilibrium    

Equilibrium between relative humidity of air and moisture content of clover honey. Below the relative humidity level, honey at this moisture content begins to lose moisture. Above the relative humidity level, honey at this moisture content begins to take up moisture.