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I have had exactly the same experience - 18 hives into winter, all treated for varroa by oxalic vaporisation which showed very few mites drop after treatment, so low infestation - all very heavy with left-on honey, no sugar feeds - first week in Jan no flying from 3 hives, opened and piles of...

Dartington hives have moved on a bit from 1975 when first developed. All my own hives are now insulated by simply adding 25mm Celotex to the oitside of the long walls, covered by 9mm of softwood slats - that fills up the 34mm ‘recesses’ on each side - I add 25mm Cleotex inside each eand wall...

I’m all for being gentle and understanding in everything, especially when managing honeybees. My problem is not understanding by what process an objective observation on the way bees live evolves from first being ‘noted to occur’, to a ‘tested observation through repetition’, to an ‘expressed...

I use smooth faced hessian, bought from a Market stall. Others have got old hessian bags from pet shops - no pet shop here so I don’t know, but rough hessian can have too many bits sticking out. You are absolutely right not to put foil covered insulation straight over the topbars - it will get...

Yes - almost. I am way down in hurling abuse. Actually, I ought not to accept being judged equally prejudiced to Ian. Prejudice means ‘pre-judgement’, making up your mind before examining the facts’. I kept Nats for 10 years before developing the long hive 47 years ago. I have had Nats...

Yes, the shape of a nest within a cavity is shaped by the cavity - but shorely the law at first is ‘get inside quickly after swarming - or die in the next storm!‘. Isn’t it only then that the law of physics comes into play, dictating how much energy/honey is needed to keep the brood nest of...

I am really grateful for this posting - the first that has offered info on others who are on the road I want to travel. The link to David Heaf’s website is very helpful - and new to me. I have David’s 2021 booklet, ‘The Modified Golden Hive’, but that is mostly concerned with his hive building...

Ian, we have different views. You are prejudiced in favour of current hives and seem unable to consider any possibility of improvement to suit todays needs. I am more open minded by nature, and believe what we have came about by experimentation, eg Rev Langstroth in particular, and...

Ian is pressing for a reply so I must. But we are clearly poles apart in our views and neither will be converted to the other. Let us try to understand and respect each other and not scrap. To clarify the two view points: the conventional ‘commercial’ approach is to use bees to make honey for...

Yes. And I am grateful. Beekeeping needs to be alive - not stuck in the past. But what way to go in future is of course open to debate. So let’s debate!

Absolutely fine to share links to the two short books published by Northern Bee Books. But perhaps you went on ebay? There are later editions that look like this:

“ can we just cool it, please” I enjoy discussion - if it is open-minded. “Can we just assume Robin likes his LDH’s and doesn’t like Nationals”. I have kept Nats for 57 years. This year I kept 4 Nats (2 Deep, 2 Brood+Half plus two Long Standard hives (8.5 deeo ‘standard’ brood frames) plus...

Just to reiterate - i developed the DLD hive to suit my own beekeeping on the roof of a 5-storey house. It derived from pushing two Deep National together, back to back, and then removing the two back sides to make one long box divisible with a divider board. Saves having to have a spare...

Luckily, sole use of the National box has not happened. It was the box of its time, 1920 - at the time, beekeepers were not taking their WBC hives to orchards for pollination - but Bro Adam did take Buckfast WBC’s up to the heather in a wheel barrow - but he was young and a tough German. Then...

Asolutely true - it is said there are a million De Layens hives in southern France and Spain - and Thorne’s now sell in UK for 360 UK pounds without supers. I always say that ‘New Beekeeping’ , my system using DLD hives, is a new presentation of old ideas, not an introduction of new ideas -...

As said earlier, my experimental ‘Blue Hive’ is based on Mellifera’s Golden Hive but my frames are 11 inches wide by 18 inches deep.which is the widest that will fit in a normal 4-frame tangential extractor - my pic showed one of my frames after extraction . This is narrower than de Layens, yes...

That was my own experience as wellback in 1975 and I have used long hives taking 14x12 ever since , so I am glad of your comment. How do you work the hive through the year? 14x12 does allow the bees to build an initial spherical nest, that becomes bell shaped as it ages. Nine 14x12 will hold...

‘FRee-hanging comb’ has been questioned. This is a free-hanging brood comb in a 11x18 frame with no bottom bar. - built naturally by the bees from a starter strip attached to the top bar. Typically attached by the bees to the side bars only part of the depth, leaving the bottom part...

‘Bees will live in anything after all’. Is that what beginners courses teach nowadays? It is true of course, just as it is true a human family can live in anything, so developers build small houses with insufficient rooms/gardens for children to develop naturally. It does not matter of...

I am surprised by the support for plastic foundation in brood frames As that would seem to make rasing drones impossible - as colonies must have drones to operate naturally, does plastic brood foundation force colonies to raise drones in supers? If supers are also plastic, what do colonies...