A National-Dadant beehive ?

[Eyeman]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cussword
I didn't bother reading your full reply, you clearly choose to understand what you want. By all means continue to do so.

It's not that important to me.
I really don't understand why you've been poking your oar in, anyway.
LJ

That's just the nature of the beast
Little John I do enjoy your thought provoking posts. Please don't be put off by the usual suspects.

 

[Finman]

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Forget what somebody did 150 y ago.

I use upper entrance during winter in the front wall like Canadians do.

Quess what happens... I know it. Air circulates via small hole and moves much moisture out from hive. I do not need to worry about lack of oxygen if snow or dead bees stuck the main entrance.

Lots of moisture condensates onto sides of inner walls.

When out temp is under -10C, moisture freezes inside the polyhive. It makes snow and ice sticks between frames. When out temp is milder, snow melts and water drills out via entrance.

20 kg winter food generates 14 kg water inside the hive via respiration.

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[Hivemaker.]

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I use upper entrance during winter in the front wall like Canadians do.

Quess what happens... I know it. Air circulates via small hole and moves much moisture out from hive. I do not need to worry about lack of oxygen if snow or dead bees stuck the main entrance.

Also useful if there is deep flooding, the bees can escape from the top entrance as the water rises.

 

[BeeJayBee]

I saw photos of a cut out, last year, where the bees had settled (and had been living for some years) in a void above a porch - they had no chance to build vertically and they had built out and virtually filled the whole width of the void (nearly 5' wide) with comb that was over 18" deep in places ... It was a huge colony and threw out two or three swarms every year, but the property was being renovated and they had to go ... the beekeeper who did the cut out had standard nationals and had to immediately put them into double brood.

All the cutouts and removals I've done, and all those I've heard about or seen photos of, show that established natural colonies use much more space than is ever provided in a standard national brood box plus a couple of shallow supers.

 

[Fusion_power]

All the cutouts and removals I've done, and all those I've heard about or seen photos of, show that established natural colonies use much more space than is ever provided in a standard national brood box plus a couple of shallow supers.

Which is precisely the point of this thread. A strong colony can have 80,000 cells of brood in spring and needs minimum 40,000 cells of capped honey to make it through winter, more in colder climates. LJ is making a brood chamber large enough to handle the brood and honey storage with approximately 115,000 cells capacity. It is the same paradigm I'm following with the 14 frame Square Dadant hives at 124,000 cells. There are distinct advantages to the size.

Think about it, if you are using 3 Langstroth deeps for the brood chamber and overwintering, you are using a large hive that has 30 frames and 213,000 cells capacity.

 

[Finman]

Which is precisely the point of this thread. A strong colony can have 80,000 cells of brood in spring and needs minimum 40,000 cells of capped honey to make it through winter, more in colder climates. LJ is making a brood chamber large enough to handle the brood and honey storage with approximately 115,000 cells capacity. It is the same paradigm I'm following with the 14 frame Square Dadant hives at 124,000 cells. There are distinct advantages to the size.

Think about it, if you are using 3 Langstroth deeps for the brood chamber and overwintering, you are using a large hive that has 30 frames and 213,000 cells capacity.

Quite odd those calculations. What is the problem in your beekeeping which makes you think such things.
You do not have such queens,which can lay that much..


American beekeepers need 3 langstroth boxes in wintering, because they have no insulation in hives and they do not have to local climate adapted queens.

In Alaska they need 50 kg winter food, in Finland we need 20-25 kg.

 

[Fusion_power]

The best queen I ever had was a purebred Buckfast in 1991 that laid 18 Langstroth frames of brood of which 4 were partial and 14 were nearly full. I figured that colony had in the range of eighty to ninety thousand cells of brood. I'm an optimist, keep thinking maybe if I give the queens enough room they will keep laying up to that magic 90,000 mark.

I do a lot of numbers Finman, it is a thing for me. For example, there are 7100 cells in a standard Langstroth deep frame. That means 40,000 cells of honey is about 6 full Langstroth frames of honey. I've had bees winter on that amount of honey several times. A full frame of honey will weigh in the range of 6 pounds so 6 frames at 6 pounds each is about 36 pounds of honey for winter. As I stated, more is needed in colder climates. You are wintering on 50 to 60 pounds.

A Dadant frame has 9000 cells which would suggest I can winter with 5 frames full of honey. I plan on wintering with 7 to be on the safe side. My frames are on 31.5 mm spacing which means there is a bit less honey per frame than with thicker combs.

A lot of beekeepers here in the U.S. winter with 2 Langstroth deeps and some with 3 deeps. It is their business how they keep bees. Most of them are wintering with about 100 pounds of honey reserves per colony. That seems excessive to me.

LJ's 14 X 14 frames should run around 10,000 cells each. He will have a fully equipped brood chamber with plenty of room for egg laying and winter stores.

From your description, you are wintering in double Langstroth hives with 20 frames and 140,000 cells. Do you really need that much?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

That's just the nature of the beast
Little John I do enjoy your thought provoking posts. Please don't be put off by the usual suspects.

He's already left I believe. This is part of his final? post

"I won't be returning. I can always be contacted via Beemaster or Beesource,"

 

[Finman]

From your description, you are wintering in double Langstroth hives with 20 frames and 140,000 cells. Do you really need that much?

IT is easy to know at the ens if August, how much the colony needs for Winter.

The winter cluster will be as big as brood area before winter feeding.

If colony has 12 - 15 frames, it cannot owerwinter in one box . Colony dies, if it too tight.

8-10 brood frames I can push into one box. But if it swells out during feeding, I put a medium under the brood.

Too much space is harmfull, because then I have too much winter food when new yield comes in. Too much space is not healthy to bees.

 

[Cussword]

Originally Posted by Cussword
I didn't bother reading your full reply, you clearly choose to understand what you want. By all means continue to do so.
It's not that important to me.

I really don't understand why you've been poking your oar in, anyway.
LJ

That's just the nature of the beast
Little John I do enjoy your thought provoking posts. Please don't be put off by the usual suspects.

So, you wished to "poke your oar in". If you enjoyed his posts so much it's a terrible shame that you were not involved with the thread itself when he was here. Just popped in later to make a snide remark eh?
On this thread I initially agreed with a comment that the frames that he suggested may be too big for some people.
He became a little prissy and said I was wrong. I pointed out that I wasn't. He then spat his dummy out.
I left him to it.

I was just beginning to think that you were someone who's opinion I could pay attention to.

How wrong could I have been.

.

 

[Fusion_power]

This video was posted elsewhere showing hive inspections in square Dadant depth hives. If you think they are too big, watch this video and make up your own mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6RNUfWMbIQ

 

[Finman]

This video was posted elsewhere showing hive inspections in square Dadant depth hives. If you think they are too big, watch this video and make up your own mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6RNUfWMbIQ

Yes. They are too big, because I use langstroths in supers and I extract brood frames too.

Too big really. Impossible.

 

[Fusion_power]

I knew that you had to extract brood frames finman. It is the only way you could keep bees the way you describe. I do not extract brood frames because it lowers the grade of honey significantly. That "too big" brood chamber outperforms your "too big" brood chamber made of 3 Langstroth boxes that the queen lays in wherever she chooses.

 

[Finman]

. It is the only way you could keep bees the way you describe. .

Only way?

What..... What....

Brood boxes have often 15 kg honey.

When you extraxt brood frames, it has nothing to do with grade.


You know, our professionals keep hives without excluder up to half of July, then they restrict the mating to one langstrot or to two mediums.

So they extract every droplet from the hive and they start at once the winter feeding.
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[jenkinsbrynmair]

I do not extract brood frames because it lowers the grade of honey significantly

Bollox

 

[Fusion_power]

Gordon F. Townsend, Professor of Apiculture, Guelph University published in The Hive and the Honeybee.

Honey should, if at all possible, be produced in honey supers and not in brood combs. The use of brood combs for honey will increase pollen content of the honey, thus leading to problems when the honey is filtered. Honey stored in combs darkened by old pupa cases will tend to pick up some of the pigment and become darkened. This darkening takes place very rapidly when the moisture content of the honey is quite high. A sample of honey containing 50% moisture, as is common with nectar, stored over brood comb for three days increased in color from 35 mm to 112 mm on the pfund grader at normal hive temperature. Some samples became quite turbid from suspended insolubles. The best quality honey is produced in white super combs.

 

[Finman]

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Professor Townsend may say what ever, but the whole world produces honey in brood combs.

Many famous nursing methods are based on such, that you lift brood frames over the excluder, and then put the Queen to lay into foundation box .

What about normal AS. You separate brood boxes to different location, and you give 2 boxes foundations to queen to lay. Then you unite the hive parts after a week and old brood frames will be filled with honey.

The most succesfull swarming control methods would be impossibe if you extract honey only from wihite combs.

The same stupid idea is to produce organic honey. You cannot produce it in plastic hives, but you can sell it in plastic bottles..

.

 

[Finman]

Gordon F. Townsend, Professor of Apiculture, Guelph University published in The Hive and the Honeybee.

Best honey is produced when you choose the plants, were you are going to get the yield. And then the mixtures.
Honey dew us famous too = forest honey.

Tel it to Townsend.
.

If you look the honey markets, there is no such honey class like "produced in white combs" or "produced in brood combs" . It is allways plant based.

 

[Fusion_power]

Interesting finman, this is one of the few times I've seen you defensive of your beekeeping methods and one of the few times JBM has agreed with you. Are you sure you don't want to at least throw a plug in the direction of producing high quality honey to keep JBM fuming?

The best flavored honey sells regardless of color. All else being equal, lighter flavored honey is preferred over darker honey with the exception of some specialty honey such as Buckwheat or honeydew aka "forest" honey. I had a woman purchasing honey by the case several years ago specifically because I bottled the darkest honey separate. She loved the flavor.

I will keep producing honey in light colored combs and you will keep extracting brood combs when they are full of honey. I hope your combs are full of honey and your rainfall abundant so the flowers keep yielding.

 

[Teemore]

I have a lot of people specifically asking for honey that has been minimally filtered, specifically because they want as much pollen in it as possible. A number of people have requested honey straight from the tap of the extractor and accept that it will have bits of wax in it and that it is likely to crystallise quicker than filtered honey.
I know several Polish and Russian people who have relocated to Northern Ireland and they actively seek out comb honey. One of them joined my local association and is kept busy supplying family and friends with honey. Believe it or not, they want the darkest comb possible and they want to see some pollen in the comb also. Their view of "quality" differs greatly from Prof. Townsend!!
Personally, the best quality honey is that which has not been heated excessively, causing it to caramelise. A Lithuanian lady who lives close to me will not buy supermarket honey or anything from Rowse or Boyne valley. She describes them as being boiled honey.
In terms of the colour of honey, it is common practice for the beekeepers I know to sort their frames of honey by colour. They do a lot of honey shows and like to be able to enter honey in as many classes as possible and try to ensure they have light, medium and dark honey available. Even super comb that has never been brooded in darkens over time and this imparts a darker hue to the honey in addition to the nectar forage plants available for the colonies.