Beekeeping myths

[pargyle]

Right... stop... this is not a thread for discussion of the rights and wrongs of what some people consider to be beekeeping mythology. There is no reason to agree or disagree . If you want to discuss things start a new thread please...

 

[user 6228]

scrabbling around for an excuse to justify bad beekeeping in a badly designed hive are we?

I think you are being a bit unfair. Honey bees have had 600,000 years plus at heat transfer. They are advanced experts at thermofluids. And the output from the schools teaching on this subject is a lot of people confused, and ignorant about heat transfer (This educational failure is another academic subject in its own right )(google heat transfer misconceptions). I have been researching this for over 10 years, and I still get forehead slapping moments, because I went with flow of accepted BK and entomology instead of going with the bees.

 

[user 20297]

There can be some confusion on this .
Bees can ‘survive’ in low efficiency cavities, even in open fronted caves.
Bees can ’thrive’ in National type hives if the bkr intervenes to replace 1/3 of brood frames per year - tops up winter stores with sugar feeds and with fondant in spring. Bkrs who keep bees to obtain honey are happy to accept this degree of support - but colonies left in abandoned hives do not do well I belive, so I say that it is a myth to say that National hives are good for the bees.

Bees can possibly (not yet proven I believe) have best chance to perpetuate naturally as a species (their biological aim) , without annual intervention, if introduced to long-lasting hives specifically designed to enable the bees to build combs that best meet the biological needs of the colony. The old German Skeps, twice the height of UK skeps, were possibly very good for the bees. The Layens hive may be well suited to Spanish bees in the Spanish climate. The Golden Hive may be good for the German climate. Natural bkprs in UK are trying various designs but seemingly without very clear aims on the needs of the bees. I myself am trying 11x18ins frames in an extended and supered hive to see how bees appear to respond but with too small numbers to prove anything.

The UK lacks any ‘beekeeping institute’, more’s the pity. BBKA is an association of bkprs, concerned with bkprs needs, without any research apiary addessing the interests of the bees. The Golden Hive
was designed by the Mellifera Association and immediately tested with 100 hives before publication. The English translation in 2021 is titled ‘Keeping bees simply and respectfully’.

This 11x18 frame was taken from a recent dead hive ( an invitation for a conventional response that it was not any good then, but colony losses have been high this spring for a possible range of reasons). The frame shows the brood patch midway between the stores at the top and empty cells at the bottom that give ample room for dumping nectar and for foragers at night-time - 50% of bees can be foragers in summer-time.
View attachment 35423

Thankyou for taking the time to give such a comprehensive and well structured response to my slightly flippant comment.
I am in agreement with you in your apparent, overall aim of keeping bees in a more natural way than is traditional in this country. But in my limited experience, which has included some very random and somewhat clueless manipulations and interventions, our Northern bees do very well when attention is given to keeping them securely housed in insulated BS National boxes.
I am experimenting with a tiny, insulated Warre hive with a tiny colony of bees. That's possibly going in the opposite direction from you, but it seems to work.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

The high point of this thread was @The Poot and "wax myths".

 

[JamezF]

I’m with you there. I’m totally ignorant of the science, having been excluded from both physics and chemistry…but what I observe is fondant going gooey from warmth that must have been generated by the bees, that has escaped the cluster. So I deduce they keep themselves warm and lose some of it, enough to warm fondant above. That’ll do me.

I suspect this may be down to absorbing water from the air in the hive as much as anything else. Warmth may just help by allowing the air to hold more water.

James

 

[JamezF]

Heat(energy) MUST flow from high temperatures to low temperatures.

"Entropy is a bitch", as the man said.

James

 

[Erichalfbee]

Deleted following moderator guidelines.

Nothing wrong with it. Tangents are allowed as long as they are polite so I’ve reinstated it

 

[user 6228]

"Entropy is a bitch", as the man said.

James

Entropy, entropy, every ones got it entropy. With apologies to K. Williams in Carry on Cleo

 

[The Poot]

I suspect this may be down to absorbing water from the air in the hive as much as anything else. Warmth may just help by allowing the air to hold more water.

James

I think that’s right too James.

 

[Jengles]

These are myths? It's very much in line with what I thought, or used to think I thought, and now I think I just don't know.

(Separately) A couple of years ago, when I became aware of beekeeping myths, I started collecting them from here and elsewhere and wrote a couple of articles for my BKA newsletter. Normally it's a pretty thankless task writing a newsletter - sending all these words into a vacuum - but these articles got more positive feedback than any before or since. People liked to laugh at these myths (and probably felt good about themselves that they no longer believed them themselves). One member (NDB) added to the list of myths with: ‘The first emerging virgin queen pipes to locate other queens, then goes around and kills them’. (He added a couple of paragraphs by way of explanation.)

Is it not the case that the first emerging queen kills the others in a supersedure?

 

[rdartington]

Thankyou for taking the time to give such a comprehensive and well structured response to my slightly flippant comment.
I am in agreement with you in your apparent, overall aim of keeping bees in a more natural way than is traditional in this country. But in my limited experience, which has included some very random and somewhat clueless manipulations and interventions, our Northern bees do very well when attention is given to keeping them securely housed in insulated BS National boxes.
I am experimenting with a tiny, insulated Warre hive with a tiny colony of bees. That's possibly going in the opposite direction from you, but it seems to work.

May I thank you in return for a corrective and informative response to my post. Helpfull.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Is it not the case that the first emerging queen kills the others in a supersedure?

no, not neccessarily - nor in other situations either

 

[rdartington]

May I thank you in return for a corrective and informative response to my post. Helpfull.

May I thank you in return for a corrective and informative response to my post. Helpfull.

Continuing …
All my comments are based on keeping bee in London and Hertfordshire. Scotland is a different country far to the north with its own climate, and severe winter temperatures. . I should have identified the climates within I work.
Your ideas are interesting. I assume you have a shorter active season (please say) so a colony has less time to build up and must close down earlier for winter. So your ideas for smaller colonies would match that. In the south, small hive boxes precipitate swarming but that may not apply in the north.
i myself have tried a Warre, but at large size to match the southern climate. I found the principle of adding extra space at the bottom, rather than at the top, completely impractical. But that would not apply so a smaller hive in a northern climate with a shorter active season - so my best wishes to you and with hopes you will keep us informed.

 

[Mabee]

Is it not the case that the first emerging queen kills the others in a supersedure?

It generally is the case, yes, but depending on the time of year and size of the hive, they can also swarm on supersedure so I suppose it’s not a whole truth either.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I thought it was generally the bees that did the queens in

 

[The Poot]

I thought it was generally the bees that did the queens in

Or the beekeeper.

 

[Murox]

Thankyou for taking the time to give such a comprehensive and well structured response to my slightly flippant comment.
I am in agreement with you in your apparent, overall aim of keeping bees in a more natural way than is traditional in this country. But in my limited experience, which has included some very random and somewhat clueless manipulations and interventions, our Northern bees do very well when attention is given to keeping them securely housed in insulated BS National boxes.
I am experimenting with a tiny, insulated Warre hive with a tiny colony of bees. That's possibly going in the opposite direction from you, but it seems to wo

Continuing …
All my comments are based on keeping bee in London and Hertfordshire. Scotland is a different country far to the north with its own climate, and severe winter temperatures. . I should have identified the climates within I work.
Your ideas are interesting. I assume you have a shorter active season (please say) so a colony has less time to build up and must close down earlier for winter. So your ideas for smaller colonies would match that. In the south, small hive boxes precipitate swarming but that may not apply in the north.
i myself have tried a Warre, but at large size to match the southern climate. I found the principle of adding extra space at the bottom, rather than at the top, completely impractical. But that would not apply so a smaller hive in a northern climate with a shorter active season - so my best wishes to you and with hopes you will keep us informed.

Just a thought - although geography, location, climate and cavity (box) size all matter, isn't the availability of good forage (year round) a more significant factor regarding the 'thrivability' of bees in any given situation? the size a colony can grow must be affected by the forage and variety of it throughout the season (year) - not necessarily the length of the season?

 

[user 6228]

Just a thought - although geography, location, climate and cavity (box) size all matter, isn't the availability of good forage (year round) a more significant factor regarding the 'thrivability' of bees in any given situation? the size a colony can grow must be affected by the forage and variety of it throughout the season (year) - not necessarily the length of the season?

The other side of the energy equation

 

[rdartington]

Just a thought - although geography, location, climate and cavity (box) size all matter, isn't the availability of good forage (year round) a more significant factor regarding the 'thrivability' of bees in any given situation? the size a colony can grow must be affected by the forage and variety of it throughout the season (year) - not necessarily the length of the season?

Yes , you must be right - for a colony to teach its full potential, there must be sufficient forage thruout the season. But given that, as I see it, since it takes 3 weeks from egg to bee wherever the colony is, a shorter season will limit the max size of the population and so a smaller hive will be better.
A small colony in a large hive does not seem to do well, presumably as it has to spend energy on heating. In my Long Deep hives I keep the colony on only the frames it fills plus a bit more for growth until the main flow starts and space is needed for honey storage. In practice, this means keeping all the frames within the long box but jumping frames over the insulating dummy board as needed, which takes very little time.

 

[Mabee]

I thought it was generally the bees that did the queens in

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282720811_Behavioral_Strategies_of_Virgin_The bees remove the dead queens but the virgin chews a hole and kills the queen in the cell by stinging her. Queens will also kill other queens on emergence, if emerging at the same time. There are obviously exceptions, like if the colony swarms, which is why I mentioned the time of year matters.

I know bees will ball queens but I don’t think it’s a myth that queen bees don’t kill their sisters in a supersedure.

But happy to be educated otherwise…