Brother adams hive

[drstitson]

dadant blatts in italy come in either 10 (500x435) or 12 (500x500) frame sizes (the smaller intended for nomadic purposes).

 

[Haughton Honey]

Yes they do Cris,nationals,with solid floors,no insulation,no queen excluders,and commercial supers. Most commercial beekeepers i know round this area are similar. They use JCB's for loading,moving ect,so not much heavy manual lifting to do.

How do they manage the 'no QX' situation Pete. Are they extracting from Commercial frames that might have had/have a bit of brood in them? Presumably the first/lowest super has a large amount of pollen in it?

All interesting stuff.

 

[RoofTops]

People shouldn't read too much into the examples of big operators using a specific type of hive. Most are family businesses which started a generation or so ago and the hive they started with is the one they have now.

Anyone starting from scratch these days would look at the economics and soon find that frames and hives more or less all cost the same, irrespective of size. There are differences of course but the main cost is in the manufacturing process not the raw materials. The only exception is wax foundation.

The savings comes from larger hives needing fewer frames and boxes for the same honey crop and this cuts down both the number needed and the amount of handling. A hive with lots of little frames is easier to handle but costs more to buy for the same volume as a larger hive and extracting the honey takes longer - more frames to handle.

This is not to say all bee farmers should swap to Dadants as another factor is whether your operation should use the same size frames for both brood and the honey. This has advantages but the boxes are heavier and extraction equipment is going to be more expensive as it needs to handle deeper frames. However, if you look across the World you will see a larger number of bee farmers using standard Langstroth for both brood and honey. The extra space required for brood is achieved by simply using two or more brood boxes as required.

 

[Norton]

Hello,
The use of a double brood box is unnecessary - singles (Langstroth) supply all the room needed. Studies have shown that the maximum amount of brood is only the equivalent of five full sized Langstoth frames.

It is important that the equipment is compatable with the bees used. Brother Adam mentions this in his publications. It is no good putting, for example, Amm in a Dadant hive - it will not work. That is why you have BS hives which were designed for use with these bees.

If a strain of bees is selected on a certain type of equipment and then are placed on another type they may not perform as well.

Best regards
Norton.

 

[Poly Hive]

Interesting.

So why would my poly Langstroths have 10 frames of brood. Combined to at least 9 solid frames.

Link please?

I think Finman would disagree too.

PH

 

[RoofTops]

Hello,
Studies have shown that the maximum amount of brood is only the equivalent of five full sized Langstoth frames.

Don't tell my bees please. The most I've seen was about 15 more or less full frames of brood on a Langstroth - Thats the bottom hive body wall to wall with 10 frames and the top body with about 8 frames of brood but the frames not all full. However, I have also heard reports of people using 3 Langstroth brood bodies so I am not claiming any sort of record.

But you are right about the type of bees. Some people seem to be able to do all their beekeeping on single brood Nationals.

 

[Finman]

.
Professionals play that one brood box game. Thery like too that hives are not too high.

I do not accept the queens which lay only in one box. 15 frames of brood is a good queen.
The brood box has pollen and honeyfood too. Why pollen should be stored in supers?

Of course you may press laying in one box. What is the advantage?

There are many variations in the game:

1) the queen may lay freely up to end of main yield and then excluder is added in late summer and the wintering brood will reared in one box. You may extract all honey.

2) method: queen may lay freely at the beginning of the summer; free production of brood for main yield. When swarming season starts, queen will be in prison inside the excluder.

3) Australian way: the queen lays full the brood box. Then empty combs hase been added, queen there and separated with excluder. This is a swarming preventing system. The queen has allways empty combs where it lays but brood space is more than one box

4) The queen is kept allways in one box under the excluder.

The most beekeepers do not know why and how they use excluder.

I use mostly excluder to clean berry yield which I gather from woods.


The reason why I use big hives, as big as they can be


My yield is very short and if the flow is good, it needs much store room and much bees to handle it. Normally main yield is 2-3 weeks.

A good yield does not depend on "profilic bees" or busy bees. It depends how much nertar flofer have, how far and how much nedtar has moisture to transport.

Even lazy bees become mad to work when flowers are full of nectar.

 

[Finman]

.
Why big hives for winter

- they winter without pains
- spring build up is fast
- yield season is longer than for "teen ages"

- strong hive swarms first - catch it, prevent

- the back will be almost broken when you lift full honey boxes.
- it is painfull to sell large yields
- money makes no happy but it relieves living.

 

[Haughton Honey]

.

3) Australian way: the queen lays full the brood box. Then empty combs hase been added, queen there and separated with excluder. This is a swarming preventing system. The queen has allways empty combs where it lays but brood space is more than one box

This is interesting. So are they effectively confining the Q to the top brood box above the QX and after 24 days (when all lava should have emerged) repeating the process?

Anyone on here use this technique?

 

[Poly Hive]

Anyone on here from the UK got Australian weather?

PH

 

[iball]

Anyone on here from the UK got Australian weather?

PH

No Cyclones in Mossley!!

 

[Hivemaker.]

How do they manage the 'no QX' situation Pete. Are they extracting from Commercial frames that might have had/have a bit of brood in them? Presumably the first/lowest super has a large amount of pollen in it?

All interesting stuff.

Yes they extract from frames that have had brood in,even full frames of heather honey from the brood box.
Many of the large commercial beekeepers also have there own workshops and make there own box's/hives....works out much cheaper,we have supplied over 40 tons of milled timber in the last few months to one reasonably new, but large buissness in the midlands,all for hives and frames, being made by them for further expansion,so not always long established operations that stick with what they have had from the start,oh...and they use nationals as well,solid floor.

 

[Norton]

So why would my poly Langstroths have 10 frames of brood. Combined to at least 9 solid frames.

I'm sorry - but I do not believe you. 9 frames total of brood is about 55,000 cells, divide it by 21 and you get about 2,600 - way above the maximum egg laying rate of queens studied. Egg laying rates vary from 1,200 to 1,500 and very rarely up to 1,800 for very brief periods in exceptional queens. the only way you are going to get such a large amount of brood is if you happen to have 2 queens in your hive. They are present in up to 10% of hives in any apiary, but often go unnoticed.
There are many things that you can look up, just Google "egg laying rates of queen bee" and here is a good discussion:-
http://www.beesource.com/point-of-view/walt-wright/how-many-eggs-can-a-queen-lay/
Even if a queen did reach the magic figure of 2,000 eggs/day you still have to deduct at least 10% for non-viable eggs.............etc etc
Best regards
Norton.

 

[RoofTops]

Norton, I think we are talking about two different things. I have seen virtually every cell on a frame laid up but most have brood in the central portion only. If the queen did lay up 100% of every cell she would indeed need fewer frames, but most frames look like the one below and that is why 10 is sometimes not enough.

On a different note the picture below shows well what an experienced beekeeper told me about healthy brood - it looks like ginger biscuits.

 

[Norton]

Well this is what I posted:

Studies have shown that the maximum amount of brood is only the equivalent of five full sized Langstoth frames.

I would count the above frame as only half a frame of brood. Go ahead and count up the total amount of brood in your colonies at **** brood rearing time. You will find that it is only about 5 Langstroth frames in TOTAL BROOD AREA.
Here is a fully laid up Dadant frame with 4,9 size comb and the total on this frame is about 10,000 cells (both sides).
best regards
Norton.

 

[Poly Hive]

Believe what you like Norton I know what I see.

AMM Q by the way just to rub salt in.

If I had a queen which couldn't lay up a Langstroth I would kill her.

PH

 

[RoofTops]

Further to my post above the queen can be confined in a single brood box and she may make better use of the frames - or decide to swarm as the little devils are planning in the picture.

 

[louiseww]

Beecraft & hive manufacture

I have just read my latest Beecraft and it states that some research has been done on the manufacture of hives and they will be giving us the low down on it in the next issue. Apparently some of the manufacture is very poor and taking no note of the beespace etc.
While on the subject of Beecraft - I wonder what others think of the fact that it is the BBKA's official mag but they also put out a newsletter which often has stuff in that has already been in Beecraft and they don't want to merge the two!
Thinking of changing - which one would you good people recommended? I have wondered about the quarterly one!
Louise

 

[Hivemaker.]

I agree with you Norton,almost impossible to be otherwise with just one queen,unless the one queen was laying around 3,700 eggs a day.

 

[Finman]

Anyone on here from the UK got Australian weather?

PH

Nothing to do with weather.