Colander Hive - preview.

[Little John]

Just noticed - we don't seem to have a sub-forum for experimentation - so I guess this is the nearest appropriate place. Trust mods will move it if not ...


This is one of several 'back-of-a-***-packet' experiments I'll be running during the coming season. This one is intended to indicate whether - given a free choice - bees would prefer an upper or lower entrance, or whether (as I suspect) they are indifferent to entrance position.

The stack itself is comprised of two 14x12 5-frame nuc boxes, each of 20L capacity, with a solid floor and feeder shell above. There will be no additional ventilation or insulation provided. Holes are 11mm diameter, spaced nominally 1.5" apart.

I expect the bees to be using all holes during the summer (if we have one !) - it's what they do, if anything, during the autumn which is where my own interest lies.

If anyone else has an interest in this sort of thing, I'll keep you posted.
LJ

 

[alldigging]

I expect the bees to be using all holes during the summer (if we have one !) - it's what they do, if anything, during the autumn which is where my own interest lies.

If anyone else has an interest in this sort of thing, I'll keep you posted.
LJ

Can we place bets on how many they fill in with propolis and wax?

 

[For want of a better word]

You will need much bigger holes when a flow get going.... I take it frames are in the cold way?

Yeghes da

 

[Erichalfbee]

You could make the holes bigger and attach a cork with a string at each one. If a bumblebee can move a little yellow ball about I'm sure the bees could haul up a cork or two

Seriously....I'd like to know how it goes.....please

 

[Little John]

Can we place bets on how many they fill in with propolis and wax?

Indeed - that, of course, is the whole point of the experiment - I'm hoping they will do just that, but suspect they will modify the first comb in (running 'warm way') to act as a baffle instead, as I've seen bees do something similar before, over a strip OMF.

I thought long and hard about the number and diameter of holes to provide. Too small and we're into beespace criteria, too large and the colony would have too hard a time defending so much entrance area - as the one thing I don't want to have to do (fairly obviously) is reduce the entrance size come the robbing season.
LJ

 

[Finman]

I expect the bees to be using all holes during the summer (if we have one !) - it's what they do, if anything, during the autumn which is where my own interest lies.

LJ

My experience is that bees use the entrance which is closest brood.
But in your hole line they do not have good visual adress.

Holes are too small. The bee must be allowed to pass by in the middle of hole
15 mm is smallest practical round hole.

But you try. Then you know.

That much holes makes draft into the hive and keep brood space too cool.
.
I have upper entrance in every box but I cannot keep them open. Hive is too cold when open.

 

[Finman]

.
Holes are too small. Bees start to run along the wall when they seek free Access into the hive.

 

[Little John]

Considering no-one's ever done this before (afaik) - there's a lot of 'experts' on here telling me what's wrong with this set-up.
Some of you seem to think that I've just lashed this together without any thought, and without using my existing hive entrances as a barometer with which to judge what may work, and what may not.

Let's just wait and see, eh ?

The only thing I seem to have got badly wrong is to post before running the experiment - should have waited until afterwards. But then, I wouldn't have learned about how badly I've got things wrong.
LJ

 

[Finman]

Considering no-one's ever done this before (afaik) - there's a lot of 'experts' on here telling me what's wrong with this set-up.
Some of you seem to think that I've just lashed this together without any thought, and without using my existing hive entrances as a barometer with which to judge what may work, and what may not.

Let's just wait and see, eh ?


LJ

I have in every box a hole, and I have seen what they do.
When I have kept open all those holes, the hive is too cold. Even if days temps are +30C.

...but we see....
.

 

[alldigging]

Indeed - that, of course, is the whole point of the experiment - I'm hoping they will do just that, but suspect they will modify the first comb in (running 'warm way') to act as a baffle instead, as I've seen bees do something similar before, over a strip OMF.

I thought long and hard about the number and diameter of holes to provide. Too small and we're into beespace criteria, too large and the colony would have too hard a time defending so much entrance area - as the one thing I don't want to have to do (fairly obviously) is reduce the entrance size come the robbing season.
LJ

We had a nuc that I thought the entrance was too small on. So him indoors altered it. The bees in the nuc then modified it to be about the size it had been originally. Was really interesting listening to them chewing wax at it.

 

[Michael Palmer]

My experience is that bees use the entrance which is closest brood.

Or do they put the brood near an entrance?

 

[Finman]

Or do they put the brood near an entrance?

Depends size of entrance

I have seen what they do and my duty is to nurse hives so that I do not try to mix their instincts.

I do not use excluder. But I use 3 langstroth brood boxes. In main flow entrance is wide open and bees fill the lowest box with pollen. So they do not store pollen inside honey combs. When I put entrance reducer, the queen comes down to lay into pollen combs.

If all 3 brood boxes have middle entrances open, brood nest is too cold.

If supers have upper entrances open, the whole hive is too cold.

I look need of ventilation from the number of ventilating bees.

-
-

 

[alldigging]

Or do they put the brood near an entrance?

The books say they like an entrance at the bottom of the cavity.

 

[wightbees]

What do books know

 

[Finman]

What do books know

They know nothing. All education is bad. It makes people too smart.

 

[For want of a better word]

Considering no-one's ever done this before (afaik) - there's a lot of 'experts' on here telling me what's wrong with this set-up.
Some of you seem to think that I've just lashed this together without any thought, and without using my existing hive entrances as a barometer with which to judge what may work, and what may not.

Let's just wait and see, eh ?

The only thing I seem to have got badly wrong is to post before running the experiment - should have waited until afterwards. But then, I wouldn't have learned about how badly I've got things wrong.
LJ

Are you going to super up with Flow hive frames?
My guess is that the bees will chew open the bottom entrance and glue up the others.... if polly?
Will be interesting to see!

Yeghes da

 

[mintmoth]

it would be interesting to set up another in the same way, but with empty frames or just top bars, to see which way the bees would choose to orient their nest in relation to the holes.

 

[Finman]

it would be interesting to set up another in the same way, but with empty frames or just top bars, to see which way the bees would choose to orient their nest in relation to the holes.

the comb orientation type in their previous nest. Thus, comb orientation appears to be governed by the inner surface pattern of the nest cavity.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22812112
J Econ Entomol. 2012 Jun;105(3):777-82.

The results showed that 22 (91.66%) of the 24 colonies in the treated groups built combs along the ridges provided, whereas only 2 (8.33%) did not. Comb orientation was strongly associated with the type of guide marks provided. Moreover, of the 18 colonies that randomly fell to patterns different from those of their previous nests, 17 (94.4%) followed the guide marks provided, irrespective of the comb orientation type in their previous nest. Thus, comb orientation appears to be governed by the inner surface pattern of the nest cavity. The results suggest that even in fixed-comb hives, honey bees can be guided to build combs with orientations suitable to honey harvesting, without affecting the colonies.


************
What I have seen swarms, they go to the one side of the box, and they always start to build combs from wall towards centre.
.

 

[For want of a better word]

it would be interesting to set up another in the same way, but with empty frames or just top bars, to see which way the bees would choose to orient their nest in relation to the holes.

Bees orientate the comb at right angles to the ley line the colony is placed on


Nos da

 

[Beefriendly]

Considering no-one's ever done this before (afaik) - there's a lot of 'experts' on here telling me what's wrong with this set-up.

Ignore them, it will be interesting to see what happens. I've been playing around with extra entrances and find they tend to be ignored (but guarded) until there is a flow on. But my set up is a conventional entrance and extra entrances in the supers.