Concrete beehive

[Ian123]

Give him a chance .... he probably hit the post reply button by accident - he's hardly had time for breakfast yet. Less of the agressive questioning please.

Eh…….. what on earth is aggressive about that!!!!!

 

[user 6228]

Farrar, C. L. (1947). The overwintering of productive colonies. In R. A. Grout (Ed.), Hive and the honey bee (pp. 425–451). Dadant and sons.

 

[pargyle]

Eh…….. what on earth is aggressive about that!!!!!

Repeated question .... "so again what is the edge……."

 

[Ian123]

Repeated question .... "so again what is the edge……."

Please explain how re asking a question that received a very vague non comital answer to a very direct question is aggressive.

 

[pargyle]

Please explain how re asking a question that received a very vague non comital answer to a very direct question is aggressive.

If you can't see it I see now I see no point in explaining it to you .... but I'll try in a little more detail. Post #57 You asked the question. 9.53pm. DM obviously intended to reply at Post #58 12.59am but did not complete the post. You ask again Post #59 ... stating AGAIN at 9.20am.

Just think about it ... impatience ? Perhaps ... but read by some, perhaps, as passive agressive ?

 

[Ian123]

If you can't see it I see now I see no point in explaining it to you .... but I'll try in a little more detail. Post #57 You asked the question. 9.53pm. DM obviously intended to reply at Post #58 12.59am but did not complete the post. You ask again Post #59 ... stating AGAIN at 9.20am.

Just think about it ... impatience ? Perhaps ... but read by some, perhaps, as passive agressive ?

Fair enough………….. I’ll eagerly anticipate the response in that case.

 

[pargyle]

Fair enough………….. I’ll eagerly anticipate the response in that case.

I think he already has Post #62. I don't have this particular book but perhaps someone who has will post the actua abstract ...

 

[user 6228]

I think he already has Post #62. I don't have this particular book but perhaps someone who has will post the actua abstract ...

its the size of colony and amount of stores he recommends for overwintering in thin wooden boxes. The same advice is repeated all the way to the 2015 edition.

 

[Ian123]

I think he already has Post #62. I don't have this particular book but perhaps someone who has will post the actua abstract ...

Ah I missed that…. But don’t think it answers my questions, and I don’t have the articles to hand.
So at the risk of earning your ire and just to clarify and in a very non aggressive manner.

Derrick pls explain what the edge of survivability is and do you believe wooden hives are on this edge.

 

[user 6228]

Farrar, C. L. (1947). The overwintering of productive colonies. In R. A. Grout (Ed.), Hive and the honey bee (pp. 425–451). Dadant and sons.

Page 441
Minimum in fall.
2) bees covering 20 combs
3) 45lbs honey in the top chamber
4) 15 to 30 ibs in the bottom chamber

better to have 90lbs....

If wooden hives need this size of intervention, i.e. to provide colonies of sizes larger than normally found in the wild and store reseves larger than they select for in the wild, then plain thin wooden hive are not reliably viable for honey bee survival.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Page 441
Minimum in fall.
2) bees covering 20 combs
3) 45lbs honey in the top chamber
4) 15 to 30 ibs in the bottom chamber

better to have 90lbs....

If wooden hives need this size of intervention, i.e. to provide colonies of sizes larger than normally found in the wild and store reseves larger than they select for in the wild, then plain thin wooden hive are not reliably viable for honey bee survival.

that's a compete work of fiction really to compare with the way hives are managed here nowadays (in fact to compare with how they were managed in most places back then)
In fact, going by that, I should never have experience less than 100% mortality for each and every winter I've kept bees.

 

[rolande]

Wasn't Farrar's beekeeping carried out in Wisconsin, a very different environment to anything here in the UK

 

[user 6228]

Wasn't Farrar's beekeeping carried out in Wisconsin, a very different environment to anything here in the UK

and yet honey bees got to Wisconsin without the help of humans(apart from the ocean bit) (large swaths the US, were colonised by honey bees before the white men got there).

 

[user 6228]

that's a compete work of fiction really to compare with the way hives are managed here nowadays (in fact to compare with how they were managed in most places back then)
In fact, going by that, I should never have experience less than 100% mortality for each and every winter I've kept bees.

NBU today says

Sufficient stores. The amount of stores required by a colony varies with the strain of bee. It is generally considered that a honey bee colony requires about 18 – 22 kg of honey to safely feed it through the winter. Larger hives headed by prolific queens may require more. When full a BS brood frame contains about 2.2 kg of honey, so assess the existing colony stores and feed the required balance using winter strength sugar syrup, i.e. 1 kg. of white granulated sugar to 500 ml of water. Sugar syrup can be fed to supplement honey stores or as a substitute for them. Watch out for robbing bees, this can be a problem in late summer. Colonies also require ample pollen to overwinter successfully, especially to rear brood. Ensure that your overwintering bees have access to good quality pollen crops both at the end of the season and early in the following season.

NBU is effectively recommending more than a single brood box. Thats still a lot of intervention, for what is (outside of human impact) a very successful and invasive insect.

The 2015 version of hive and the honey bee says effectively the same as the 1949 plus a lot of words about varroa.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

doesn't make it right though (especially the BBKA driven ramblings of the NBU)

 

[Ian123]

Page 441
Minimum in fall.
2) bees covering 20 combs
3) 45lbs honey in the top chamber
4) 15 to 30 ibs in the bottom chamber

better to have 90lbs....

If wooden hives need this size of intervention, i.e. to provide colonies of sizes larger than normally found in the wild and store reseves larger than they select for in the wild, then plain thin wooden hive are not reliably viable for honey bee survival.

Absolute poppy ****….I don’t recognise that if your basing theories on that I’d find some other references. I’ve plenty of hives and five frame nucs that winter on far less in wood. Have you wintered any smaller nucs?
So just to confirm you consider wooden hives unreliable? Pls explain how many of us here are wintering colonies very successfully in wooden hives on far less stores and indeed far smaller colonies.
I’ll suggest right now you’ll be unable to. You are working off outdated rubbish..you also appear to criticise a hive design of that period yet happy to quote references and of the time….how does that work.

 

[Sutty]

Page 441
Minimum in fall.
2) bees covering 20 combs
3) 45lbs honey in the top chamber
4) 15 to 30 ibs in the bottom chamber

better to have 90lbs....

If wooden hives need this size of intervention, i.e. to provide colonies of sizes larger than normally found in the wild and store reseves larger than they select for in the wild, then plain thin wooden hive are not reliably viable for honey bee survival.

Looking at the same section of possibly a different edition/printing as it's on p486, those figures are for cold regions where the average temperature of the coldest month is -6.7C or less. I'd suggest we are in the temperate region, average coldest month temperature of -4 to +7C. In this region a recommendation of 30-60lb is made.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I’ve always worked on 40lb even for my 14x12s. Even then I’m often pulling food frames out in the spring.

 

[user 6228]

Absolute poppy ****….I don’t recognise that if your basing theories on that I’d find some other references. I’ve plenty of hives and five frame nucs that winter on far less in wood. Have you wintered any smaller nucs?
So just to confirm you consider wooden hives unreliable? Pls explain how many of us here are wintering colonies very successfully in wooden hives on far less stores and indeed far smaller colonies.
I’ll suggest right now you’ll be unable to. You are working off outdated rubbish..you also appear to criticise a hive design of that period yet happy to quote references and of the time….how does that work.

I'm using these references because the I know the person asking likes to bully. so here's your opportunity to launch into it

I said "But starting off with a conductivity of 6 times greater than wood, when wood can be close to the edge of survivability is not a good place to be."

I provided proof it can be close. To satisfy the proof I need only one set of circumstances.
There is nothing in my statement that says it is close in the Uk There is nothing in my statement that says bees always die in wood. It says there are some circumstances where bees die in wooden hives.

The anthesis, which you assert, is: its never close the edge of of survivability.
So you are asserting its never close to edge? Where is your proof that bees always survive regardless of climate regardless of location ...

To make my assertion it need to be the sheltered in Southern UK? Read the line.again ..wood can be close to the edge of survivability.

I could have chosen the words below. But that is not the answer that uses the full comprehension of the words i used.

NBU: Sufficient stores. The amount of stores required by a colony varies with the strain of bee. It is generally considered that a honey bee colony requires about 18 – 22 kg of honey to safely feed it through the winter. Larger hives headed by prolific queens may require more. When full a BS brood frame contains about 2.2 kg of honey, so assess the existing colony stores and feed the required balance using winter strength sugar syrup, i.e. 1 kg. of white granulated sugar to 500 ml of water. Sugar syrup can be fed to supplement honey stores or as a substitute for them. Watch out for robbing bees, this can be a problem in late summer. Colonies also require ample pollen to overwinter successfully, especially to rear brood. Ensure that your overwintering bees have access to good quality pollen crops both at the end of the season and early in the following season.

 

[Sutty]

I'm using these references because the I know the person asking likes to bully. so here's your opportunity to launch into it

I said "But starting off with a conductivity of 6 times greater than wood, when wood can be close to the edge of survivability is not a good place to be."

I provided proof it can be close. To satisfy the proof I need only one set of circumstances.
There is nothing in my statement that says it is close in the Uk There is nothing in my statement that says bees always die in wood. It says there are some circumstances where bees die in wooden hives.

The anthesis, which you assert, is: its never close the edge of of survivability.
So you are asserting its never close to edge? Where is your proof that bees always survive regardless of climate regardless of location ...

To make my assertion it need to be the sheltered in Southern UK? Read the line.again ..wood can be close to the edge of survivability.

I could have chosen the words below. But that is not answer that uses the full comprehension of the words i used.

NBU: Sufficient stores. The amount of stores required by a colony varies with the strain of bee. It is generally considered that a honey bee colony requires about 18 – 22 kg of honey to safely feed it through the winter. Larger hives headed by prolific queens may require more. When full a BS brood frame contains about 2.2 kg of honey, so assess the existing colony stores and feed the required balance using winter strength sugar syrup, i.e. 1 kg. of white granulated sugar to 500 ml of water. Sugar syrup can be fed to supplement honey stores or as a substitute for them. Watch out for robbing bees, this can be a problem in late summer. Colonies also require ample pollen to overwinter successfully, especially to rear brood. Ensure that your overwintering bees have access to good quality pollen crops both at the end of the season and early in the following season.

Accepted, although it's not unreasonable for a UK.based forum for people to assume you were talking about the UK.
I don't think I'll be casting any concrete hives though! Although a concrete floor could dissuade hive theft!