condensation in hard frost -20C

[Finman]

.
You have not these weathers but you like condensation stories and about dampness kills philosophy.

Our worst weathers in winter are in February. -20 to -30 are not rare. What is happening then inside the hive.

I have looked inside the polyhive in - 8C and the corners have not condensation water but respiration snow.

I had a small 2-frame nuc in the fire wood shelter. It was -17C and I lifted the cover. Half of the hive was bees but another half was snow. Because of frost upper entrance was blocked with ice and all moisture condensated inside the hive..

Why I opened the nuc? It was bad frost but water was drilling out from hive.
The respiration snow was at the distance of 2 inches from cluster. Bees had made their own iglo.
When the frost is -30C, the snow comes nearer to cluster and when the weather is mild, it melts away and drills down.

The same phenomenom was noticed in balance hives 2 years ago.
Our researcher comprared 3 hives' winter consumpition.

When frost was hard, the colony consumed less food. The balance often stopped for a week.
Some professionals even said: look, cold does not add foodconsumption.
(Yes but during decades it has been researched so many times what cold does.)

the reason was that in severe cold all respiration moisture condensates inside the hive. That it why the balance stops. Then it comes a mild weather and frost melts inside. The balance jumps down quite much. So we can conclude that in warm winter bees add eating!

When I digg my hives from snow for cleansing flight, more or less solid bottoms have ice cover and ice sticks ate hanging under the frames. Should I cry? No. It does not harm bees. It is just a system in cold climate.

But at least your dampness theories are not the same when you read these stories.

.

 

[Finman]

.
Solid or mesh floor.

Hivemaker wrote to me that solid bottom has been 100 years and it is good.

When a mesh floor arrived 20 years ago, a solid floor is nothing.
A mesh floor is a modern beekeepers choice as they use to say.

A floor does not a beekeeper better. A floor does not bring honey. It is just a floor.
To me solid floor keeps bees warm and it saves energy. Solid floor is as good as it has allways been.

At least solid floor owner is not afraid of dampness or of condensation. Solid floor owner has better night sleep ( i did not say winter sleep). Solid floor owner spends quality time!

 

[BKF Admin]

Finman have you read any research in regards to Verroa count using a solid versus OMF ?

 

[oliver90owner]

Solid floor is as good as it has allways been.

One certainly cannot disagree with this statement! But closer scrutiny may yield a better understanding of what it actually says.

It simply says it is neither better nor worse than it was 100 years ago.

Sort of gives a different 'impression' than saying there may be better options, such as an OMF

To me an OMF gives more than adequate ventilation all year round with only a modest increase in food consumed in winter.

It avoids condensation and dampness problems (are these not really the same thing?) and may help to reduce the varroa poulation in the hive.

An OMF allows me quality time to worry about things other than hive floors!!

A solid floor must have no holes in it to be good.

I am quite confident that skep beekeeping would be as good now as it was 100 years ago (not considering any other changes) and could be better in some respects. But that is no good reason to return to that way of beekeeping as a norm.

I personally have nothing against solid floors except I could not get on with them in my first years as a beekeeper (I suspect I lost one colony through too much top draught and was troubled by dampness in the spring). OMFs transformed these earlier manifestations into a thing of the past. No problems with damp or excessive top ventilation since changing to OMFs. No damp and no top ventilation make for simple, effective beekeeping.

Newbies could do a lot worse than follow these 'fashions' and thus not have to worry about excessive top draughts, and/or dampness, in their first/early years of beekeeping. They could then change to solid floors if they so wished. Not many would do that, I wager.

I can fully understand that others my be able to get on OK with solid floors and that they may not be appropriate for all conditions.

RAB

 

[Finman]

Finman have you read any research in regards to Verroa count using a solid versus OMF ?

Yes I have. Mesh floor have no practical influence on varroa problem.
The variation is the bad floor which is not so open like mesh. It does not work.

A mesh floor is very common here. Some keep them open in winter and some closed.The whole year open guys are mad with their opinions.

Beekeepers have made art with floors for decades. When a new floor is discovered, it is a break down! Not less.

No one here trust on mesh floor that it deminish mites. Late summer treatment plus winter trickling is normal procedure with mesh floors. Here varroa gives no mercy when it is in the hives. No play groud offered for "do nothing guys".

 

[Finman]

To me an OMF gives more than adequate ventilation all year round with only a modest increase in food consumed in winter.

- Adequate! Problem is that it has 10 times too much ventilation.


It avoids condensation and dampness problems (are these not really the same thing?) and may help to reduce the varroa poulation in the hive.

- so it does and so does the solif floor + some arrangement. I ahmit, it is a dummy floor.You need not know nothing.

An OMF allows me quality time to worry about things other than hive floors!!

- Poor man.Mesh floor gives you quality time. I would apreciate ifif it changres me 50 years younger and gimme a new wife.

A solid floor must have no holes in it to be good.

-Why? You may drill so many holes into it as you like.
BUT you are right. One hole in the floor and it is not so solid as without hole.

Actually I have one inch hole in the boath back corners. It gives draught and keep the back part dry.There is a mesh there and bees stuck them every summer.



I can fully understand that.........

I think that half day poetry is a sidewhatyou should consider. Poetry for dummies .... sorry. I did not mean to say it. It slipped.

,

 

[Finman]

.
Food consumption in winter 4 colonies.

3 has mesh floor which are closed during winter
I have solid floor. (#¤)
A special hive was macedonian bee. It would be consume 80 kg before summer but it died.

Winter 2009/2010 was really hard.


Average consumption between 1.11. to 20.3 kg/month
= 5 months

1) Carnica Lunz stock ..........1,3 kg ... 100
2) Bantin stock .......1,5 kg +15 %
3) Macedonica race ... 2,2 kg +69 %(no brood)

4) My Italian+ some Carnica blood............. 1,6 kg +23 % = 8 kg


http://www.imker-in-mv.de/aufgaben.htm

.

 

[BBG]

Finman

Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries (MAFF), now Defra .. asked beekeepers to trial mesh floors in the early 90s and found them to be better for the bees.

Varroa dropping through was incidental but useful when it arrived in this country in 92.

 

[Finman]

.
Was it a research or questionaire. Nowadays no one professional says that mesh floor is a treament. You may calculate mites but nothing more.

I have seen calculations that meshfloor kills 25% of mites. Many say that brood culling kills 50%.

However you understand that mesh floor does not save your bees from varroa.
Perhaps it moves catastrophy some weeks but not more.

 

[BBG]

.
Was it a research or questionaire. Nowadays no one professional says that mesh floor is a treament. You may calculate mites but nothing more.

I have seen calculations that meshfloor kills 25% of mites. Many say that brood culling kills 50%.

However you understand that mesh floor does not save your bees from varroa.
Perhaps it moves catastrophy some weeks but not more.

No, I'm saying the Open Mesh Floor was found to be healthier for the bees - nothing to do with the varroa.

Varroa arrived 2 or 3 years after Open Mesh Floors were developed.

 

[Finman]

.
I bought my first mesh floor in the year 1988 with my first polyhive.
The summer was coldest in 100 years. i stucked the opening. i got a 2 kg swarm into poly and swarm was totally full of mites. I trickled Perizin on the cluster. It brought 40 kg honey.

The mesh floor has invented something 1960, said our researcher who has studied in Californian Beekeeping University.

 

[Finman]

.
Nuc and a mesh floor

i have seen in pictures that you build 4 frame nucs with mesh floor.

I have 3-5 frame nucs much. i have splitted poly box into 2 or 3 parts.
So warm polynucs.

I use finger tip size entrance in nucs and no upper hole.
There are no ventilators in the opening and it tells that 2 cm x 2 cm opening is enough to 4 frame nuc.

Now i over winter some 4 frame nucs. They have pencil size upper opening.

This summer we had several weeks 30C day temps. Finger size entrance was proper to nucs.

 

[Oandy]

Hi i wonder how many leave the varroa board in for winter, how many remove the varroa board, or pull the varroa board back a small a distance say 8mm to 10mm which is what i have done for the last 2 years. I have not seen any everdence of condensation on the boards. i dont use a supper under the brood box or floor. Set up is 16" stand, omf, 14x12 brood, solid board with foam insulation on top, Roof. My thinking is that the varroa board is helping to control the air flow around the hive from back to front or visa versa. But should stop a howling gale through the hive At least i hope so. Any other thoughts?
Andy

 

[oliver90owner]

You may have to describe the varroa inspection board design a tad. Does yours have an upstand at the rear? Pulling it out leaves a gap at the front and rear? What stops water getting onto the varroa check board; do you slope the hive so it runs off? Do you remove it at intervals to remove detritus?

Lifting the brood box 3-4mm is enough ventilation, even with a solid floor and no top ventilation, I have found (but need to take precautions to avoid water collecting in the hive if using a solid floor)

RAB

 

[Finman]

.


It seems that this issue in theory much more complex than in practice.


.

 

[BBG]

.


It seems that this issue in theory much more complex than in practice.


.

True!

When I was young I found a wooden lemonade crate upside down on the hedge in a field.

A colony of bees was in residence and I remember it being heavy with honey and stores.

My point is, the bees had found the wooden box and moved in even with the bottom completely open to the ground.

Simple!

 

[Finman]

.
My style to keep bees have shot down so may times that I wonder, why I have bees in theory any more. Of course they are in practice, (in vivo) but in theory ( in vitro) they died when mesh froor was invented.

So stupid conversation as it can be. I do not wonder why winter losses are so high in Uk. Every single simple job will be proved impossible. "We use to have altenatives" yes, sure. And most alternatives come from guys which have no practice in case.

"Millions of years bees have not heated" I read from USA FOORUM. Sure. 300 years ago there were no honey bee in America continent and human has not elecrict heating.

So impossible....so ....(sencored)....

 

[Chris Luck]

I leave my OMF clear all the time without any problems and although not Finland we have a Continental climate with severe East and North east freezing winds in winter, not much snow but temperatures often well below zero for days or even weeks on end. Minus 28C is the lowest temperature recorded where I live.

Chris

 

[RoofTops]

The Finnish bee farmer I know leaves his varroa trays out all year except for the spring, when he replaces them to encourage brood rearing.

His poly hives sit on wooden pallets and spend most of the winter under snow. This means the bees are dry and cold although he believes that a little condensation under the roof is a good thing as the bees can use the water to help dilute their stores. Above the cluster of bees there should be enough heat to melt any ice on the inside of the poly roof.

Here in the south west I leave varroa trays out all year apart from odd times such as housing a swarm when it helps to make the interior of the hive darker.

 

[Finman]

His poly hives sit on wooden pallets and spend most of the winter under snow. This means the bees are dry and cold although he believes that a little condensation under the roof is a good thing as ter.

yea but it is not true where he lives. Bee winter, when bees do not come out, is here 8 months.
Snow cover is 3 months in South Finlad and the snow is wet. Hives do better here without snow cover.
300 km to north system is different. Perhaps Juhani Vaara has some of his 3000 hives in colder inland.