experimental hives designs

[gavin]

Will do Mark.

G.

 

[hedgerow pete]

sorry but i still argue the point to every one

every thing improves over time, why are we still using a 100 year old desinn, are we still still going to work on a horse ,,,,,,no so why do you think that all this modern breeding advances are completly wasted on the bees, we have slowly improved the bee strains over the last 40 years starting with buckfast and then moving on wards, why are the threads full of people saying that there bees need two brood chambers or evan three to contain them, so why do you all think that we will carry on blindly for another 100 years, the question still stands are our ancient hive designs now becoming irelivent with outr modern bee types and do we start to think of either increasing the box size to allow room


p.s. after having to remove two 7.62mm from my person i dont like americans, and since the lot would be behind the times so why should we think they will catch up with europe and think of new hive types

 

[hedgerow pete]

is that it i real thought we were going to have a right old chin wag with this thread. may be its just me then ?

 

[Poly Hive]

I once lifted a Glen that has comb honey all round the inner space plus a super on too..... heaviest hive I have ever lifted. Mind you there were two of us and we were truly struggling.

Hedgie I would suggest that given your misgivings about the modern bee, or should that really read the imported bee that some serious discussions need having over the matter with your partner.

I know which type of bee I prefer and why. If you guys are going to make honey and thus money then surely a bee that provides that and not bees is the way to go?

PH

 

[hedgerow pete]

i total agree poly hive i want to go with me dark english bees not perfect by any means but there seam to be more reliable than these bees everyone seems to use now that either swarm because they are in one brood box or the swarm because they are in two and to many bees are about also i have delt with some of the most aggressive bees of late helping peole with these new bees there is an awfull lot of rubish out there, but apart from that , i still think we need to have a jolly good discussion on the pros and cons of completly rethinking the modern hive for modern bee types, anyone else want to have a go, if so read my post about the new improved cell count in the petes super hive frames

 

[Finman]

i hate double drood boxs when the super is off i want straight in and straight across and out none of this double lifting and moving the queen about rubbish, so our answer? why not have a brood box double length this idea is going very much along the lines of

That is a good idea. Then you get something else to hate.

I love to use 3 brood boxes. It is a measure of a good queen.

Those long low hives have used many times, and folks give up from them as soon as they can.

In Finland Langtroth was very rare 50 years ago and there were long hives in use.
In those days hives needed only 1/3 space .

Now, no one use long hives any more. They are impractical to use in many ways.

 

[David P]

Since you wanted the discussion pete how about an L shape hive with supers on the vertical and brood along the bottom. that way there is no supers to remove in order to inspect the brood box, and if you want more frames of brood you simply add a box the lengthen the bottom run. Queen excluder fits vertically where the two join

 

[Finman]

Since you wanted the discussion pete how about an L shape hive with supers on the vertical and brood along the bottom.

So many beekeepers have tried that and gived up. Bees cannot handle vertical space. They swarm too much.

 

[Nellie]

why are we still using a 100 year old desinn

A hole in a tree was good enough for bees for 30-40million years and in some respects a box hive is just an extension of that mechanism adapted slightly for the convenience of the beekeeper. I do think that where existing hive types have a "weakness" is that they're designed for "local" bees working the "local" climate/forage.

So I guess I'm suggesting that there possibly isn't anything intrisicly wrong with the design of a National or a Langstroth over those £5000 tumble dryer hives manuka boy was boasting about, just that perhaps the best hive is going to depend on what bees you're playing with and the local climate. Importing prolific bees and working them in the (slightly) warmer south might mean that it makes far more sense to go with a Langstroth or bigger than a national from the start but right now, Johnny Noobie coming here or other forums will be advised to start off with a national hive regardless of where he is or what strain of bees he's managed to get his hands on.

Seems pretty logical to me, if you want the convenience of a National hive with a single brood chamber, don't source very prolific bees because you're going to struggle confining them to the size provided by the hive and have to fudge it with brood and a half or double brood chambers. If you want very prolific bees, start off with a bigger hive from day one.

Maybe that's something we need to consider more as a beekeeping community. rather than just send off Jonny to go get a national because that's what everyone else has, maybe we should be asking "where are you getting your bees from" as a precursor to suggesting the hive type.

 

[JCBrum]

Surely the issue is that we all agree the 'superbees' need a bigger hive because they multiply so fast early in the year due to a prolific queen and then will swarm if they run out of room. Finman says he uses double and triple brood Langstroth. H Pete says he hates double brood.

So.

Why not a bigger hive ??

500x500x500 ??

550x550x550 ??

20"x20"x18'' ??

 

[David P]

To bee or to super bee that is the question

 

[Finman]

.
Huge to read Hedge-Pete's writings. You are not the first beekeeper which is going to make revolution in beekeeping with minimum knowledge.

Pete says that we have 100 years old hive. But problem is that actually he is planning 70 years old hive which others have burned from their backyard the last one 20 years ago .

I started beekeeping. I went to library and got "Modern Beekeeping" in year about 1962. First I made four "horizontal hives". Then I met a modern beekeeper who said that Langstroh was good. In that time my brother did not get langstroth foundation from swefden. It was so new.

So I burned 2 years old beehives. I got from him Caucasian queens and from that hive I got 50 kg honey. I transported my hives with bicycle.

After some years I got 3 fold average yield compared to average Finnish yield. -- I at least felt me modern.

What I think about top bar beekeepers: they are ape men living in their virtual cave.

.

 

[Finman]

.
Russian beekeeper and her experimental hive .... Looks old fashion...girl

]

[/quote]

 

[planbee]

Delightful!

The hives' nice, too.

John

 

[hedgerow pete]

what a stunning figure ,


the roof that is its spoilt with the lady but never mind, thanks finman for your input,
it seams to me that there are two differant sets of bees now one is the local bee for want of a better term these will will breed and last for two seasons before swarming and collect a reasonable to harvest
and the others are these hybrid bees for desparate want of a better term these bees i seam to see more and more often they produce so many bees that they are able to swarm in several weeks rather than years but if controled can produce massive honey harvests, but i still think these bees are going to be more preveliant in future years, with or without our help and i can see a time when there will be a shift to a newer size not type , a newer size that is why i started this thread using cell quantities rather than silly design styles, the bee hive market is flooded with people taking the national and converting it some way , what i am suggesting is that modern super bees realy should bee housed in a better ( notice word not bigger )hive,

try following these ideas and see where you go to
if you have a long hive would the weekness of the queen not get to both ends and would it swarm from each end but not the middle?
when seen in nature wild bees in cave produce very large sheets of comb up to 1 metre square is the largesest i have seen in the uk but there was only two sheets plenty of room for more ?
why not the 600 square brood sheet but you will have to have a better type of wooden frame because of the wieght and to stop colapse when lifting, so would we have what would look like three standard frames nailed one on top of another?

 

[Finman]

.
If you want much honey, it comes from good pastures.
You must move hives to good pastures.
Pastures do not come to hives.

 

[Finman]

.

The most popular bee hive in Ukraine looks like a large trunk or chest. These bee hives contain between 20 and 28 frames. The frames are about one and a half times as large as the deep frames used in the U.S. http://www.outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/ukraine.htm

 

[hedgerow pete]

thank you for the link finman it was good to read, i am not to interested on this thread about pastures or anything else just a simple discussion about where or not a newer and larger bee hive would suit the modern bee types and if so what would be looking for in it, thats why i started this thread quoting cell sizes, most people are using double brood boxs and you yourself have said you use THREE BROOD BOXS which means your queens need at least 216,750 cells thats four times what we would normaly allow for in the uk, so my suggested start of the peter frame of 600mm by 450mm would suit you better

 

[Poly Hive]

Sticking strictly to the hive issue here.

There is nothing stopping anyone creating a hive to suit them selves. However....

There is the nasty issue of being able to sell on the kit. After the dust settles and the fortune has been made what value are the specialist hives then?

Much is made of the Mod Nat and I am fully in agreement that is is pretty small and always has been. Why was the Glen invented? Because the WBC and the Nat are too small and are and were too small for AMM let alone Carnolian types.

There is a great deal to be said for standardisation and the consequential savings on the mass production.

If I were looking to go big, and I am certainly not, then poly Langstroth would be my way forward with an AMM strain. Smaller nest, better honey gathering especially in cooler weather, and this year is not the year to judge the exotics.

PH

 

[Hivemaker.]

Enough different hives allready,commercial,which is bigger than langstroth,or dadant,or perhaps keep the bee's free range in aircraft hangers,frames on steel rails,perhaps a converted porta-cabin,with a crane mounted on one end for lifting out the frames for inspections.