experimental hives designs

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hedgerow pete

Queen Bee
Joined
Jan 26, 2009
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Location
UK, Birmingham, Sandwell. Pork scratching Bandit c
Hive Type
National
i am looking at playing around with a hive and a set of super all singing and dancing explosive carni bee, personaly i hate the flippin things and have no time for it at all, but a friend is trying to get me to start a more professional set up again so we will run 50 hives betwen us so thats a weekend work of inspections for him and a few hours for me, any way i digress, new hive style

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 the darlington but by having the box able to carry thirty frames that will equate to 235,650 cells easily out classing the double box of the national twice, ther now brings several questions and answers, to save on costs and re using of items already owned do we double stack side by side our national supers allowing eight per hive or do we tripple stack so we have basicly three brrod boxs screwed together each one with the suppers on top, dont go on about swarm control we wont need any nor diese or pests there are none to worry about nor the sighting of the boxs, the question is will these new super bees you all dribble on about will she work 30 frames accross or do you increase the frame size instead say to 2 foot long by 14 inchs accross.
and now over to you
 
Hell of a weight to lift mind.

The Glen hive worked well on 15 frames, and that was a so and so to lift too, as it was double walled.

PH
 
With a single national you can get 50,000 bees.
With a double national you would get 100,000 bees.

What about a Dadant,11 frames with 85,000 bees ?

p.s if its to work the superbee's then dont worry as many forum members say they swarm well before getting upto full strength.
 
This is a configuration that I mulled over, a few months ago.

Never bothered with it because I thought that tall, narrow hives would allow heat to rise, thus assisting foundation "nadging" in the upper layers, whereas one with a larger area of roof might let heat escape.

Before trying it, see if anybody else has done it.

There's very few "new" inventions in this world, it may have been tried.

If not, then give it a bash, and good luck!

John
 
I was not trying to be funny Jim,it's just we have a couple of members who have stated they have had swarm problems this year.

I have never owned inported stock so cannot say from experience.
 
I will state that I am "interested" in the behaviour of the imports. They are getting up to a point at which they are running 18-20 frames of brood, are busy in the supers then seem to lose interest and produce cells.

That is what has happened with two of them so far and as there are another 7 building up it will be amusing to watch. Especiall as I have but two brood boxes left and no roofs or floors. LOL

PH
 
I reckon a cube is the best compromise for the bees and the beekeeper, because it's volumetrically efficient for both.

A nat hive is 461mm square (18 inches), with 8" deep wax and holds about 50,000 bees in 1.7 cu ft

Make your new hive 610mm (24") square and 610 high for a BB and it will contain about 8 cu ft. That's nearly five times as many bees.

Say between 200,000 and a quarter of a million bees in one hive. 4 or 5 hives to a million bees, instead of twenty with nats.

Thats got to be a lot less work and the brood frames at two foot square are still manageable, and you can still have six inch (150mm) high honey supers if you want to to keep the weight down.

JC
 
p.s. the weight of a full super would only be just over half as heavy again as a nat, - since the total volume is only 1.7 times, and its not all honey (some wood and air as well), about the same as dadant.

You would probably need at least double the number of supers though, possibly up to six per hive. That means hives which are 5 or 6 feet tall when full ! (but you don't have to bend down much).

I'm quite tempted. JC.
 
Water bucket

Guys?

There is nothing new here bee wise. Not a jot.

Before you all get carried away can I give you a quotation from B. Mobus teaching his beginners course.

"What ever you do, do not buy a buzz saw and make a new hive, there is enough already."

Contemplate it please. Especially the "enough already"

Then consider the minor matter of production volume costs.

PH
 
i like the idea of using nat. supers because i have them, but these new super bees that i personal dont rate i have had so many conversations with people who have had them and all they have done is exspanded and swarmed so i ant that interested but the guy who wants me to go commercial with him loves them ??
so how do you contain and or train these monsters
if you have ever read up on the darlington hive he uses half width supers ontop of his hives so they are 460mm long (standard super frames sn1) but they only hold 6 frames across so we have a box three foot long and with as many supers as you want stacked on top.

or maybe we should go the complete oposite way lets redesign a new super hive lets start with it being 600 wide frames and also being say 450mm deep. i will . start the maths slowly for the newbees looking in
worker cell 5mm across four cells per square centimetre, frame 600 by 450 = 2,700 cm per new frame equals cells10,800 cells per frame side 21,600 both sides

3 frames = national brood box complete
4 frames will match any other brood box
and five will out class a dadant standard brood box
you lot keep on about using double brood chambers so we want at least 150,000 cells double national or 200,000 cells double dadant box

so my new super frame will need at least ten to run as a double box and we can double that for a laugh so we now have a brood box frame of 600 by 450 and the box contains 20 frames.
supers to save wieght can be sized as 600mm long by 100mm in boxes of five stacked on the top
whats your opinions now??
 
wher as i agree with poly hives quote can i just point out that people have been saying that to me since 1980 when i started since then we have been using 100 year old bee hive designs but we are using modern bee types, are the old designs getting to small for these newer and stronger super bees, thats my point of starting this conversation so no more ideas about dont do it we are going to sit and talk about new designs and where they could work , i might evan build one as an experiment for next years season
 
wher as i agree with poly hives quote can i just point out that people have been saying that to me since 1980 when i started since then we have been using 100 year old bee hive designs but we are using modern bee types, are the old designs getting to small for these newer and stronger super bees, thats my point of starting this conversation so no more ideas about dont do it we are going to sit and talk about new designs and where they could work , i might evan build one as an experiment for next years season

Um... not being funny but did you read my posts?

Have the Yanks redesigned? No. Need you no.

Have you read between my lines? Seemingly not.

PH
 
so how do you contain and or train these monsters

Assuming you mean the bees, but maybe more appropriate to the keepers.

Im all in favour of experimenting, but why re-invent the wheel. The one thing i've learnt in my relativley short time as a beekeeper is that whatever the books may say the bees havent read it and to a certain extent beekeeping is a case of trusting your instincts a lot of the time. Reading your posts its obvious that your instincts are telling you that this is not a good idea, the rest really is up to you.
 
Dartington Long Deep ...

if you have ever read up on the darlington hive he uses half width supers ontop of his hives so they are 460mm long (standard super frames sn1) but they only hold 6 frames across so we have a box three foot long and with as many supers as you want stacked on top.

Pete, hope you do not find this too picky but the hive you are referring to is a Dartington or Dartington Long Deep Hive. Although Robin Dartington uses narrow suppers there is no reason why you should not use standard National supers.

One of the design factors of the Dartington hive is Health and Safety, by that I mean the amount of weight an average person should lift and also the lifting height. For example, if you are if you are short and not that strong lifting a full super, at full stretch is clearly not good for your back - hence the smaller supers. So, you can have a Dartington hive with National supers and 14" x 12" brood frames. The other good point about the Dartington is the ease at which you can split the colony. Just place a dividing board in the middle and one group of bees use the old exit at one end, open up the exit at the other end for the new group.

I was thinking of using a Dartington hive myself and shall look at making one over the winter, if not before.
 
Elf and Safety. Precisely.

Lets put on the thinking cap here please?

PH
 
The Glen hive worked well on 15 frames, and that was a so and so to lift too, as it was double walled.

PH

The lady whose old orchard hosts my bees has unearthed an old Glen hive belonging to her recently deceased father. Just the lifts, the bottom piece and the roof - it looks to me like a coal bunker rather than a hive. Now a friend has passed on some of the inner pieces for a Glen, so I think that I'll have a go at bringing this piece of beekeeping history back to life. Should be interesting - or at least a talking point for next year's spring gardens open day. Plenty of nucs coming along this year, so I have bees to spare.

G.
 
Gavin I would love to see some pics of your Glen hive in action.

I have a few pictures in a couple of old books of them.
 

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