good and bad new modern hive designs

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priono

House Bee
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winter is quiet so thinking of trying new ways:

everybody knows omlet and the beehaus by now but which are your most and least favourite modern bee hive designs? some look very smart like the 'philips urban beehive' and some are just ... strange. most of them look really tempting but when it comes to how to manage or even get some bees into it then they are just s*%* like the 'Bar Lavi to-bee'

which are your fav designs?
 
Beehive reinvention is a favourite pastime of some beekeepers ... I've done a bit of that ... but I've come to realise that there are very few things in beekeeping that have not been done before ... perhaps the only things that really have changed is the materials that beehives are now being made of ... bees haven't changed a lot.

So ... straw and mud to timber to poly to Kingspan with a bit of plastic thrown in as well ..

Not really answered your question but, there again, there are really no 'modern' hives that I like ... and the cost of some of them is far beyond anything that I can aspire to - even if I did. Yuppie fodder some of them as well ...
 
Reasonably recent, the Rose hive, quite a breakthrough in modern hive design.
 
A friend runs a 'Rose type' just using supers - saves a lot of hunting for the right box, and her bees virtually sing with happiness.
 
I’m not sure if I would consider the Rose hive a design (Sorry!). I would call it a method that allows the beek to make the nuc and super the same size.

The method can still be implemented with the kit most of us have, be it national, langstroth, smiths, commercial etc.
 
I’m not sure if I would consider the Rose hive a design (Sorry!). I would call it a method that allows the beek to make the nuc and super the same size.

The method can still be implemented with the kit most of us have, be it national, langstroth, smiths, commercial etc.

Agree however the rose boxes i work with are simple four piece construction but on same foot print as the more complicated to build BS modified National boxes , They also easily take 12 hoffmans whereas the national does not take 12

However do i ike Rose OSB system, No
 
I’m not sure if I would consider the Rose hive a design (Sorry!).

There is nothing else with an end wall like that, so what is it, if not a design all on its own, and different than any other.

What should this design of hive be known as, if not a rose hive, in your view.
 
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There is nothing else with an end wall like that, so what is it, if not a design all on its own, and different than any other.

What should this design of hive be known as, if not a rose hive, in your view.

Granted the sizes are different to meet the particular needs of the method, hence the name Rose hive but the end walls I would call a different method of construction that meet the same design requirements of the other hives mentioned.

This method of construction is and can be applied to other hives. For example Smiths have this construction method (all be it with short lugs), Nationals could have.
 
This method of construction is and can be applied to other hives. For example Smiths have this construction method (all be it with short lugs), Nationals could have.

No it can't, all the hives have their own individual plans, differing thicknesses of timber and dimensions, their own design.
What name would you give to a Rose hive, if using some other name, when ordering one from.... say Thornes.
 
No it can't, all the hives have their own individual plans, differing thicknesses of timber and dimensions, their own design.
What name would you give to a Rose hive, if using some other name, when ordering one from.... say Thornes.

If I built a National using the same construction method on the end walls i.e. one piece of wood and just used a router to make the required lug space and bottom bee space would you call it a Rose Hive?
 
If I built a National using the same construction method on the end walls i.e. one piece of wood and just used a router to make the required lug space and bottom bee space would you call it a Rose Hive?

Only if you were using the same board widths as a Rose hive, and 12mm thickness side walls instead of 19mm, then of course it would not be a National.
You could could call it the Weebee hive, as it would not be to BS dimensions either.

If you phoned up Thornes and specifically wanted a Rose hive, what would you ask for.
 
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Reasonably recent, the Rose hive, quite a breakthrough in modern hive design.

The Rose hive is basically just a medium National. It's method of construction doesn't make it 'modern' or a 'breakthrough. Neither is one-box systems new. But I do like the book.
 
Nationals don't have a medium frame, do they? Only DNs, SNs and Jumbo (14 x 12).

Not sure what fornes would send you if you ordered medium National frames to expect them to fit a Rose hive?
 
Nationals don't have a medium frame, do they? Only DNs, SNs and Jumbo (14 x 12).

Not sure what fornes would send you if you ordered medium National frames to expect them to fit a Rose hive?

No, they don't - but that is what a Rose frame is. Nobody asked for mediums until Tim Rowe asked for them to be made and called them Rose frames. That was very helpful as they are a good frame size.
 
Who said it was?

Assuming you meant using multiple all same sized boxes.

True - nobody said that (apart from me). I think Weebee mentioned that the management 'method' is the important part of using a Rose hive.

Tim patented his hive design (using two bits of ply wood and two bits of rebated wood). You can make them like that, but you can't sell them without his permission. You can make and sell medium National boxes as a one-box system. I would prefer that as I don't like the use of ply in hives that will over-winter. They'll be slightly heavier than Tim's Rose boxes.
 
You can make and sell medium National boxes as a one-box system. I would prefer that as I don't like the use of ply in hives that will over-winter. They'll be slightly heavier than Tim's Rose boxes.

No big manufacturer does that i know of, and it would not be to any BS specification, and they would be much, much lighter than Tims design if made from cedar, 12mm side walls to take twelve frames,or 19mm to take eleven, and three part end wall construction, instead of one piece of 50mm timber machined out.
 
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:hairpull: If a rose hive is the same as national then I guess national is same as langstroth. Lanstroth is same as dadant. Oh smith is like the rose box. Oh hang on. Why aren't the frames interchangable? I guess they must be different. All this time trying to fit a frame into a skep...silly me
 
Ahh, Rose Frames.

Not the same as National frames.

Yes, I can see they are different.

I use 14 x 12 National frames in my Dartingtons. I dont claim that a Dartington is a National. Different design, shirley?

I'm afraid there are a lot out there, these days, that don't know (let alone understand) that a cell is not a battery. I don't call a cat a dog just because it might have four legs and a tail.

Clarity in the written word needs at least some attention to detail; some degree of precision at times.

It is little wonder that un-knowing beeks refer to shallow National boxes as 'supers', which they are
patently not. They may be used as supers or just as easily as a brood box, would you not agree? Note I wrote 'easily' and meant just that.
 

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