Hives, Sizes and Management

[fian]

Good morning.
I think that sometimes those beekeepers who have been there for a long time have or sometimes transmit the feeling that the hive, its size, its configuration and its management are identical.
This causes beginners to find themselves lost in an immense sea.
That is why I open this thread to make it clear to them the way in which each one works with the bees.
Material: Lansgtroth hive and dadant supers.
Size: 510x430mm with two heights 250mm and 160mm. external measurements
Configuration: Breeding nest of a langstroth body (10 squares of 420x200 mm) plus the supers. No queen excluder.

 

[blackcloud]

Most of the time there are seething disagreements because configurations are NOT identical.
Thats what really alienates beginners

 

[fian]

Most of the time there are seething disagreements because configurations are NOT identical.
Thats what really alienates beginners

Okay, but if a beginner has a certain configuration in mind, they can always ask for advice or information from the member who has said configuration.
If later with the practice you want other handlings you can always find someone to talk to.

 

[Anduril]

Okay, but if a beginner has a certain configuration in mind, they can always ask for advice or information from the member who has said configuration.
If later with the practice you want other handlings you can always find someone to talk to.

More than likely the first person you spoke to! In beekeeping there are always work arounds to different configurations, it may just be a slight variation of a manipulation.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Good morning.
I think that sometimes those beekeepers who have been there for a long time have or sometimes transmit the feeling that the hive, its size, its configuration and its management are identical.
This causes beginners to find themselves lost in an immense sea.
That is why I open this thread to make it clear to them the way in which each one works with the bees.
Material: Lansgtroth hive and dadant supers.
Size: 510x430mm with two heights 250mm and 160mm. external measurements
Configuration: Breeding nest of a langstroth body (10 squares of 420x200 mm) plus the supers. No queen excluder.

I've lost count of how many times this topic has emerged in one guise of another.

 

[drex]

Having handled different hives and frames on my beginners course, I opted for standard National, as I felt most comfortable with that. Bees will live in anything after all, so I went with what felt best for me. All despite my mentor pushing commercials

 

[rdartington]

‘Bees will live in anything after all’.
Is that what beginners courses teach nowadays?
It is true of course, just as it is true a human family can live in anything, so developers build small houses with insufficient rooms/gardens for children to develop naturally. It does not matter of course, if your view is that children
only need to grow up to be shelf stackers in supermarkets.
Honeybees have evolved over millions of years to develop extraordinary abilities unmatched by humans, such as communicating food sources miles way in trackless forests . To do that bees need to perform dances which vibrate the lower parts of free-hanging brood frames. Forcing bees to fill rectangular frames with solid rectangularslabs of brood frustrates dancing.
Not that that matters if forage is local to hives - the colony still collects/stores honey for its winter survival that can be ‘stolen’ by beekeepers - and substituted with plain manufactured sugar that lacks all nutrients. Bees survive of course - or most do but winter losses in hives exceed winter losses in natural unrobbed cavities.
Am I a hopeless idealist to hope that tutors will learn to teach ‘bees will live in anything as they have evolved to survive in whatever nature provides randomly to act as a weather protected cavity?. But a nest needs certain characteristics for a colony to achieve its highest performance. So it is the job of a beekeeper to learn about those chracteristics ( from Winston, Seeley, Tauz, and others) and to keep their bees in hives designed for the bees, rather than the beekeeper. The National hive, introduced in 1920 as the Simplicity hive, predates the discoveries of the needs of the bees, and should be regarded as obsolete. What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?
What better hive designs are there? None are yet perfect I would say, but the Golden hive of Mellifera is a good step forward.
I myself used Nationals for ten years before developing the Dartington Long Deep in 1975, published in 1985 after ten years experience. It is basically a double length Deep National with improved features such as a tunnel entrance. A DLD can be used as a long deep hive (no supers) or as a combination hive (honey stored beside the brood but also above in honeyboxes). It can hold one colony or two with a dividrer, or better a colony and a nuc for rearing a new queen which is simply introduced by removing the divider. But the 14x12 frames is still not perfect for bees as the brood nest should be spherical or bell shaped to minimise heat loss - so the Layers frame closely followed in Mellifera’s Golden hive is better. I have modified the extra-deep frame to 11x 18. inches deep so that it can be extracted in a norml 4-frame tangential extractor available in UK.
I am testing 10 colonies in 7 different sizes/conformations next year to see which colonies perform best. Trials of so few hives of course will prove nothing - but maybe the idea will catch on and more beekeepers will test their hives. Mellifera tested 100 Golden hives for ten years before publishing, now translated in 2021as ‘Keeping bees simply and respectfully’, published jointly by IBRA and Northrn Bee Books.
Whist the Golden hive seems an advance, it is disappointing that recomended swarm control still involves intrusive inspections. Sp my 7 designs/conformations will be monitored by various external observations such as weight gain and listening to the hive sound (normal sounds like a pond fountain, pitch rises when queen cells are built and peaks at actual swarming).
I would be very pleased to hear from others who may be treading along a similar path.

 

[user 20297]

‘Bees will live in anything after all’.
Is that what beginners courses teach nowadays?
It is true of course, just as it is true a human family can live in anything, so developers build small houses with insufficient rooms/gardens for children to develop naturally. It does not matter of course, if your view is that children
only need to grow up to be shelf stackers in supermarkets.
Honeybees have evolved over millions of years to develop extraordinary abilities unmatched by humans, such as communicating food sources miles way in trackless forests . To do that bees need to perform dances which vibrate the lower parts of free-hanging brood frames. Forcing bees to fill rectangular frames with solid rectangularslabs of brood frustrates dancing.
Not that that matters if forage is local to hives - the colony still collects/stores honey for its winter survival that can be ‘stolen’ by beekeepers - and substituted with plain manufactured sugar that lacks all nutrients. Bees survive of course - or most do but winter losses in hives exceed winter losses in natural unrobbed cavities.
Am I a hopeless idealist to hope that tutors will learn to teach ‘bees will live in anything as they have evolved to survive in whatever nature provides randomly to act as a weather protected cavity?. But a nest needs certain characteristics for a colony to achieve its highest performance. So it is the job of a beekeeper to learn about those chracteristics ( from Winston, Seeley, Tauz, and others) and to keep their bees in hives designed for the bees, rather than the beekeeper. The National hive, introduced in 1920 as the Simplicity hive, predates the discoveries of the needs of the bees, and should be regarded as obsolete. What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?
What better hive designs are there? None are yet perfect I would say, but the Golden hive of Mellifera is a good step forward.
I myself used Nationals for ten years before developing the Dartington Long Deep in 1975, published in 1985 after ten years experience. It is basically a double length Deep National with improved features such as a tunnel entrance. A DLD can be used as a long deep hive (no supers) or as a combination hive (honey stored beside the brood but also above in honeyboxes). It can hold one colony or two with a dividrer, or better a colony and a nuc for rearing a new queen which is simply introduced by removing the divider. But the 14x12 frames is still not perfect for bees as the brood nest should be spherical or bell shaped to minimise heat loss - so the Layers frame closely followed in Mellifera’s Golden hive is better. I have modified the extra-deep frame to 11x 18. inches deep so that it can be extracted in a norml 4-frame tangential extractor available in UK.
I am testing 10 colonies in 7 different sizes/conformations next year to see which colonies perform best. Trials of so few hives of course will prove nothing - but maybe the idea will catch on and more beekeepers will test their hives. Mellifera tested 100 Golden hives for ten years before publishing, now translated in 2021as ‘Keeping bees simply and respectfully’, published jointly by IBRA and Northrn Bee Books.
Whist the Golden hive seems an advance, it is disappointing that recomended swarm control still involves intrusive inspections. Sp my 7 designs/conformations will be monitored by various external observations such as weight gain and listening to the hive sound (normal sounds like a pond fountain, pitch rises when queen cells are built and peaks at actual swarming).
I would be very pleased to hear from others who may be treading along a similar path.

"Bees will live in anything?" I think your own experiments go some way to proving that to be true. Compromise is necessary for any sort of domestication of animals....can we leave cattle to roam the countyside without fences? Would we allow our pet dogs to pack together with our neighbours' dogs and see what they can hunt down together?

Your hives sound brilliantly thought out and constructed, but those of us who choose to or just stick to the default, National Hive aren't necessarily putting honey production before bee welfare. Even if some people are frustrating some aspects of natural bee behaviour I'm not sure what it is that you're saying is wrong with that; does it constitute animal cruelty? I think not.

 

[fian]

‘Bees will live in anything after all’.
Is that what beginners courses teach nowadays?
It is true of course, just as it is true a human family can live in anything, so developers build small houses with insufficient rooms/gardens for children to develop naturally. It does not matter of course, if your view is that children
only need to grow up to be shelf stackers in supermarkets.
Honeybees have evolved over millions of years to develop extraordinary abilities unmatched by humans, such as communicating food sources miles way in trackless forests . To do that bees need to perform dances which vibrate the lower parts of free-hanging brood frames. Forcing bees to fill rectangular frames with solid rectangularslabs of brood frustrates dancing.
Not that that matters if forage is local to hives - the colony still collects/stores honey for its winter survival that can be ‘stolen’ by beekeepers - and substituted with plain manufactured sugar that lacks all nutrients. Bees survive of course - or most do but winter losses in hives exceed winter losses in natural unrobbed cavities.
Am I a hopeless idealist to hope that tutors will learn to teach ‘bees will live in anything as they have evolved to survive in whatever nature provides randomly to act as a weather protected cavity?. But a nest needs certain characteristics for a colony to achieve its highest performance. So it is the job of a beekeeper to learn about those chracteristics ( from Winston, Seeley, Tauz, and others) and to keep their bees in hives designed for the bees, rather than the beekeeper. The National hive, introduced in 1920 as the Simplicity hive, predates the discoveries of the needs of the bees, and should be regarded as obsolete. What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?
What better hive designs are there? None are yet perfect I would say, but the Golden hive of Mellifera is a good step forward.
I myself used Nationals for ten years before developing the Dartington Long Deep in 1975, published in 1985 after ten years experience. It is basically a double length Deep National with improved features such as a tunnel entrance. A DLD can be used as a long deep hive (no supers) or as a combination hive (honey stored beside the brood but also above in honeyboxes). It can hold one colony or two with a dividrer, or better a colony and a nuc for rearing a new queen which is simply introduced by removing the divider. But the 14x12 frames is still not perfect for bees as the brood nest should be spherical or bell shaped to minimise heat loss - so the Layers frame closely followed in Mellifera’s Golden hive is better. I have modified the extra-deep frame to 11x 18. inches deep so that it can be extracted in a norml 4-frame tangential extractor available in UK.
I am testing 10 colonies in 7 different sizes/conformations next year to see which colonies perform best. Trials of so few hives of course will prove nothing - but maybe the idea will catch on and more beekeepers will test their hives. Mellifera tested 100 Golden hives for ten years before publishing, now translated in 2021as ‘Keeping bees simply and respectfully’, published jointly by IBRA and Northrn Bee Books.
Whist the Golden hive seems an advance, it is disappointing that recomended swarm control still involves intrusive inspections. Sp my 7 designs/conformations will be monitored by various external observations such as weight gain and listening to the hive sound (normal sounds like a pond fountain, pitch rises when queen cells are built and peaks at actual swarming).
I would be very pleased to hear from others who may be treading along a similar path.

I had never heard of or seen the golden hive or the DLD. I have searched the internet for information. The truth is that this configuration is not new. George de Layens developed something similar back in 1874. This development is still being used in the Mediterranean area from Marseille to Seville.
It was a horizontal hive of 24 frames of 310×370mm (just over 12"x14") in its original version.
A short version (12 frames) is currently used and 1/2 and 1/3 frames have become popular for supers. There is even a dadant/layens double configuration boost.
In France it was modernized to a vertical beehive of 9 frames with a rise of 1/2 or three bodies of 1/2 (Pastorale)

 

[drex]

I am 12 years away from my beginner course, and no, we were not taught they will live in anything. However, since then I have taken many swarms from the unlikeliest places ( including comb built in the open air). I am all for bee centric beekeeping but even rdartington admits he keeps his bees in artificial homes. There has to be a compromise for what's good for the bees and what's good for the keeper. Each to his own

 

[Ian123]

“Honeybees have evolved over millions of years to develop extraordinary abilities unmatched by humans, such as communicating food sources miles way in trackless forests”
1….Humans can not only communicate locations of food sources many miles away we can even get it delivered it’s called Deliveroo…Aren’t we amazing

“ To do that bees need to perform dances which vibrate the lower parts of free-hanging brood frames. Forcing bees to fill rectangular frames with solid rectangularslabs of brood frustrates dancing.”
2…..So kept colonies should struggle to find food? Why then do kept hives produce more off a surplus. What evidence do you have that wild colonies outperform those looked after by beekeepers.

“the colony still collects/stores honey for its winter survival that can be ‘stolen’ by beekeepers - and substituted with plain manufactured sugar that lacks all nutrients. Bees survive of course - or most do but winter losses in hives exceed winter losses in natural unrobbed cavities.”
3…What evidence do you have that Winter losses of kept bees exceed wild bees……Absolutely rubbish!

“What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?”
4…… errrm.. The Ploug, Harrow, seed drill, wheel barrow, Shovel.

Quite frankly the list is endless, there’s more I could add more but I’ve lost the Will to live

 

[fian]

“Honeybees have evolved over millions of years to develop extraordinary abilities unmatched by humans, such as communicating food sources miles way in trackless forests”
1….Humans can not only communicate locations of food sources many miles away we can even get it delivered it’s called Deliveroo…Aren’t we amazing

“ To do that bees need to perform dances which vibrate the lower parts of free-hanging brood frames. Forcing bees to fill rectangular frames with solid rectangularslabs of brood frustrates dancing.”
2…..So kept colonies should struggle to find food? Why then do kept hives produce more off a surplus. What evidence do you have that wild colonies outperform those looked after by beekeepers.

“the colony still collects/stores honey for its winter survival that can be ‘stolen’ by beekeepers - and substituted with plain manufactured sugar that lacks all nutrients. Bees survive of course - or most do but winter losses in hives exceed winter losses in natural unrobbed cavities.”
3…What evidence do you have that Winter losses of kept bees exceed wild bees……Absolutely rubbish!

“What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?”
4…… errrm.. The Ploug, Harrow, seed drill, wheel barrow, Shovel.

Quite frankly the list is endless, there’s more I could add more but I’ve lost the Will to live

And don't forget the wheel. the progress of humanity began there and it is still in use.

 

[The Poot]

“Honeybees have evolved over millions of years to develop extraordinary abilities unmatched by humans, such as communicating food sources miles way in trackless forests”
1….Humans can not only communicate locations of food sources many miles away we can even get it delivered it’s called Deliveroo…Aren’t we amazing

“ To do that bees need to perform dances which vibrate the lower parts of free-hanging brood frames. Forcing bees to fill rectangular frames with solid rectangularslabs of brood frustrates dancing.”
2…..So kept colonies should struggle to find food? Why then do kept hives produce more off a surplus. What evidence do you have that wild colonies outperform those looked after by beekeepers.

“the colony still collects/stores honey for its winter survival that can be ‘stolen’ by beekeepers - and substituted with plain manufactured sugar that lacks all nutrients. Bees survive of course - or most do but winter losses in hives exceed winter losses in natural unrobbed cavities.”
3…What evidence do you have that Winter losses of kept bees exceed wild bees……Absolutely rubbish!

“What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?”
4…… errrm.. The Ploug, Harrow, seed drill, wheel barrow, Shovel.

Quite frankly the list is endless, there’s more I could add more but I’ve lost the Will to live

I think around here, some farmers still use the actual tractors they had in the 1920’s…..

 

[Anduril]

I think around here, some farmers still use the actual tractors they had in the 1920’s…..

I would have to agree to an extent, back in the 1980's, one of my relatives was still using a 1920's tractor, he updated it by bolting on thicker tyres. He passed away in the 1990's.

 

[Ian123]

‘Bees will live in anything after all’.
Is that what beginners courses teach nowadays?
It is true of course, just as it is true a human family can live in anything, so developers build small houses with insufficient rooms/gardens for children to develop naturally. It does not matter of course, if your view is that children
only need to grow up to be shelf stackers in supermarkets.
Honeybees have evolved over millions of years to develop extraordinary abilities unmatched by humans, such as communicating food sources miles way in trackless forests . To do that bees need to perform dances which vibrate the lower parts of free-hanging brood frames. Forcing bees to fill rectangular frames with solid rectangularslabs of brood frustrates dancing.
Not that that matters if forage is local to hives - the colony still collects/stores honey for its winter survival that can be ‘stolen’ by beekeepers - and substituted with plain manufactured sugar that lacks all nutrients. Bees survive of course - or most do but winter losses in hives exceed winter losses in natural unrobbed cavities.
Am I a hopeless idealist to hope that tutors will learn to teach ‘bees will live in anything as they have evolved to survive in whatever nature provides randomly to act as a weather protected cavity?. But a nest needs certain characteristics for a colony to achieve its highest performance. So it is the job of a beekeeper to learn about those chracteristics ( from Winston, Seeley, Tauz, and others) and to keep their bees in hives designed for the bees, rather than the beekeeper. The National hive, introduced in 1920 as the Simplicity hive, predates the discoveries of the needs of the bees, and should be regarded as obsolete. What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?
What better hive designs are there? None are yet perfect I would say, but the Golden hive of Mellifera is a good step forward.
I myself used Nationals for ten years before developing the Dartington Long Deep in 1975, published in 1985 after ten years experience. It is basically a double length Deep National with improved features such as a tunnel entrance. A DLD can be used as a long deep hive (no supers) or as a combination hive (honey stored beside the brood but also above in honeyboxes). It can hold one colony or two with a dividrer, or better a colony and a nuc for rearing a new queen which is simply introduced by removing the divider. But the 14x12 frames is still not perfect for bees as the brood nest should be spherical or bell shaped to minimise heat loss - so the Layers frame closely followed in Mellifera’s Golden hive is better. I have modified the extra-deep frame to 11x 18. inches deep so that it can be extracted in a norml 4-frame tangential extractor available in UK.
I am testing 10 colonies in 7 different sizes/conformations next year to see which colonies perform best. Trials of so few hives of course will prove nothing - but maybe the idea will catch on and more beekeepers will test their hives. Mellifera tested 100 Golden hives for ten years before publishing, now translated in 2021as ‘Keeping bees simply and respectfully’, published jointly by IBRA and Northrn Bee Books.
Whist the Golden hive seems an advance, it is disappointing that recomended swarm control still involves intrusive inspections. Sp my 7 designs/conformations will be monitored by various external observations such as weight gain and listening to the hive sound (normal sounds like a pond fountain, pitch rises when queen cells are built and peaks at actual swarming).
I would be very pleased to hear from others who may be treading along a similar path.

Sorry forgot to ask what is free hanging comb?…. I don’t think I or any here have ever come across comb that’s not attached to something

 

[Anduril]

And don't forget the wheel. the progress of humanity began there and it is still in use.

I thought the progress started, when we moved from hunter-gatherer to farming. We didn't have to follow the migratory herds anymore.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

“What other farming equipment of 1920 is still in use today?”
4…… errrm.. The Ploug, Harrow, seed drill, wheel barrow, Shovel.

still using my grandfather's billhook, handed down to him in the late 1920's, know of more than one pre war plough and harrows still in use, only have to go over the mountain into the deep sticks to find countless farmers with tools still in use that were originally their grandfather's
And as for National hives, thousands are still using them successfully - after all, it's only a box

 

[Ian123]

after all, it's only a box

Aghhh but it’s Satans box, and it’s sole use would prevent others from reinventing other…..boxes!

 

[Anduril]

still using my grandfather's billhook, handed down to him in the late 1920's, know of more than one pre war plough and harrows still in use, only have to go over the mountain into the deep sticks to find countless farmers with tools still in use that were originally their grandfather's
And as for National hives, thousands are still using them successfully - after all, it's only a box

I'm still using my great uncles WW1 British Army issue jack knife 1913 design for beekeeping.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I think around here, some farmers still use the actual tractors they had in the 1920’s…..

They don't make em like they used to.