Hives, Sizes and Management

[Erichalfbee]

Not in terms of the outcome but it's very easy to split a colony in an LDH and this, if done, prior to actual swarm preps being noticed is a good way of reducing the likelihood of the bees swarming. Bear in mind LDH do have a propensity for producing big colonies but the amount of lateral space available for expansion seems to discourage swarming to some extent (or at least that has been my experience with my LDH).

But it achieves the same thing

 

[Ian123]

Luckily, sole use of the National box has not happened. It was the box of its time, 1920 - at the time, beekeepers were not taking their WBC hives to orchards for pollination - but Bro Adam did take Buckfast WBC’s up to the heather in a wheel barrow - but he was young and a tough German. Then he converted to single walled hives. And the introduction of the single walled National made limited travelling to Kent orchards more reasonable.
Now that Kent apple growers have local hives for pollination - or so I assume - the whole of UK can settle back and keep bees locally.
Is the moveable National the best for home hobby beekeeping?
In view of the fact that a National hive needs backing up with a second hive or at least a nuc hive for swarmcontrol.
Or do Nat users just let the swarms fly?

“. It was the box of its time, 1920 -“
Is that like much farm equipment still used today?

“In view of the fact that a National hive needs backing up with a second hive or at least a nuc hive for swarmcontrol.”

For the cost of commercially available long hive designs you can buy multiple nationals. Thornes are quoting £378 for a Layens off the top of my head a cedar national can be brought for about £130 or there abouts.This contraption is even more…..£800
https://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/beekeeping/beehaus/
https://hydehives.co.uk/products/long-hiveSo setting aside personal wood working skills you could effectively buy an apiary for the price of some long type hives
If you carry out a demere you require 1 hive. But let’s be honest I’d rather the benifits of a couple of standard hives at the commercial cost of a long hive, quite frankly far more flexibility. Whilst long hives can be built with minimal skill so can standard box types, hence Langstroths simple design with short lugs!

“Now that Kent apple growers have local hives for pollination - or so I assume - the whole of UK can settle back and keep bees locally.”

In your ideal world none move bees? Plenty still go to orchards many go to farms for OSR…Beans…Borage…Clover…Strawberries..Raspberry Quite a number of other seed and fruit crops as well. Plenty of amateur beeks as well.

No the type of beetainer you use does not mean you let your bees swarm…What a load of twaddle unless you are talking of skeps or non movable frame. Rather more to do with what type of beekeeper you are?

Returning to your previous posts and thanks for posting the picture of free hanging….but it’s just another frame it’s still your hated rectangle and looks very similar to standard frames I’ve seen in some beeks hives. Not even sure how free that wax was, looked attached on three edges to me!

Also any chance of addressing these previous questions.
“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.

Many of us that have had bees for a period have had bees in many hives and containers I’ve had plenty of long type boxes….Some have advantages over others but why all the flim flam, BS and claims of exploitation.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

but he was young and a tough German

no he wasn't - he was a young and very sickly German, which is why they took him off the abbey building programme and sent him to help at the apiary

Now that Kent apple growers have local hives for pollination - or so I assume - the whole of UK can settle back and keep bees locally.

You are also pretty ignorant of the range of migratory beekeeping that takes place in the UK both for pollination and forage purposes apples aren't the only thing that need pollinating

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

What it boils down to in the end, very much like the KTBH, the long hive (deep or otherwise) or indeed that plastic monstrosity the Beehaus is all well and good for the bee fiddler and dilettante with more money than sense but in reality has very little in the way of practicality, versatility or usefulness in practical beekeeping

 

[Ian123]

What it boils down to in the end, very much like the KTBH, the long hive (deep or otherwise) or indeed that plastic monstrosity the Beehaus is all well and good for the bee fiddler and dilettante with more money than sense but in reality has very little in the way of practicality, versatility or usefulness in practical beekeeping

Ahhhh… but you forget the warm fuzzy feeling and the subsequent ability to be condescending to others

 

[ericbeaumont]

Fewer and fewer orchards in Kent these days ... but increasingly growers are buying in bumble bees for pollination.

Bumbles for tunnel soft fruit, but top fruit still needs honey bees early in the season.

 

[Ian123]

Bumbles for tunnel soft fruit, but top fruit still needs honey bees early in the season.

There’s an old BFA chairman near me I know well that until a few years ago did plenty of nucs for tunnels. He’s got a younger guy he passed on the contracts to and I believe still doing plenty for 1 of the big growers.

 

[ericbeaumont]

nucs for tunnels

How does that work, Ian? I understood that bumbles are content to work a tunnel, but honey bees will want to escape.

 

[Newbeeneil]

Bumbles for tunnel soft fruit, but top fruit still needs honey bees early in the season.

There is a beekeeper from my BKA who sends quite a few hives from West Sussex to the apple and pear orchards in Kent. It’s a nice little earner for him but last year the hives returned starved!

 

[pargyle]

But it achieves the same thing

Exactly ...

 

[Ian123]

How does that work, Ian? I understood that bumbles are content to work a tunnel, but honey bees will want to escape.

Hi Eric it works or at least the company paying very handsomely believe it works, and yes as I understand it bumbles will cope much better with tunnels. I am guessing but I’d think a few thousand bees do as good a job as a few hundred. Losses on the nucs in terms of individual bees are plentiful and I believe they are rotating them often.
So whilst on appearance it’s tough on the nucs/bees the colonies do survive. There is no destruction as in bumbles or imports of foreign species. So in some regards there’s plus points to it.He uses decent calm bees that the workers can work around whilst in the tunnels and was operating this way for many many years. If there’s any thing specific you want asked drop me a mail as I’m likely to see him this week coming or shortly after Xmas.

 

[pargyle]

What it boils down to in the end, very much like the KTBH, the long hive (deep or otherwise) or indeed that plastic monstrosity the Beehaus is all well and good for the bee fiddler and dilettante with more money than sense but in reality has very little in the way of practicality, versatility or usefulness in practical beekeeping

There's not a lot to hate about a long hive .. I made mine out of mostly reclaimed timber ... probably less than £20 in total - most of that was screws and coach bolts. The bees do very well in it, there's no lifting of boxes needed, it uses standard frames (mine happens to be 14 x 12 but there's no reason why it could not be standard nationals or langstroth frames). They are great for producing bees - very useful to create nucs or for adding frames of brood to production colonies. I would not have an apiary full of them only because of the time it took me to build mine and I would agree commercially produced ones are expensive compared to the wider used hives. They are heavy to move around and I'm averse to the plastic Beehaus but for a home apiary ... very good hives that will give you enough honey for your own use. It's a practical, versatile and useful hive in my opinion

If I was making another I would probably line it with plywood rather than victorian floor boards to lighten it a bit, make the roof removable rather than hinged and perhaps the sides out of Kingspan or Celotex sheets for lightness but insulation. I think it would work well.

 

[Ian123]

I don’t think any are having a go at long hives for some there will be advantages, and yes they are simple and easy to construct but then so is a simple langstroth. Nor do I think any are preaching nationals are gods gift!

I’m not certain there’s ever an ideal hive as beekeepers will have very different ideas on what ideal is. Chuck in cost and local custom, material availability there’s all sorts to factor in.. plus there’s definitely a recent trend of having a sudden epiphany and reinventing a box! Although and old bee farmer friend and 1 of the old county be instructors did suggest to me that the best thing to be done with his long hive at his teaching apiary was….”Pack me up and burn me up and burn me in it”…….

I’ve just had an epiphany and designed a new hive… Bees in it are closer to god(insert the deity of choice)

Your bees will love you more…
They out preform kept bees in barsteward beekeepers hives
The hives activity repel all known pest and predators.
The Drones produced by bees in these hives are hung like donkeys.

Here it is folks…. It’s the new long and 6ft deep hive
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-w...34557473978c994bd59755d00622887e&searchtype=0

 

[fian]

I don’t think any are having a go at long hives ...

It is curious that you mention it, in the Hispanic beekeeping world these long hives have been called dead box for a long time.
On the other hand, I believe that the ideal apiary should have a group of hives of various sizes with the particularity of always having a single frame size, at most 2 if we count the frame of the super.

 

[pargyle]

I don’t think any are having a go at long hives for some there will be advantages, and yes they are simple and easy to construct but then so is a simple langstroth. Nor do I think any are preaching nationals are gods gift!

"Long deep hive ...... in reality has very little in the way of practicality, versatility or usefulness in practical beekeeping" - Post #44

I agree, there is no 'perfect' hive. Every bee box is a compromise created by the needs of the beekeeper, the needs of the bees and the materials and skills or financial resources available to the beekeeper. Hive design is limited only by the imagination, knowledge and creativity of the inventor - whether these designs end up as suitable 'beetainers' is a matter for endless debate and the design may be perfection in the eyes of the inventor yet be abhorrent to most other beekeepers.

The reality is that bees will live in just about any box or space that meets THEIR perception of a suitable home - what we see in the hives that we provide is a matter of personal preference, taking in to account the various benefits and disadvantages that each hive presents.

There is no room in keepeeping circles and certainly on this forum for those who insist that 'it's my way or no way' ... by all means debate but keep an open mind.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

I don’t think any are having a go at long hives for some there will be advantages, and yes they are simple and easy to construct but then so is a simple langstroth. Nor do I think any are preaching nationals are gods gift!

I’m not certain there’s ever an ideal hive as beekeepers will have very different ideas on what ideal is. Chuck in cost and local custom, material availability there’s all sorts to factor in.. plus there’s definitely a recent trend of having a sudden epiphany and reinventing a box! Although and old bee farmer friend and 1 of the old county be instructors did suggest to me that the best thing to be done with his long hive at his teaching apiary was….”Pack me up and burn me up and burn me in it”…….

I’ve just had an epiphany and designed a new hive… Bees in it are closer to god(insert the deity of choice)

Your bees will love you more…
They out preform kept bees in barsteward beekeepers hives
The hives activity repel all known pest and predators.
The Drones produced by bees in these hives are hung like donkeys.

Here it is folks…. It’s the new long and 6ft deep hive
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-w...34557473978c994bd59755d00622887e&searchtype=0

Anytime now the sun hive will be trotted out

 

[Ian123]

Anytime now the sun hive will be trotted out

You may well be correct but I’d gotten the distinct feeling we are about to be sold a new and improved long hive. But then again I my just be an old cynic

 

[Erichalfbee]

You may well be correct but I’d gotten the distinct feeling we are about to be sold a new and improved long hive. But then again I my just be an old cynic

Hyde Hives do a cracker.
Not into long hives but they made me a cedar barn owl box that’s in pride of place in the drive.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

either

You may well be correct but I’d gotten the distinct feeling we are about to be sold a new and improved long hive. But then again I my just be an old cynic

Either that or be told nobody uses the hives we currently have so we'd better listen to their diktat

Hyde Hives do a cracker

They do, but at the prices they charge it's a one-off garden ornament for someone who wants to fiddle with a few colonies, not seriously beekeep. I remember seeing it when they first took a pitch in the tradex (when it was a trade exhibition) and liked the fact they were offering a UK friendly alternative to the KTBH and with manageable frames to boot - with clever element like the hydraulic rams for lifting the roof which makes it a great tool for a disabled beekeeper who would struggle with supers (regardless of size) or shifting a roof on any long hive

 

[pargyle]

You may well be correct but I’d gotten the distinct feeling we are about to be sold a new and improved long hive. But then again I my just be an old cynic

Well ... I can't see where you got that idea. The Dartington Long Deep Hive has been around since 1975 and has been mentioned many times on here. There's plenty about them on the internet - I haven't seen Robin pushing anything and I rather doubt that he's made a fortune out of his invention over the last nearly 50 years. I don't know what's the matter with you lot ... why is it when someone mentions something that is a bit off the beaten track you seem intent on beating it to death ?

There's room for everyone on here - even those with a slightly different slant on beekeeping - it all adds to a richer tapestry. Let's not drive another member with some ideas to add to the forum into the waste land ...