Hives, Sizes and Management

[Ian123]

“This forum shows there are many who are just not interested in the possibility that a 100 year old hive design might be improved for our changed modern conditions - but there are some. If beekeeping does move forward, they will not be part - no matter.
I will continue to offer information, as clearly described as I can, as I suspect the problem is that, while some people can visualise in three dimensions what words mean, others lack that ability - they just cannot see it - so they feel they must attack to justify their inabilty to join the discussion.”

Your at it again any that don’t see the magical advantages are some how backward, lack ability or even left behind. What a load of tripe! None mentioned the dartinton apart from yourself and a moderator, nor did any mention any financial gain or belittle it. Why would they! It appears many also did not see the light as the product is no longer made.?

The comical bit is you bemoan a 1940s national as backwards yet a long hive dating back to 1000 BC is thought of as forward thinking Any 40s design is positively youthful by comparison.

Any chance you’ll go back and address your previous statements I’ve asked a couple of times I even listed them to be of assistance

 

[rdartington]

Can we all just cool it, please.
Can we just assume that Robin likes his LDHs and doesn't like Nationals.
I doubt any of his posts will convert anybody.
Most of us use Nationals and are happy with them. I've absolutely no intention of trying a heavy immoveable hive.
A few beginners might, some may stick with them but I suspect most won't
The Long Deep Hive will remain a quirky oddity

“ can we just cool it, please”
I enjoy discussion - if it is open-minded.

“Can we just assume Robin likes his LDH’s and doesn’t like Nationals”.
I have kept Nats for 57 years. This year I kept 4 Nats (2 Deep, 2 Brood+Half plus two Long Standard hives (8.5 deeo ‘standard’ brood frames) plus DLD’s plus one Deep Russian (14x18 inch joined frames) plus one Blue Hive (11x18 inch frames ) plus one DLD adapted for 11x18 inch frames plus a Warre plus a Top-bar hive plus a 4 deep frame Obs Hive - plus an empty ‘Garden Hive. I also have an empty WBC and a Langstroth for inspection by trainees. It is not that I ‘like’ a DLD, it is just that by comparisoin it is so safer, more convenient and more economic than other designs - as I would be pleased to show to the arm-chair critics who populate this forum.

“ I doubt any of his posts will convert anybody”.
A resolute statement!
Not even one? Or even two?

“ Most of us use Nationals ….”
Carry on if they suit you.
If yiu end up with beekeeper’s back, I hope you enjoy it.


“A few beginners might, some may stick with them, but …most wont“
That could be true.
Associations run beekeeping courses, hereabouts in Feb/March, typically for 50-70 beginners, in a church hall, no live bees.
Only 1/3 start to keep bees - of those, typically only 1/3 are still keeping bees after 3 years - so only an 11% success rate.
Funny that, when tutors teach using the ‘purr-fect’ National hive.

The educational charity I set up 17 years ago has run beekeeping courses, 12 afternoons thrugh the season in the first year, 8 in the second - then they took the Basic.
I have not followed up to see how many still keep bees - but I suspect it turns out too tricky for many - or the bees swarm - or sting - or die out - or the neigbours object - or they start a family - or the children grow up and want to go swimming.
Of course, if beginners did give up a DLD, none of the above would apply of course - it could only be that they realised that the DLD is crap!

“The Long Deep Hive will remain a quirky oddity”.
Logically, only if it starts off as a quirky oddity’.
Is putting two Deep Nats together so quirky, bearing in mind that a single Deep Nat needs a second body or complete nuc hive as backup when swarming starts?
Is the concept of a long deep box for deep frames, with honeyboxes above, so untried?
I have four Russian books in translation. In 1974, there were 9,956,600 hives in the USSR - in 2020 there was an estimated 260,000 hives in UK - 2.5% of the Russian total.
Quoting Avetisyan, 1978: ‘the long (supered) hive is more adequate than the multple-storey hive for the biological requirements of southern bees (especially Caucasian) …Such hives are predoninantly used in the southern districts of the USSR - Ukraine, Northern Causasus, Trans- Causasus …’. . Reverting to the table, Ukraine alone had : 2,456,800 hives - so ‘predominant’ would mean more than 1,250,000 in long hives in Ukraine alone. A big quirky over there!

As said, I do enjoy discussion - but just slamming doors does not promote progress.
At nearing 85, I am not strong enough to handle Nats by myself - but I can safely handle half-sized DLD honeyboxes.
I try to keep within the Health& Safety Executive Guidelines - do Nat tutors mention those recomendations to trainees? Or do tutors ignore what an employee should be protected from?
Safety is important!

 

[Erichalfbee]

Honestly. Does it matter?
I was just asking people to be kind to each other.
I’m not slamming doors. They are wide open to you.

 

[rdartington]

Both the books you mention have been uploaded on scribd. I hope it is okay for me to share the links:




I read the first link a while ago and found it an interesting read with some great ideas.

Absolutely fine to share links to the two short books published by Northern Bee Books.
But perhaps you went on ebay?
There are later editions that look like this:

 

[rdartington]

Honestly. Does it matter?
I was just asking people to be kind to each other.
I’m not slamming doors. They are wide open to you.

Yes.
And I am grateful.
Beekeeping needs to be alive - not stuck in the past.
But what way to go in future is of course open to debate.
So let’s debate!

 

[fian]

“ can we just cool it, please”
I enjoy discussion - if it is open-minded.

“Can we just assume Robin likes his LDH’s and doesn’t like Nationals”.
I have kept Nats for 57 years. This year I kept 4 Nats (2 Deep, 2 Brood+Half plus two Long Standard hives (8.5 deeo ‘standard’ brood frames) plus DLD’s plus one Deep Russian (14x18 inch joined frames) plus one Blue Hive (11x18 inch frames ) plus one DLD adapted for 11x18 inch frames plus a Warre plus a Top-bar hive plus a 4 deep frame Obs Hive - plus an empty ‘Garden Hive. I also have an empty WBC and a Langstroth for inspection by trainees. It is not that I ‘like’ a DLD, it is just that by comparisoin it is so safer, more convenient and more economic than other designs - as I would be pleased to show to the arm-chair critics who populate this forum.

“ I doubt any of his posts will convert anybody”.
A resolute statement!
Not even one? Or even two?

“ Most of us use Nationals ….”
Carry on if they suit you.
If yiu end up with beekeeper’s back, I hope you enjoy it.


“A few beginners might, some may stick with them, but …most wont“
That could be true.
Associations run beekeeping courses, hereabouts in Feb/March, typically for 50-70 beginners, in a church hall, no live bees.
Only 1/3 start to keep bees - of those, typically only 1/3 are still keeping bees after 3 years - so only an 11% success rate.
Funny that, when tutors teach using the ‘purr-fect’ National hive.

The educational charity I set up 17 years ago has run beekeeping courses, 12 afternoons thrugh the season in the first year, 8 in the second - then they took the Basic.
I have not followed up to see how many still keep bees - but I suspect it turns out too tricky for many - or the bees swarm - or sting - or die out - or the neigbours object - or they start a family - or the children grow up and want to go swimming.
Of course, if beginners did give up a DLD, none of the above would apply of course - it could only be that they realised that the DLD is crap!

“The Long Deep Hive will remain a quirky oddity”.
Logically, only if it starts off as a quirky oddity’.
Is putting two Deep Nats together so quirky, bearing in mind that a single Deep Nat needs a second body or complete nuc hive as backup when swarming starts?
Is the concept of a long deep box for deep frames, with honeyboxes above, so untried?
I have four Russian books in translation. In 1974, there were 9,956,600 hives in the USSR - in 2020 there was an estimated 260,000 hives in UK - 2.5% of the Russian total.
Quoting Avetisyan, 1978: ‘the long (supered) hive is more adequate than the multple-storey hive for the biological requirements of southern bees (especially Caucasian) …Such hives are predoninantly used in the southern districts of the USSR - Ukraine, Northern Causasus, Trans- Causasus …’. . Reverting to the table, Ukraine alone had : 2,456,800 hives - so ‘predominant’ would mean more than 1,250,000 in long hives in Ukraine alone. A big quirky over there!

As said, I do enjoy discussion - but just slamming doors does not promote progress.
At nearing 85, I am not strong enough to handle Nats by myself - but I can safely handle half-sized DLD honeyboxes.
I try to keep within the Health& Safety Executive Guidelines - do Nat tutors mention those recomendations to trainees? Or do tutors ignore what an employee should be protected from?
Safety is important!
View attachment 34722

I don't know if it is possible in British nationals, but in lansgtroth and despite other users I would say that a second body is not necessary for the breeding nest.
It is also curious that the Dutch maintain that a compact brood nest prevents swarming and despite this many beekeepers think that the more the better.
Nacional frame supers increase with the following configuration:
I usually.
Body 1. 2 frames.
Entrance. Queen excluder.
Body 2. 8 frames.
Body 3. 8 frames.
Queen excluder.
harvest bodies.

 

[buffon]

But perhaps you went on ebay?

It wasn't me that uploaded them! I think it was some French guy. He did some sketchup models that you might be interested in Bernard B. | 3D Warehouse

 

[rdartington]

“. 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.

Ian is pressing for a reply so I must. But we are clearly poles apart in our views and neither will be converted to the other. Let us try to understand and respect each other and not scrap.
To clarify the two view points: the conventional ‘commercial’ approach is to use bees to make honey for the beekeeper, using the very well established National hive without question. End of story! Do I understand correctly?
The ‘supportive’ approach, that I am interested in developing, views bees as a vital part of the environment, within which they have evolved over 40 million years or so, enabling a host of flowering plants to develop through being pollinated So, since humans are also part of the environment (despite the superiority often claimed for mankind over all other life forms), it behoves us to support bees as best we can to achieve their full potential within the current environment that has been degraded by clearing forests, poughing up 98% of wild flower meadows, poluting water, spraying insecticide, applying artificial fertiliser that degrades soil and kills worms. The hypothesis is that supported bees will develop and maintain a more efficient nest (using less energy/honey to keep it warm) and so produce more stored honey, so increasing the surplus the beekeeper can safely harvest.
Supportive beekeeping is not the same as ‘natural’ beekeeping as , in my view, bees cannot be left to live ‘naturally’ in today’s unnatural environment. We have to control swarming by splitting and recombining with a new queen and new drawn combs, for which we need a hive that makes that easy.
The hope of supportive beeleeking is that after mankind goes extinct, due to ‘cutting off the branch on which it is sitting’, honeybee species will survive and continue to pollinate flowering plants during the billion years left before the sun has heated this planet to unendurable temperatures.
Is there enough there to elicit ‘hurruph’ from regular contributors?

turning to Ian’s 4 criticisms:
1. ‘So setting aside personal wood working skills you could effectively buy an apiary for the price of some long type hives
Correct - the price of bought long hives includes material (of course) but also overheads, labour, VAT, profit, financing, marketing. So don’t set aside personal woodworking skills. The DLD is specifically designed to be assembled at home from parts cut to size at a local builder’s merchant - so you pay only for materials.

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.‘
Not as much clear evidence as I would like, but clear indications. Full weekly internal inspections by beekeepers have been said to disrupt the colony for a week - by when the next inspection is due.
Wild colonies leave the bottom of combs hanging clear as dance platforms - restricting the depth of brood combs results in no clear bottom cells , so no dancing. This does not matter when kept hives are transported to the crop, but does when scouts have to discover it and dance to tell foragers. My apiary is 3/4 mile from a row of lime trees. Without dancing, that crop would never be found by enough foragers on their own.
Read all about it! Tauz in “The Buzz about Bees’. Fascinating new science.
I posted a new deep comb in my Blue Hive. Here is a Polish hive. (NOT a design I am going to copy).

3…’What evidence do you have that Winter losses of kept bees exceed wild bees……Absolutely rubbish!’
US beekeepers report 80% losses. Wild bees would go extinct as the survival rate of swarms is only 25%.


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

these are trivial examples. Walikg behind a horse-drawn ploughs has been superseeded by high tec huge machines that map a field and fertilise different parts according to local need.


Free-hanging bottoms of combs in Polish hive. (This hive is still made by enthusiasts but not me - but the combs interest)

 

[user 20297]

Ian is pressing for a reply so I must. But we are clearly poles apart in our views and neither will be converted to the other. Let us try to understand and respect each other and not scrap.
To clarify the two view points: the conventional ‘commercial’ approach is to use bees to make honey for the beekeeper, using the very well established National hive without question. End of story! Do I understand correctly?
The ‘supportive’ approach, that I am interested in developing, views bees as a vital part of the environment, within which they have evolved over 40 million years or so, enabling a host of flowering plants to develop through being pollinated So, since humans are also part of the environment (despite the superiority often claimed for mankind over all other life forms), it behoves us to support bees as best we can to achieve their full potential within the current environment that has been degraded by clearing forests, poughing up 98% of wild flower meadows, poluting water, spraying insecticide, applying artificial fertiliser that degrades soil and kills worms. The hypothesis is that supported bees will develop and maintain a more efficient nest (using less energy/honey to keep it warm) and so produce more stored honey, so increasing the surplus the beekeeper can safely harvest.
Supportive beekeeping is not the same as ‘natural’ beekeeping as , in my view, bees cannot be left to live ‘naturally’ in today’s unnatural environment. We have to control swarming by splitting and recombining with a new queen and new drawn combs, for which we need a hive that makes that easy.
The hope of supportive beeleeking is that after mankind goes extinct, due to ‘cutting off the branch on which it is sitting’, honeybee species will survive and continue to pollinate flowering plants during the billion years left before the sun has heated this planet to unendurable temperatures.
Is there enough there to elicit ‘hurruph’ from regular contributors?

turning to Ian’s 4 criticisms:
1. ‘So setting aside personal wood working skills you could effectively buy an apiary for the price of some long type hives
Correct - the price of bought long hives includes material (of course) but also overheads, labour, VAT, profit, financing, marketing. So don’t set aside personal woodworking skills. The DLD is specifically designed to be assembled at home from parts cut to size at a local builder’s merchant - so you pay only for materials.

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.‘
Not as much clear evidence as I would like, but clear indications. Full weekly internal inspections by beekeepers have been said to disrupt the colony for a week - by when the next inspection is due.
Wild colonies leave the bottom of combs hanging clear as dance platforms - restricting the depth of brood combs results in no clear bottom cells , so no dancing. This does not matter when kept hives are transported to the crop, but does when scouts have to discover it and dance to tell foragers. My apiary is 3/4 mile from a row of lime trees. Without dancing, that crop would never be found by enough foragers on their own.
Read all about it! Tauz in “The Buzz about Bees’. Fascinating new science.
I posted a new deep comb in my Blue Hive. Here is a Polish hive. (NOT a design I am going to copy).

3…’What evidence do you have that Winter losses of kept bees exceed wild bees……Absolutely rubbish!’
US beekeepers report 80% losses. Wild bees would go extinct as the survival rate of swarms is only 25%.


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

these are trivial examples. Walikg behind a horse-drawn ploughs has been superseeded by high tec huge machines that map a field and fertilise different parts according to local need.


Free-hanging bottoms of combs in Polish hive. (This hive is still made by enthusiasts but not me - but the combs interest)
View attachment 34731

@rdartington , you should start your own Blog on this forum as what you say is very interesting. It will be a shame if you are shouted down so much that you become reluctant to post. Fortunately, you seem very resilient and I think your statement, "we are clearly poles apart in our views and neither will be converted to the other" is very wise statement and something that several people here would do well to take seriously.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

This does not matter when kept hives are transported to the crop, but does when scouts have to discover it and dance to tell foragers. My apiary is 3/4 mile from a row of lime trees. Without dancing, that crop would never be found by enough foragers on their own.

absolute bull I'm afraid
My bees at the home apiary find, and fly over 2 miles to the heather every year - so how do you think the scouts passed the message over?

 

[Anduril]

Ian is pressing for a reply so I must. But we are clearly poles apart in our views and neither will be converted to the other. Let us try to understand and respect each other and not scrap.
To clarify the two view points: the conventional ‘commercial’ approach is to use bees to make honey for the beekeeper, using the very well established National hive without question. End of story! Do I understand correctly?
The ‘supportive’ approach, that I am interested in developing, views bees as a vital part of the environment, within which they have evolved over 40 million years or so, enabling a host of flowering plants to develop through being pollinated So, since humans are also part of the environment (despite the superiority often claimed for mankind over all other life forms), it behoves us to support bees as best we can to achieve their full potential within the current environment that has been degraded by clearing forests, poughing up 98% of wild flower meadows, poluting water, spraying insecticide, applying artificial fertiliser that degrades soil and kills worms. The hypothesis is that supported bees will develop and maintain a more efficient nest (using less energy/honey to keep it warm) and so produce more stored honey, so increasing the surplus the beekeeper can safely harvest.
Supportive beekeeping is not the same as ‘natural’ beekeeping as , in my view, bees cannot be left to live ‘naturally’ in today’s unnatural environment. We have to control swarming by splitting and recombining with a new queen and new drawn combs, for which we need a hive that makes that easy.
The hope of supportive beeleeking is that after mankind goes extinct, due to ‘cutting off the branch on which it is sitting’, honeybee species will survive and continue to pollinate flowering plants during the billion years left before the sun has heated this planet to unendurable temperatures.
Is there enough there to elicit ‘hurruph’ from regular contributors?

turning to Ian’s 4 criticisms:
1. ‘So setting aside personal wood working skills you could effectively buy an apiary for the price of some long type hives
Correct - the price of bought long hives includes material (of course) but also overheads, labour, VAT, profit, financing, marketing. So don’t set aside personal woodworking skills. The DLD is specifically designed to be assembled at home from parts cut to size at a local builder’s merchant - so you pay only for materials.

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.‘
Not as much clear evidence as I would like, but clear indications. Full weekly internal inspections by beekeepers have been said to disrupt the colony for a week - by when the next inspection is due.
Wild colonies leave the bottom of combs hanging clear as dance platforms - restricting the depth of brood combs results in no clear bottom cells , so no dancing. This does not matter when kept hives are transported to the crop, but does when scouts have to discover it and dance to tell foragers. My apiary is 3/4 mile from a row of lime trees. Without dancing, that crop would never be found by enough foragers on their own.
Read all about it! Tauz in “The Buzz about Bees’. Fascinating new science.
I posted a new deep comb in my Blue Hive. Here is a Polish hive. (NOT a design I am going to copy).

3…’What evidence do you have that Winter losses of kept bees exceed wild bees……Absolutely rubbish!’
US beekeepers report 80% losses. Wild bees would go extinct as the survival rate of swarms is only 25%.


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

these are trivial examples. Walikg behind a horse-drawn ploughs has been superseeded by high tec huge machines that map a field and fertilise different parts according to local need.


Free-hanging bottoms of combs in Polish hive. (This hive is still made by enthusiasts but not me - but the combs interest)
View attachment 34731

I have seen plenty of those free hanging bottoms of comb in cutouts I've been called out to remove.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It will be a shame if you are shouted down so much that you become reluctant to post.

Nobody is shouting anybody down.
This thread has simply been robust debate.

 

[user 20297]

Nobody is shouting anybody down.
This thread has simply been robust debate.

I didn't say that anyone had, been shouted down; I said that it would be a shame if that was to happen. Whether it has or hasn't already happened in this case is open to interpretation, and as always, yours is likely different from my own. In any case, as I observed, our learned friend appears to be of a very robust disposition and appears to enjoy the rough and tumble.

 

[buffon]

my experimental ‘Blue Hive’ is based on Mellifera’s Golden Hive but my frames are 11 inches wide by 18 inches deep.which is the widest that will fit in a normal 4-frame tangential extractor - my pic showed one of my frames after extraction

What sort of extractor - like this this one? I ask because I thought that could take Dadant sized frames and I thought the golden hive was based on Dadant dimensions just rotated 90 degrees. Is it the lugs that means you have had to shorten the width?

In the summer I bought a cheapo Vevor 3 frame extractor which can only take a 235 X 440 frame (although I haven't precisely measured). The 4 frame version info says it takes the same size. Interestingly in Poland they have a Warszawski Zwykly (Warsaw Normal) hive that has frames 240 x 435 mm. More info at the bottom of this page Modified Einraumbeute with frames etc available from Lyson. So it would be conceivable to build a narrow deep hive that has frames that fit my extractor and with something like the lyson mini plus frame as supers.

 

[Newbeeneil]

I still find this the most frustrating thread on here for a very long time!
Why oh why is anyone trying to convince others that their choice of box is superior to anyone else’s choice!!!
ALMOST ANY BLOODY BOX IS ACCEPTABLE TO BEES!!!!!!!!

 

[Ian123]

Ian is pressing for a reply so I must. But we are clearly poles apart in our views and neither will be converted to the other. Let us try to understand and respect each other and not scrap.

The ‘supportive’ approach, that I am interested in developing, views bees as a vital part of the environment, within which they have evolved over 40 million years or so, enabling a host of flowering plants to develop through being pollinated So, since humans are also part of the environment (despite the superiority often claimed for mankind over all other life forms), it behoves us to support bees as best we can to achieve their full potential within the current environment that has been degraded by clearing forests, poughing up 98% of wild flower meadows, poluting water, spraying insecticide, applying artificial fertiliser that degrades soil and kills worms. The hypothesis is that supported bees will develop and maintain a more efficient nest (using less energy/honey to keep it warm) and so produce more stored honey, so increasing the surplus the beekeeper can safely harvest.
Supportive beekeeping is not the same as ‘natural’ beekeeping as , in my view, bees cannot be left to live ‘naturally’ in today’s unnatural environment. We have to control swarming by splitting and recombining with a new queen and new drawn combs, for which we need a hive that makes that easy.
The hope of supportive beeleeking is that after mankind goes extinct, due to ‘cutting off the branch on which it is sitting’, honeybee species will survive and continue to pollinate flowering plants during the billion years left before the sun has heated this planet to unendurable temperatures.
Is there enough there to elicit ‘hurruph’ from regular contributors?

turning to Ian’s 4 criticisms:
1. ‘So setting aside personal wood working skills you could effectively buy an apiary for the price of some long type hives
Correct - the price of bought long hives includes material (of course) but also overheads, labour, VAT, profit, financing, marketing. So don’t set aside personal woodworking skills. The DLD is specifically designed to be assembled at home from parts cut to size at a local builder’s merchant - so you pay only for materials.

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.‘
Not as much clear evidence as I would like, but clear indications. Full weekly internal inspections by beekeepers have been said to disrupt the colony for a week - by when the next inspection is due.
Wild colonies leave the bottom of combs hanging clear as dance platforms - restricting the depth of brood combs results in no clear bottom cells , so no dancing. This does not matter when kept hives are transported to the crop, but does when scouts have to discover it and dance to tell foragers. My apiary is 3/4 mile from a row of lime trees. Without dancing, that crop would never be found by enough foragers on their own.
Read all about it! Tauz in “The Buzz about Bees’. Fascinating new science.
I posted a new deep comb in my Blue Hive. Here is a Polish hive. (NOT a design I am going to copy).

3…’What evidence do you have that Winter losses of kept bees exceed wild bees……Absolutely rubbish!’
US beekeepers report 80% losses. Wild bees would go extinct as the survival rate of swarms is only 25%.


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

these are trivial examples. Walikg behind a horse-drawn ploughs has been superseeded by high tec huge machines that map a field and fertilise different parts according to local need.


Free-hanging bottoms of combs in Polish hive. (This hive is still made by enthusiasts but not me - but the combs interest)
View attachment 34731

Not sure how to start but I’ll try

“To clarify the two view points: the conventional ‘commercial’ approach is to use bees to make honey for the beekeeper, using the very well established National hive without question. End of story! Do I understand correctly?”

No you don’t understand…there are many shall we say box type hives, i doubt any are so precious as to be sold on any type being significantly better than the other. Box type hives also come in varying materials wood, resigns and poly.
Why does conventional have to be commercial there are far more amateur beeks than commercial…Have you taken honey from a hive?. Doesn’t matter what type of box it is, are you then by default conventional or commercial?

In response to your answers.

“1. ‘So setting aside personal wood working skills you could effectively buy an apiary for the price of some long type hives
Correct - the price of bought long hives includes material (of course) but also overheads, labour, VAT, profit, financing, marketing. So don’t set aside personal woodworking skills. The DLD is specifically designed to be assembled at home from parts cut to size at a local builder’s merchant - so you pay only for materials.”

Everything you’ve said above can be done with the construction of a box type hive. Simply cut or get cut 6 bits of ply 4 walls and an additional 2 shorter end panels. Pin/glue your box walls, add your end panels so they are lower than the two end walls and you have an instant rebate suitable for short lug smith or langstroth frame. The smith being the short lug BS frame. For construction of a box suitable for long lugs you simply need an additional 4 lengths of batten to expand the rebate/close void. All could be done simply with a hammer and pins with supplied cut wood from a merchants……There’s few that still offer such service by the way B&Q may still do but the wood quality is poor…The same method can be used to construct long hives by the way, just make the sides as long as you wish and add a floor. I constructed a couple for queen rearing some years ago.

“Not as much clear evidence as I would like, but clear indications. Full weekly internal inspections by beekeepers have been said to disrupt the colony for a week - by when the next inspection is due.
Wild colonies leave the bottom of combs hanging clear as dance platforms - restricting the depth of brood combs results in no clear bottom cells , so no dancing. This does not matter when kept hives are transported to the crop, but does when scouts have to discover it and dance to tell foragers. My apiary is 3/4 mile from a row of lime trees. Without dancing, that crop would never be found by enough foragers on their own.”

Utter rubbish…find 1 other beekeeper on this site who reads this that thinks bees in their box hives won’t fly 3/4 of a mile to a food source.
Research carried out in box type hives.
“Frisch, Von K. (1967) The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
The foraging range of honey bees was recorded to reach up to 13·5 km.”

“US beekeepers report 80% losses. Wild bees would go extinct as the survival rate of swarms is only 25%.”

That answer doesn’t make sense are commercial beekeepers going extinct if SOME are reporting 80% losses or are swarms/wild bees going extinct because only 25% are survivors? I’d rather suggest neither!. For staters we are in the UK and theses are the official figures
“Therefore, the winter loss rate was 18.75%. This is lower than the previous winters value of 19.1%. The BBKA conducts a survey across the entire UK, and the average annual losses between 2007 and 2020 was 18.2%, and our values are in line with this.”
I’d also suggest those figures are naturally inflated do to high numbers of beginners in the BBKA!….and of course match sticks

“these are trivial examples. Walikg behind a horse-drawn ploughs has been superseeded by high tec huge machines that map a field and fertilise different parts according to local need.”

Only because you live in a cushy country! in large parts of the world ploughs are still pulled by animals and even if it’s pulled by a bloody John Deere it’s still a bloody ploughYou do appear to consider a 1940s equipment out of date. Ironically as previously said there’s evidence of long hives 1000 years BC. BLOODY NEW FANGLED NON CONVENTIONAL NATIONAL.

“I posted a new deep comb in my Blue Hive. Here is a Polish hive. (NOT a design I am going to copy).”

Blue Hive?……,I did warn everyone

 

[Ian123]

I still find this the most frustrating thread on here for a very long time!
Why oh why is anyone trying to convince others that their choice of box is superior to anyone else’s choice!!!
ALMOST ANY BLOODY BOX IS ACCEPTABLE TO BEES!!!!!!!!

Ahhh but you forget some peoples boxes are ORGASMIC and provide a supercilious aura……You also forgot holes in the ground by the way

 

[Newbeeneil]

Ahhh but you forget some peoples boxes are ORGASMIC and provide a supercilious aura……You also forgot holes in the ground by the way

Ah yes but a hole in the ground is about the only thing no one is promoting as a better bees abode!!!!

 

[Ian123]

Ah yes but a hole in the ground is about the only thing no one is promoting as a better bees abode!!!!

YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…..They’ll be trendy at some point

 

[Newbeeneil]

YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…..They’ll be trendy at some point

If they do, stopping them getting damp under the roofs will be the least of their problems!