Insulated Hives?

[BangerterHarp]

.....I am new to this the Beekeeping forum and I am sure there are threads here that I have yet to read but I wanted to bring up a point that seems so often over looked or otherwise skirted around or ignored entirely. I will do my best to be as brief as I can force myself to be...
..... If we were to go back in time before humans took over choice of hive from Apis Mellifera , the species chose suitable hives for their environment or they perished. By suitable , that could mean a well insulated tree hollow or the static environment of a deep crack in a rock face. Of course , in a mild climate like the Mediterranean bees would need less substantial shelter and it is entirely reasonable that the standard 3/4"(19mm) box so commonly used by beekeepers around the world might be sufficient . Still this thin walled box , so convenient for the beekeeper , does very little to shelter the bees from the sweltering summer heat in comparison to a hollow in a tree or crag in a rock face.
.....For those of us and our charges who live with more hostile winters it simply is beyond my ability to imagine why we should belief our bees should do equally well in such a poorly conceived , from the bees standpoint , design. I would akin that belief with shaving your house pet , kicking them out into the snow , expecting them to thrive , then being surprised and frustrated at the discovery come spring that your supposedly beloved pet has perished.
.....Of course the "beekeeper" then draws their loaded gun of the dreaded Varroa destructor or some other parasite , exhaustive list of diseases or that farmer or neighbor who put poison on their fields/plants. I was even told by a commercial beekeeper recently, " One of the neighbors must have poisoned them!" upon discovering 3 dead outs in a yard of 6 colonies. When all else fails , the name that should never be mentioned is drawn like the button for a nuclear device ..... CCD!!! ? That's like a doctor diagnosing your illness as "Something's not right with you!"
.....However , I am not posting this thread to debate the reality of these , aforementioned maladies of modern Apis Mellifera. In fact , Varroa and other pests can be a serious problem for many and disease of any kind is an inarguable threat. The amount of chemicals dumped into our environment and some beekeepers hives is frankly , horrifying. As for other fantastic excuses to why our bees die , I leave that to the teller of the story and to the intellect of the subscriber.
..... Having only kept bees for the past half decade I would certainly still consider myself a new beekeeper with much still to learn about the European honey bee and I endeavor to learn more. After the first broiling summer with our bees housed in simple 3/4" Langstroth boxes followed by a typical harsh winter , my wife and I realized that something indeed was wrong. In fact , many things were wrong , but most strikingly to us was the poor excuse for homes we had so naively provided our charges although 2 of our 6 colonies did manage to survive and continued to thrive despite are negligence. I set to work researching and trying to design hives better suited to the bees needs that spring and although my endeavor still evolves , our bees continue to thrive with absolutely no treatment and as little stress as we can manage to put on the bees.
.....To make a short story quite long , my question to the beekeepers of this forum around the world , is why , as dim as my little light shines , is it not universally understood that bees , like all creatures , need appropriate shelter if they are to survive , let alone make us the honey crop we so emphatically demand of them. I do understand that commercial beekeepers often look solely at the bottom line just as many "businessmen" see not the person but the number. My questions are not directed to them but to the sensible true bee steward , which is in my opinion all we are to this magnificent creature who endured for eons before mankind took the reins.
.....I would very much like to hear of others experiences in proper bee housing along with any and all plans and details that you are willing to share with our community for " The Greater Good" of the mankind and beekind alike.
.....In closing I would like to simply state in my opinion , as this in the end is all that I have presented here. Well housed bees with little molestation from the bee steward equates to healthier bees with far less loss which equates to more honey which equates to more money which ultimately should appeal to even the greediest of the Ebenezer clan. Some will be angered by my comments and lash out with insults and "statistics" but I feel no matter what I could have written this would always be the case. I am simply relating what I have found to be self evident inside the scope of my limited experience and observation of the bees themselves in my specific region.
.....Cheers to all and let us have an educating discussion , shall we ?

 

[Ian123]

Bees survive and do well in wooden hives there’s certainly plenty of modern materials that can be added to wooden hives to improve them and why not! You may also want to look at poly hives that a good number are now usinghttps://www.swienty.com/pl/Beekeeping-Beehives_164621.aspx

 

[Poly Hive]

Poly seems to be unusual in NA but no doubt it will take off as it has in Europe.

Painfully slowly the lesson is being learned that bees rather like us prefer to be cosy.

I have been using poly now for over 25 years and have no intentions in using anything else now.

For some, it's against various principles, but to me, if you have a serious care for your charges then only the best is good enough.

PH

 

[Erichalfbee]

Poly hives and judicious use of sublimated oxalic suit me and my bees just fine.
Warm in winter cool in summer

 

[Walrus]

.....I am new to this the Beekeeping forum and I am sure there are threads here that I have yet to read but I wanted to bring up a point that seems so often over looked or otherwise skirted around or ignored entirely.

If you use the "search" facility or just browse through this forum you will find that this issue is discussed again and again and again. Plenty of good info on here about hive types and insulation

I do understand that commercial beekeepers often look solely at the bottom line just as many "businessmen" see not the person but the number. My questions are not directed to them but to the sensible true bee steward , which is in my opinion all we are to this magnificent creature who endured for eons before mankind took the reins.

I politely suggest that this may be a stereotype that is not borne out in reality in the majority of cases. The commercial beekeepers that I know are passionately interested in the health and welfare of their bees, which, in addition to their experience and knowledge, tends to make them excellent custodians of our favourite insect.

 

[Anduril]

Poly hives are quite costly in the US, the honey paw Langstroth is one that is now being used and the US knock off versions of it. Professor Thomas Seeley has stated that the top entrance should be ditched as well. The US are 40 years behind Europe as far as poly is concerned, it has also been observed that there is a 10-15% increase in honey production.

 

[BangerterHarp]

I politely suggest that this may be a stereotype that is not borne out in reality in the majority of cases. The commercial beekeepers that I know are passionately interested in the health and welfare of their bees, which, in addition to their experience and knowledge, tends to make them excellent custodians of our favourite insect.
[/QUOTE]
....Thank you Walrus . It is good to hear that the majority of the beekeepers in the UK take seriously there role as beekeepers. You may be right in that such is the case with the majority of the commercial beekeepers in the US as well. I may have spoken out of turn in my ignorance about commercial beekeepers around the globe.
.....Perhaps the better tack would have been to say that many of the commercial beekeepers I have met here in my specific part of the US bringing bees from various parts of this country seem to view bees as merely a tool to profit. I recently spent a week helping a pool of beekeepers , young and old alike , in northern Utah gather bees for the annual winter migration to the California almonds. I thought this would be a good opportunity for education. It was indeed , but not in the course of study I had hoped. I got to see intimately how little care was given for the bees in this particular yard by several supposed long time keepers. I was also quite dismayed at the lack of knowledge and / or understanding many of these beekeepers had about even the most fundamental of bee husbandry. On that note , with my previous experience of the professional commercial American beekeeper compounded with my recent "swim in the big kids" pool I was utterly appalled and thus the jade in my earlier comment. I beg the pardon of the conscientious commercial beekeepers around the world with a few reservations. Although I am somewhat new to caring for bees , I have been a cowhand and farmer all of my life and without empathy for my charges I would have been rubbish in my labors. I will do my best to curb the passion in my remarks and not stereotype an entire group based on limited knowledge outside my specific area. Once again , kudos to the responsible commercial beekeepers of the UK and world in general.
..... To others , thank you for all your responses . I am glad to see insulated hives such as the poly hives and various others taking hold around the globe . It does my heart good to see some putting the needs of the bees first knowing that the just desserts will come for bee and keeper alike. I have had the good fortune to travel extensively around the US and frequently I see stacks of naked Langstroth boxes sitting on pallets right on the ground. Those that don't travel to California often left with an inner cover and telescoping top or simply a migratory cover , snow piled deep over the entrance and tall on the tops. At least the cover of snow provides insulation above but the snow covered entrance is certainly a harbinger of ill for a hive. My heart sinks when I see these hives just as it does when I drive by a herd starved down cattle or a field being cultivated to into powder.
..... Being relatively new to bees perhaps makes me somewhat ignorant. Being privileged to take care of many thousands of cattle and thousands of acres of meadow , pasture and woodland in my life has made me ever more passionate about my role as a steward and the effects that come from abuse of that privilege. I look forward to tempering my passion with the shared wisdom of this forum.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

..... If we were to go back in time before humans took over choice of hive from Apis Mellifera , the species chose suitable hives for their environment or they perished. By suitable , that could mean a well insulated tree hollow or the static environment of a deep crack in a rock face. Of course , in a mild climate like the Mediterranean bees would need less substantial shelter and it is entirely reasonable that the standard 3/4"(19mm) box so commonly used by beekeepers around the world might be sufficient . Still this thin walled box , so convenient for the beekeeper , does very little to shelter the bees from the sweltering summer heat in comparison to a hollow in a tree or crag in a rock face.

You are not the first to realise that thin-walled squat boxes are not what honeybees evolved in. Tom Seeley's work suggests the type of "Treehole" that bees evolved to occupy. !0'+ off the ground, single 1.5" dia entrance at the bottom, >4" thick walls of solid timber.

To convert my existing bee boxes to get close to the thermal performance of a tree, I install telescopic roofs made of Polyisocyanurate insulation that is used over here as rigid home insulation - 1.5" material in the sides and 3" in the roof - see attached photos. I top the roof off with thin aluminium (old caravan (trailer) siding) to shed the rain. This "Cosy" stays on all year to help moderate the inside temperature in summer as well as winter, although in summer it tends to only cover the honey supers.

I suggest you search this forum for posts by DMitchell who is the leading exponent to articulating bees' needs in terms of thermodynamics and the thermal performance of bee enclosures

 

[Murox]

Langstroth hive was double walled.

Didn't Langstroth create several variations of his moveable frame hive; ranging from a basic box to a double walled hive with a glass viewing window? I think what we now regard as a Langstroth hive arose from his second design without the observation window. And he did predict that people would turn it into a single walled hive.

Our knowledge of bees has developed and grown, remarkably our practices/husbandry seems to lag behind.

 

[derekm]

Apis Mellifera evolved in a time when flowering trees dominated most of the earth. It was able to spread north and west by using tree holes. Thermally trees cavities are mixed blessing. While they they lose little heat (low thermal conductance) they take a lot of heat to warm up (high thermal capacity). So a colony occupying a new cavity has a big 'mountain to climb' heating the inside of the tree, as consequence few survive this process (25%). However once upto temperature they need little effort to maintain that temperature. Then they can survive easily (80%+) and 'Coast along the plateau' producing lots of swarms over the years.
Thin wooden hives keep honey bees in the "climbing the mountain" state because the bees need such a high rate of energy production to counter the high heat loss (high thermal conductance). They survive this because of the original adaptation to new tree cavities and our help.
But should we keep our bees "Climbing the mountain" or "Coasting the Plateau"?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I may have spoken out of turn in my ignorance about commercial beekeepers around the globe.
.....Perhaps the better tack would have been to say that many of the commercial beekeepers I have met here in my specific part of the US bringing bees from various parts of this country seem to view bees as merely a tool to profit..

The whole of the rest of the world has noted and despaired at many of the practices carried out by US commercials - don't tar the rest of them with the same brush - it's not a coincidence that the only place you encounter the phenomenon known as Sudden Colony Collapse Disorder is over there, we also note that they will do their damndest to blame it on anything or anyone apart from their own questionable bee husbandry

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Apis Mellifera evolved in a time when flowering trees dominated most of the earth. It was able to spread north and west by using tree holes. Thermally trees cavities are mixed blessing. While they they lose little heat (low thermal conductance) they take a lot of heat to warm up (high thermal capacity). So a colony occupying a new cavity has a big 'mountain to climb' heating the inside of the tree, as consequence few survive this process (25%). However once upto temperature they need little effort to maintain that temperature. Then they can survive easily (80%+) and 'Coast along the plateau' producing lots of swarms over the years.
Thin wooden hives keep honey bees in the "climbing the mountain" state because the bees need such a high rate of energy production to counter the high heat loss (high thermal conductance). They survive this because of the original adaptation to new tree cavities and our help.
But should we keep our bees "Climbing the mountain" or "Coasting the Plateau"?

So, when's the book on effective bee enclosures coming out Derek?

CVB

 

[SDM]

Poly hives and judicious use of sublimated oxalic suit me and my bees just fine.
Warm in winter cool in summer

Amen !
I feel lucky that i chose to start that way and frankly, in no small part because of this( i believe ) beekeeping has been easy.

 

[SDM]

I politely suggest that this may be a stereotype that is not borne out in reality in the majority of cases. The commercial beekeepers that I know are passionately interested in the health and welfare of their bees, which, in addition to their experience and knowledge, tends to make them excellent custodians of our favourite insect.

youve had experience of the top percentile .

 

[madasafish]

youve had experience of the top percentile .

And on YouTube there are some examples of very good commercial beekeeping and some utterly appalling ones..

 

[Walrus]

youve had experience of the top percentile .

Yeah, you're probably right. I'll get my coat!

 

[BangerterHarp]

The whole of the rest of the world has noted and despaired at many of the practices carried out by US commercials - don't tar the rest of them with the same brush - it's not a coincidence that the only place you encounter the phenomenon known as Sudden Colony Collapse Disorder is over there, we also note that they will do their damndest to blame it on anything or anyone apart from their own questionable bee husbandry

....First off I would like to say Happy (day late ) US Thanksgivings Day from this side of the pond. Now down to business after my day of traditional gluttony .
...It's a shame that some bad apples taint the barrel but as for your opinion of American commercial beekeepers I'm afraid it does not stop there as I am sure the many others around the world would agree. It seems that arrogance and greed have become the hallmark of our society. No longer is a product sold for what it is worth nor a fair days wage given for a fair days work. In the US things are sold for ever penny that can be "squozzen" (pardon my cowhand etiquette) from it and chances are if it is American made the quality is wanting. The sense of entitlement , blamed so readily on the current generation in the US , I'm ashamed to say spurns from my generation and before. People always want to work less for more pay and quality is secondary to quantity. At the risk of beating the dead horse , blaming someone else for our mistakes is the modern American way (although I did notice simply by typing in "colony collapse disorder Britain" on Google search that the arrival of CCD there dates back to 2007 at least and there are numerous articles about it , so apparently not just an American scapegoat).
....Having profoundly , though honestly , bashed my fellow countrymen , not all of us are cut from the same cloth and there are still many who care about the quality of their craft or trade. There are beekeepers , cattlemen , shepherds and farmers who care about their stock and the land. It just seems that we face a wall of denial that anything is wrong with the status quo and the notion that " my father did it this way and I've always done it this way " is somehow proof that it works and cannot be changed seems to be prevalent . I suspicion that notion is common the world round but I dare not make that broad a statement at the risk of further "taring" innocent bystanders.
.....CharlieVictorBravo - My wife bought me a copy of Tom Seeley's -'The Lives of Bees' this past summer and I have read it through twice now ( my memory is terrible). I have also watched many of his video lectures as well including 'Bee Democracy' and I recommend anyone interested in the natural life of wild honey bees check into professor Seeley's work. I believe it best to understand how Apis Mellifera lives without human interference before we make assumptions on what's "best" for the bees. The second step is to work out an arrangement that benefits both the bee and the steward . The second is a rather large step it appears to many. When I have finished putting up our Christmas tree to my wife's satisfaction I intend to read your recommended study of the post by DMitchell. I look forward to the education. Thanks for the reccomend CVB. Almost forgot to commend you on your insulated hive. My wife liked that you called the insulated top cover a "Cosy" as did I.
..... derkm - Thank you for sharing your inforamation here. I don't Mollycoddle our bees in any way unless you consider giving them a proper insulated home pampering. I do not treat and I do not feed sugar . The bees cannot devolve into a natural self sustaining state if I do their work for them. As I am prone to mention , perhaps to often , the best I can do for my bees is provide them with a proper home , in an appropriate environment from which they can glean the food and water they need to survive and hopefully thrive to the benefit of us both. The rest is entirely up to them. Therefore , once again in my long winded fashion , I believe that keeping our bees "coasting the plateau" is the proper course of action. Those who swarm late in our artificially induced environment would perish in the same way a late swarm would in the wild. Those who do not choose their homes wisely would suffer in the same way they would in a 3/4" (19mm) box in my environment. I look forward to reading more of your comments even if you don't write the book.
..... Good on Ya SDM !
.....Walrus - Please be sure your coat has very secure closures in the unlikely event you bump into one the those commercial beekeepers of the wrong sort. Their bees tend to be very unhappy with their plight and they are quite physical in their desire to make this known.
.... I certainly hope when I return to find more replies and more pictures of your hive designs. Which reminds me, I will see what can bee done to post pictures of some of my hives . Thanks to all for the replies thus far.

 

[madasafish]

So sorry .
I don't read long posts.

 

[Fusion_power]

The first thing to learn is "I don't know".

The first question to ask is "how do I learn?"

Blanket statements are usually wrong when it comes to bees.

 

[Anduril]

...blaming someone else for our mistakes is the modern American way (although I did notice simply by typing in "colony collapse disorder Britain" on Google search that the arrival of CCD there dates back to 2007 at least and there are numerous articles about it , so apparently not just an American scapegoat).

CCD in the UK has never happened!