insulating hives

[user 6228]

But dear derekm. First you should learn the honey bee winter biology.

Hives in autumn consume about 1,5 kg in a month.
In February the colony starts brood rearing even if it is -25C outside.

As you see, consumption rises in spring, because bees have brood there.

Why Mettälä stopped measuring 18.4?

Last spring we had at that time half metre snow but propably the colony made first cleansing flight and dropped some pounds feces on snow.

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you should learn heat and mass flow ... and study the metabolic rates of honeybee colonies ... i can suggest some reading..

"Hives in autumn consume about 1,5 kg in a month." is a meaning less statement as you neither specify the properties of their container nor the temperature outside, or the climate.

 

[user 6228]

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About insulating houses

I looked about a year ago that UK has new insulation values for houses.

They are the same what we abandoned at same time because we got new values.

Our country is colder than yours, but what I say, nothing to learn from there in insulation issues. Tell to derekm if yoiu see him.

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This is about hives not houses
Whats the thermal conductance of your hives?... you can give either the average or the top 25% of the volume.
Oh you dont know that
Do you mean to say finnish bee keepers dont know the thermal conductance of their hives?
oh they dont know that
So how do they know if they are any good?
oh they do itby measuring the honey yeild
Thats a slow and crude method, i thought the Finns had good scientists

 

[Finman]

Whats the thermal conductance of your hives?... you can give either the average or the top 25% of the volume

Hi Pal!

I do not need that knowledge. They are industrial products. To make own hives from insulating boards is real nonsense.

I have used polyhives 25 years.

You should understand that beekeeping is not only "therman conductance thing". Your kings pan boxes are awfull.

The most important thing in box design is ergonometry, how handy it is to use.
You have forgot it totally. Where you pile those monsters during summer?

When you get 100 kg honey from your hives, even from one. Let me know.

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Polyboxes have been made according international standars and I have nothing to do with it. 25 y old Nacca boxes are totally compatible to those boxes what I buyed 2 weeks ago from H Paradise..

I have a huge store polyboxes. Do I now start to build something new hyper insulators?
When I sell honey, with one kilo I get 6 kilos sugar. That is the value on insulation.

I move even twice to different pastures, and polyboxes are great. I move them alone.

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key word:"Industrial Design"

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[Norton Caff]

I was at an apiary demonstration recently and the demonstrator, a well respected beekeeper of many years, uncovered the holes in the crown boards, scorned insulation and recommended the use of matchsticks after October. He was so adamant I gave up querying this.

 

[Finman]

Do you mean to say finnish bee keepers dont know the thermal conductance of their hives?
oh they dont know that
So how do they know if they are any good?
oh they do itby measuring the honey yeild
Thats a slow and crude method, i thought the Finns had good scientists

That is the Bristish way. First answer and then ask.

Beekeepers average age is here 58 y. Don't ask from them what is "thermal conductance".

What about British beekeeper:" I have nectar in brood combs. What I do now??.
- Brake cell caps with pencil and feed back
- or put the frame into freezer

Long way to beekeeping there, Pal!

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[pargyle]

I was at an apiary demonstration recently and the demonstrator, a well respected beekeeper of many years, uncovered the holes in the crown boards, scorned insulation and recommended the use of matchsticks after October. He was so adamant I gave up querying this.

His name wasn't Roger by any chance ?

 

[madasafish]

You and me both ... just lost an auction on ebay for 8 sheets of 50mm 1200 x 450 that went for £15.06 .... I thought £14.56 would get them. Win some, lose some ... there'll be others.

I snipe which helps...

 

[BILL.HEARD]

I was wondering about the arguments for and against insulating hives. I am leaning towards making the insulated cover as designed by Derekm but I have also read that cold weather in winter is good for bees as it kills some pathogens and enforces a period of rest for the queen. My other worry is condensation inside the hive as moisture won't be able to escape.

I use solid floors and each hive usually has a Miller type feeder on all year, this I find gives the hives a dead air space above the brood box.
I feed if required in September and leave the bees alone until the following March. I lose very few hives each winter regardless of the conditions, this is how I have been doing it for many years.

 

[user 6228]

I was at an apiary demonstration recently and the demonstrator, a well respected beekeeper of many years, uncovered the holes in the crown boards, scorned insulation and recommended the use of matchsticks after October. He was so adamant I gave up querying this.

Yes its very difficult going against "accepted wisdom" even when you are backed with experimental and research evidence.

The first time going into a room of very conservative Beekeepers (I think one polyhive between the 50 of them) to present to them on this subject was.... exciting

if you are interested in knowing what i measured in the heat flow with the hole and matchsticks on wooden hive... PM me.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Back to tree cavities (and I'm thinking aloud, not expecting replies). The bees always have neighbours of varying sorts on the floor and I've always wondered about the co-evolution of that. Ants, for example, are a "traditional enemy" but you find them in tree cavities (in smaller numbers than in an anthill), they eat mites, and Formic acid preferentially kills varroa over bee larvae. And beeks will tell you in one breath that we are irrelevant to the bees in the broader picture because they have been around for 40 mio years yet in the next breath tell you that varroa came here through a cross-infection 50 years ago in Indonesia. Makes no sense AT ALL. I reckon the bees are more lonely than cold.

 

[user 6228]

Back to tree cavities (and I'm thinking aloud, not expecting replies). The bees always have neighbours of varying sorts on the floor and I've always wondered about the co-evolution of that. Ants, for example, are a "traditional enemy" but you find them in tree cavities (in smaller numbers than in an anthill), they eat mites, and Formic acid preferentially kills varroa over bee larvae. And beeks will tell you in one breath that we are irrelevant to the bees in the broader picture because they have been around for 40 mio years yet in the next breath tell you that varroa came here through a cross-infection 50 years ago in Indonesia. Makes no sense AT ALL. I reckon the bees are more lonely than cold.

That the bees have an eco system of parasites and if that eco system is disturbed you get problems should not be a surprise.

We humans are hosts to a large number of species of parasite, removing some causes problem.

An example:The larger incidence of asthma is linked to the elimination of a lung parasite called a "hook worm" we evolved with this benign, easy to kill parasite which partially suppresses some of the reactions of the lungs to irritants. The theory is we evolved with this parasite, so that with its elimination a larger part of the human population now "overreacts" to lung irritants. Hook worms are being trialled as a treatment for asthma.

This is a level of complexity way above the basic heat and mass flow characteristics of a tree nest which some here have problems coming to terms with.

 

[Finman]

And beeks will tell you in one breath that we are irrelevant to the bees in the broader picture because they have been around for 40 mio years yet in the next breath tell you that varroa came here through a cross-infection 50 years ago in Indonesia. Makes no sense AT ALL. I reckon the bees are more lonely than cold.

Varroa jumped from Apis cerana to Apis Mellifera around Korea about 100 years ago. Indonesian varroa cannot live in mellifera hives.

Korean beekeeprs use to keep mellifera and cerana frames in same hives. This may be a start to mutation.

Mellifera has not lived long time on the area of Apis cerana, only couple hundreds of years. Mellifera has 32 special pest and diseases.

Especially rare is honey produced by Japanese honeybees, which accounts for less than 10 percent of domestic honey. But until European honeybees were brought into Japan in 1876, all domestic honey was produced by this native breed, a subspecies of the Asian honeybee.

To China European honey bees was brought 1911. Earlier attemps were ,made by Russian Church but those bees died.

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[TryingToLetThemBee]

Thanks Finman, fascinating as always. All of this manipulation and cross-infection occurred in an artificial ecosystem, is my point, and it seems highly that earlier in the history of the bee similar exposures occurred and were tolerated in a natural ecosystem, obviously through the usual mechanisms of (co-)evolution. Our problem is not that we have created an artificial ecosystem but that we want to turn off those mechanisms, so removing evolutionary pressure on the bee while keeping it on the mites, who of course play that game, for example by developing resistance to acaricides. A more natural environment might - MIGHT - harvest some of the bees' earlier genetic hard work by POTENTIALLY reinstating some natural allies. As I said, I'm just thinking aloud and thank you again for the detailed history.

 

[Finman]

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It is better to remember, that varroa has its evolution too on mellifera. It makes several generations in a year and it has opportunity to get good mutations quite quickly. As it did with Apistan strips.

 

[Vramin]

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[itma]

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It is better to remember, that varroa has its evolution too on mellifera. It makes several generations in a year and it has opportunity to get good mutations quite quickly. As it did with Apistan strips.

Varroa Destructor (our problem) has indeed changed somewhat from true Varroa Jabobsonii (the Apis Ceranae mite).

However, the adaptation(s) against pyretheroids (like Apistan) are 'expensive' to maintain in the absence of pyretheroids and get "bred out" of the population in a few years - so resistance is lost after the products are not used, making them potentially useful again, if needed in emergency (though now MAQS might be a better choice.)

 

[Finman]

used, making them potentially useful again, if needed in emergency (though now MAQS might be a better choice.)

Hardly so because Apistan contaminated the wax. No return to that stuff.

Accumulation into wax was a big concern 15 years ago.

But 25 y old Perizin is still in practice (Coumafos)

http://www.animalhealth.bayer.com/3425.0.html
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[pargyle]

That the bees have an eco system of parasites and if that eco system is disturbed you get problems should not be a surprise.

This is a level of complexity way above the basic heat and mass flow characteristics of a tree nest which some here have problems coming to terms with.

I keep it simple - if it looks right it probably is right .. and if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I think that well insulated hives are undoubtedly the sensible option with our current unpredictable climate. It must be a whole lot easier for the bees to maintain a constant colony temperature if the external temperature influences are kept reasonably constant.

Certainly, I'm truly amazed at how well my timber/polystyrene sandwich hive has worked for my bees so far .. and there appears to be no obvious signs of varroa and I have bees that are very easy going. I don't have any scientific evidence that the hive has anything to do with this but ... if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck then who am I to question whether it is a duck ?

I think you're on the right track Derek but I am only a

 

[Finman]

Derek is surely right. But we Finnish beekeepers are so stupid that we keep bees in in Polar Circle. We know nothing about mass flow.

The hives are own made insulated or buyed.
They over winter under open sky. It is not even great happening.


Producer map. The north most is in Polar Circle

http://www.hunajantuottajat.fi/

 

[Bitbybit]

Thank you all for your thoughts and information. One thing I take from your somewhat heated debate Derekm and Finman is that you both agree that insulation is very important.