interesting paper

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Does anyone have access to a copy of Gleanings in Bee Culture 1943 ?

I'm looking for :

Anderson E.J. Some Research on the Wintering of Bees Gleanings in Bee Culture 71:681-683, 715

This paper according to the Hive and the Honey Bee 2015 :

"demonstrated that heat was not lost through the upper opening". Its been cited numerous times elsewhere. I have his 1948 paper but not this one

It would be good to find out exactly what he did to come up with such a result. I tried my usual resources but no success.
 
It is in the December 1943 copy of Gleanings. Some Research on Wintering Bees by Edwin J. Anderson

I'll pm a link to a copy.
 
Fusion_power said:
It is in the December 1943 copy of Gleanings. Some Research on Wintering Bees by Edwin J. Anderson

I'll pm a link to a copy.
Click to expand...

many thanks...
This the paper that C.L. Farrah used to help his crusade for cold hives and top ventilation in the 1940's and has been referred to in several books upto the present day as proving top entrances makes almost no difference to the internal temperature.

The experiment :
A hive has a single 15W light bulb in the bottom and single thermometer in an unspecifed location.There is a 7/16th ~11mm hole close to the cover board.

He repeated this experiment in his 1948 paper this time with two ~22mm holes and two thermometers and again got the same result.

The use of so few measuring points makes the conclusions unsound particularly in the light of engineering research into this class of problem.

More on this at a later date
 
He summarized by saying that top entrances may lose a bit of heat but are a net gain for the colony by reducing moisture which prevents mold and by offering the bees an entrance that is unlikely to be clogged as bottom entrances often are. He further conjectures that flying out of the hive from a top entrance has the advantage of being the warmest part of the hive which may make cleansing flights safer for the bees.

My experience is that a top entrance is not just a nicety, it is a necessity in my climate. Without it, the combs will be covered in mold by spring. This may be a case where the detriment of slight heat loss is countered by the benefit of moisture removal.
 
Fusion_power said:
He summarized by saying that top entrances may lose a bit of heat but are a net gain for the colony by reducing moisture which prevents mold and by offering the bees an entrance that is unlikely to be clogged as bottom entrances often are. He further conjectures that flying out of the hive from a top entrance has the advantage of being the warmest part of the hive which may make cleansing flights safer for the bees.

My experience is that a top entrance is not just a nicety, it is a necessity in my climate. Without it, the combs will be covered in mold by spring. This may be a case where the detriment of slight heat loss is countered by the benefit of moisture removal.
Click to expand...

have you got a reference for mold being bad in the abscence of heat loss?

Sorry, reading all those papers has turned me into a sceptic, I even doubt my own findings from time to time and re-check them... The other half objects when the rechecking occurs at 3am.
 
Last edited:
Interesting, as a woody pecked a hole in the upper box on one of my colonies, the bees have chosen to now use it rather than the clear lower entrance. Was watching them only this weekend. Very active too.
 
have you got a reference for mold being bad in the absence of heat loss?
Click to expand...
I don't know of anything published. What I have is based on seeing it in my bees. Years ago, I kept bees with a 3 inch wide opening for winter at the lower front of the hive as is typical with most hive designs. I had quite a few losses that were accompanied with heavy mold growth on the combs usually accompanied by severe dysentery in the bees. A local beekeeper showed me a cover design that included an upper vent which is opened in winter and closed for summer. Since adopting the upper entrance, I have not seen similar symptoms.

This should be considered in light that I have never used any other hive than a 3/4 inch thick pine Langstroth hive. I don't know how the bees would behave in a highly insulated hive. I can speculate that reduced need to produce heat will reduce the amount of moisture the bees produce which might eliminate the problem with mold and dysentery. The side effect of reducing heat production would be as Mobus documented that the bees do not produce enough water for winter needs.

The Achilles heel of the old leaf or straw based packing cases was that they kept the bees too cold when temperatures moderated on sunny days. Unpacked bees would take cleansing flights where the heavily packed bees would stay inside eventually suffering the consequences. I can see that the dynamics of an EPS/PIR hive would be significantly different than the old packing cases, but don't see that they will be a huge benefit to the bees.

Keep working on this, I suspect before it is done you will find things that most beekeepers never suspected in wintering bees.
 
I need to see where exactly but I think I saw this referenced a while back and the key factor involved was that he had all the hives indoors during winter so rising ambient temperature was a problem for him.

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk
 
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