Manley's views on national brood chamber size and unsuitability for wintering

[jakethedog]

Hi, while your personal knowledge corrects my first point -I have now heard of large losses of dadants, your second point seems to afford some validity to my own, ie. I can't see that the hive's footprint is a reason in itself for greater than average colony mortality.

 

[adrian wilford]

i agree i'm on 14 x 12 and others are on double brood and had to leave a super under the 14 x 12's as there are still too many bees for the one box, yipee, they may eat more stores, who cares as long as they over winter well. they all did last year.

 

[ksjs]

do you have any speccific examples to mind? I daresay the old comb issue (which Hivemaker recently flagged up in another thread is one) but what else?

Firstly, book is 'Honey Farming' not Bee Farming as I said above.

No specific issues (but I'm sure I can quote some), it's more that he seems adamant that 99% of beeks are mere hobbyists who basically look at bees for the sake of it, typically use the wrong equipment and that opinion formers often cling to and perpetuate practices that have no real basis.

 

[ksjs]

Is it also possible that Manley had a vested interest in promoting foreign bees needing bigger brood boxes ?

Undoubtedly but his writing suggests that his conclusions are logical and based on experience, not that he had some sort of agenda. He just comes across as straight-talking.

 

[ksjs]

Hi ksjs, is there any chance of a quote from HF to set this all in context?

I will have a look and put something on here.

 

[ksjs]

"It is true that if you are foolish enough to restrict your bees to 10 British frames during the season when supers are off the hives, you have to choose between insufficient stores and too little brood, for the simple reason that there is not room for enough of both in such a brood-chamber."

He goes on with things like "The tradition of the elders in this country is that bees need 30 lbs of stores...and these people are apparently ready to 'prove their religion orthodox by apostolic blows and knocks', and the bees come off second best."

Damning stuff!

 

[oliver90owner]

foolish enough to restrict your bees to 10 British frames

This does not appear to refer to Nationals. Seems more likely it refers to people with WBCs. An extra 10% would make quite a difference.

I did not even consider leaving only a brood box, for the winter, on my WBCs.

RAB

 

[jakethedog]

foolish enough to restrict your bees to 10 British frames

Hence my own request for a quote to try and get some context -whatever he was referring to it certainly wasn't the way in which the modified national is usually managed today.

It is of course difficult to fully appreciate everything which is written in these old books without having first hand experience. While Manley was undoubtedly a major influence on British beekeeping his knowledge was likewise limited to his own time and what he was able to make work (and yes, I do like his books and also the articles and letters which he wrote for/to the bee magazines of his day when they ocassionally crop up -no doubt in a 'different time' he would have been an active contributor to the internet forums). I seem to remember that in one of his books he dismissed the idea of drone congregation areas -because he hadn't come across one, fifty years later they're an established fact -just one example of where his own lack of personal experience limited his view of the bigger picture.

Another example, of my own lack of knowledge hit me the other week while re-reading Br.Adams Beekeeping at Buckfast. He mentions that both he himself and Alec Gale had trialed the American style wintering crates which Pellet had been advocating but had given up on them because although the inside of the hives were bone dry in the early spring without mouldy combs the bees failed to show the same urge as the un-protected colonies to build up. When I originally read that I didn't give it any great consideration -not likely to start building such crates myself so in a way irrelevant, just a bit of history. Now on reading it again I subconsciously made an instant connection with something which PH has written on this forum, about polyhives starting brooding later because they don't need to use up excess water (in the form of condensation). I've no way to know that this is what was actually happening with those colonies that were used in the field trials but my own increasing knowledge has given me a new way to look at the information and it didn't cost me anything because PH and B.Mobus did the thinking for me. This I think shows that the re-reading of books can be as important as the first reading. What we see the first time may not be the same thing we see in a couple of years time.

Sorry for going on.....

 

[ksjs]

Do people reckon that one frame is THAT material to what he was suggesting? I guess it is quite a lot of space, for laying for example, given reduced lay rate over winter.

 

[oliver90owner]

How many frames do you think would make a MATERIAL difference?

 

[DanBee]

"It is true that if you are foolish enough to restrict your bees to 10 British frames during the season when supers are off the hives, you have to choose between insufficient stores and too little brood, for the simple reason that there is not room for enough of both in such a brood-chamber."

during the season when supers are off the hives

What is the context of this "season". To some, "the season" is when active beekeeping takes place, i.e. spring & summer. Or does he mean the winter season, in the broader context?

 

[ksjs]

I assume he means winter.

 

[ksjs]

How many frames do you think would make a MATERIAL difference?

Good question. 2 to 3 frames seems sizeable and enough to make a big impact on a colony's stores and space for brood over winter. Maybe however 'just' 1 is enough. Also, I need to look up exact dimension of the frames he's referring to.

 

[OXFORDBEE]

I assume he means winter.

Yes, during the season when supers are off the hives is a good hint!

 

[ksjs]

Yes, during the season when supers are off the hives is a good hint!

It wasn't me who asked the question!

 

[Into the lions den]

'During the season' does not to me imply winter.
The very suggestion that there could insufficient room for brood unless they are short of food does not imply winter.
All of this implies that it is during gaps between flows etc, but definitely during that part of the year when there is really significant brood rearing going on.

So.........IF you have a healthy colony of bees then of course he is right. if you whole colony CAN be contained in a single BS deep, during the season and with no extra boxes on, then it is a poor colony indeed, or perhaps just a nuc building up, or a split.

So, IF we are talking about during the active brood season (which seems plain) then the debate is a sterile one, as all that is shown by the author is a delicious talent for stating the obvious.

But, IF he truly IS talking about winter, then I would *tend* to disgree with him, even with vigorous high population bees, although he may have been talking about feeding only once in Aug/Sept, then not again till spring working was going on. He was also in the south, where winters are less cold than in the areas further north, and warmer weather equals greater activity equals higher stores consumption. Sounds a bit like fence sitting, but the old Chinese saying about not judging a man till you have walked a mile in his shoes applies here. He lived in times and under circumstances that we do not. If I could then my view might change from 'tend to disagree to 'tend to agree'.