Moving a colony into a new hive.

[Murox]

The use of certain more modern materials for insulation is certainly easier to build with and thermally more efficient. I do get the impression though that the choice of materials, i.e. straw and hessian really are rooted in the past and inevitably elements of the hive remain based around the inventors previous 'national' & 'warre' experience, some of which don't seem entirely necessary in a long deep hive. I'm sure that a number of people will find the more 'romantic' ideas seductively alluring.

 

[Murox]

Interesting. So is the experience of long hive users generally that bees will draw comb and store honey vertically a lot more willingly than horizontally?

Not sure if 'willingly' is the right word; my experience so far is 'yes' to your question - BUT my situation is largely in an arable desert and the reason I bodged a super was because of a strong local flow and I hoped to get comb drawn out ready for another year - well it worked. However I don't know yet if that was a fluke, this coming year will give me a better idea I hope.

 

[pargyle]

Interesting. So is the experience of long hive users generally that bees will draw comb and store honey vertically a lot more willingly than horizontally?

Not so much drawing comb ... they draw out frames as quickly, if not quicker, than in vertical hives.

What appears to be different is that they fill the outer frames with stores and the usual arc over the top of the brood area but they then seem to concentrate more on making more bees than storing honey in frames that can be a long way from the brood nest - bearing in mind my LDH is 25 frames long and they are 14 x 12's.

You get a reasonable crop from them - you can easily take seven or eight 14 x 12 full frames of honey out through the season and there will still be plenty left to overwinter. But. unless you find a way of putting supers on top you are limited in the way you can encourage them to keep producing - so you won't get the four or five supers worth you could get in a vertical hive. However, they are really useful donor hives - I regularly take frames of brood out of my LDH to donate to my production colonies.

If you take a frame of honey out and replace it with a drawn frame - if you put it too far away from the brood nest and separated by frames that are already filled they sometimes ignore them - if you put the drawn frame next to the brood nest they will fill it with brood - it's a bit of a balancing act if you really want to maximise honey production from them without finding a way of adding supers and frankly I've never bothered.

Robin Dartington had half size supers which he used on top of his LDH and I suspect that keeping supers above the brood nest (possibly with dummies either side) may well yield a better honey crop but I think most people who run LDH are happy with what the bees do and what they produce without trying to get them to over-produce.

 

[pargyle]

The use of certain more modern materials for insulation is certainly easier to build with and thermally more efficient. I do get the impression though that the choice of materials, i.e. straw and hessian really are rooted in the past and inevitably elements of the hive remain based around the inventors previous 'national' & 'warre' experience, some of which don't seem entirely necessary in a long deep hive. I'm sure that a number of people will find the more 'romantic' ideas seductively alluring.

Yes ... I'm surprised it doesn't have a thatched roof and some roses round the entrance ....

 

[Murox]

Not so much drawing comb ... they draw out frames as quickly, if not quicker, than in vertical hives.

What appears to be different is that they fill the outer frames with stores and the usual arc over the top of the brood area but they then seem to concentrate more on making more bees than storing honey in frames that can be a long way from the brood nest - bearing in mind my LDH is 25 frames long and they are 14 x 12's.

You get a reasonable crop from - you can easily take seven or eight 14 x 12 full frames of honey out through the season and there will still be plenty left to overwinter. But. unless you find a way of putting supers on top you are limited in the way you can encourage them to keep producing - so you won't get the four or five supers worth you could get in a vertical hive. However, they are really useful donor hives - I regularly take frames of brood out of my LDH to donate to my production colonies.

If you take a frame of honey out and replace it with a drawn frame - if you put it too far away from the brood nest and separated by frames that are already filled they sometimes ignore them - if you put the drawn frame next to the brood nest they will fill it with brood - it's a bit of a balancing act if you really want to maximise honey production from them without finding a way of adding supers and frankly I've never bothered.

Robin Dartington had half size supers which he used on top of his LDH and I suspect that keeping supers above the brood nest (possibly with dummies either side) may well yield a better honey crop but I think most people who run LDH are happy with what the bees do and what they produce without trying to get them to over-produce.

Thats a very important well made point - the management of the expansion of the frames is also something that requires some thought.

 

[Murox]

Yes ... I'm surprised it doesn't have thatched roof and some roses round the entrance ....

Now thats just being silly..................

 

[pargyle]

Now thats just being silly..................

What else do you expect from me ? ... I never professed to be a proper beekeeper anyway ... I reckon it would look great with a nice thatched roof and a perhaps a clock on the top as well ? So they know what time it is ....

 

[pargyle]

Thats a very important well made point - the management of the expansion of the frames is also something that requires some thought.

Yes... I tend to dummy out the frames that they need early in the season and gradually add frames either side of the brood nest as it expands and move the dummy boards out as they go ... they do expand very rapidly in LDH and you have to keep an eye on the space - as you say 12/13 frames of brood is not unusual and I've seen as many as 17 one year. It's a lot of bees but as long as you keep on top of the space management they are not prone to swarming - more often than not it's supersedure cells and I suspect that it's because the queen is running out and they recognise the need for a new one.

 

[Midget Gem]

Been there ... Still like my LDH but it's an acquired taste: The queen excluder is largely unneccessary - they will just store honey in the outer frames - for extraction it needs a spinner that can take 14 x 12 frames - and has been said - they are very heavy. Not great honey producers but they do produce really big colonies.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/99514363@N06/albums/72157634865981506

Great photos

 

[Patrick1]

I may have missed something having only scanned the posts,
But, if you are going to install standard national frames in a 12 x 14 cavity you are going to get an awful lot of drone and consequently a lot of varroa !

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

if you are going to install standard national frames in a 12 x 14 cavity you are going to get an awful lot of drone and consequently a lot of varroa !

And why should that necessarily be the case? way too many holes in that train of logic.

 

[oliver90owner]

The simple way to avoid wild comb below the deep frames is simply to fill that space. End of problem. As the frames are only deeps, they may be well devoid of stores by the time they are transferred, so the OP simply needs to think for himself whether to remove or retain the shallow box and ignore directions from those who are not thinking. There may even be some brood in it by the time things are changed round.

I’ve ran two Dartingtons for several years - they are very good for home apiary hives - for both increase and over-wintering. They are constructed in 18/19mm ply. Heavy but easily moved by two people if thought is given when building them. I arranged for the legs to be easily swung into the horizontal position so the hive could be lifted and carted around like a stretcher. Both are empty at the moment, but I may re-populate one if I find I have sufficient space in my garden.

The Dartington was designed to take 4 x ‘half-supers’, but they were problematic, so I simply used two shallow National boxes over, one with frames and the other as a ‘blank’ to keep things level. So very easy to carry out a horizontal demaree with them. They will easily fill two supers, but by then the hive is getting quite tall if the roof is a one-piece jobbie.

So very easy to confine the winter cluster to the central part of the hive and insulate on the outside (being careful that one side does not slip - or the spring may arrive with all the frames with brood on the warm half, and excess stores in the other half of each frame - not good as I wanted to remove excess stores frames and add extra brooding space).

A Dartington is far better than the later omlette beehaus, IMO. I have one but never really used it. I definitely preferred the timber version. The beehause will go on ebay this spring, if I am able to extract it for pics.

 

[Scots_Mike]

lots of good discussion, info and views

Totally agree with Pargyle re using insulation board not straw and having an open mesh floor. I wouldn't have done a window either if it were not for the grandkids who are always asking if they can see the bees but are a bit to young yet for getting them suited up to join me during an inspection.
I like the idea of perspex crown board so will be doing that upgrade Will probably do it in a couple of section so to avoid having to lift the whole thing off when inspecting.

 

[pargyle]

lots of good discussion, info and views

Totally agree with Pargyle re using insulation board not straw and having an open mesh floor. I wouldn't have done a window either if it were not for the grandkids who are always asking if they can see the bees but are a bit to young yet for getting them suited up to join me during an inspection.
I like the idea of perspex crown board so will be doing that upgrade Will probably do it in a couple of section so to avoid having to lift the whole thing off when inspecting.

Yes ... a sectional crown board is a good idea ..I have several different sized ones that fit together to make a complete one. Some with and some without feeder holes. I also put a strip of almunium tape over the joins so there is no heat leakage and it reduces the bees propensity to propolise the join - at a pinch I've also used a strip of masking tape. Obviously, the holes in the crown board are not left open when they are not in use for feeding.

 

[Scots_Mike]

Pargyle in your suggestion about a polycarbonate crownboard you suggest having top top bee space rather than having the polycarb sat on top of the frames. Is that purely to improve visibility of the bees?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Pargyle in your suggestion about a polycarbonate crownboard you suggest having top top bee space rather than having the polycarb sat on top of the frames. Is that purely to improve visibility of the bees?

It always makes good sense, even if you run bottom beespace always have an 8mm rim on your crownbard, even plywood ones, so much easier to remove with less disturbance to the bees.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Pargyle in your suggestion about a polycarbonate crownboard you suggest having top top bee space rather than having the polycarb sat on top of the frames. Is that purely to improve visibility of the bees?

You can pop on a crownboard with a rim quickly and easily without worrying about trapping any bees underneath

 

[pargyle]

Pargyle in your suggestion about a polycarbonate crownboard you suggest having top top bee space rather than having the polycarb sat on top of the frames. Is that purely to improve visibility of the bees?

It always makes good sense, even if you run bottom beespace always have an 8mm rim on your crownbard, even plywood ones, so much easier to remove with less disturbance to the bees.

You can pop on a crownboard with a rim quickly and easily without worrying about trapping any bees underneath

Yes - both of the above - plus I really like to peer in occasionally and watch the bees crawling about on the top of the frames ... bit sad really !

 

[Erichalfbee]

Sad? When I lived in Cumbria I had a scope on the bees. Now that the apiary is a few metres to far cctv has crossed my mind

 

[JamezF]

Sad? When I lived in Cumbria I had a scope on the bees. Now that the apiary is a few metres to far cctv has crossed my mind

I see a need for "Entrancecam"

James