Polar vortex

[Finman]

What I am doing here is asking you to consider what you do do, have done, does not
help the bees.

Bill

Considering is a good thing.

.

 

[eltalia]

I have polyurethane boxes, but in the -8C out temp
condensation does not make water inside the hive. It makes snow and ice.

.

Then there is a serious error in the box design you are using.
I could maybe helpout with that. Gladly, as long as you resist
slapping your ~ 666weeks of beekeeping experience on the
table, figuratively speaking.

Bill

 

[Finman]

Then there is a serious error in the box design you are using.

Bill

I have used them 30 years. And this winter is not even bad.

You are slapping me. .. Very interesting to read about your wintering advices. They are better than welsh Derekm's.
.

IT is morning here. Sun is shining and out temp is -15C. Not bad. I must go to toilet. IT is outside.

 

[drex]

In his book, wisdom of the hive, Tom Seeley talks of winter cluster generating 40 watts of heat. Am surprised that the small wattages you use make such a difference, but accept what you say.

 

[Finman]

In his book, wisdom of the hive, Tom Seeley talks of winter cluster generating 40 watts of heat. Am surprised that the small wattages you use make such a difference, but accept what you say.

Not at all. You may calculate wattages from sugar amount.

A hive consumes 10 kg sugar in 7 months. Then you change sugar joules to W/hour.

Result should be about 4 W/hour, but not 40.

Then brooding starts and the rest of winter food , 10 kg, will be consumed in a month.

.

.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You are slapping me. ..

Apparently there's a queue

 

[eltalia]

Derekm's.

.. who?
.

IT is morning here. Sun is shining and out temp is -15C. Not bad. I must go to toilet. IT is outside.

It is evening here, sun has set and no moon tonight in clear skies.
At some time I shall take a leak, outside, when it cools down to maybe
28celcius.

Need I say diversions will not help the bees?

Bill

 

[eltalia]

In his book, wisdom of the hive, Tom Seeley talks of winter cluster generating 40 watts of heat. Am surprised that the small wattages you use make such a difference, but accept what you say.

Different kettle of fish.. Tom's heat is an enthalapic (sp?) outcome, Fin-me-lad
is introducing raw sensible heat,

Bill

 

[Finman]

Apparently there's a queue

Don't whine ... NEXT!
.

 

[eltalia]

Don't whine ... NEXT!
.

That is just sad.. truly sad, and one can only hope
readers take your post with a fistful of salt.
Or do not follow your observations as anecdotal
evidence.
Clearly you are clueless on your own OP and so
your 'remedy' - to wit;
"What I do is that I put a terrarium heater into smallest hives."

Bill

 

[Finman]

That is just sad.. truly sad, and one can only hope
readers take your post with a fistful of salt.
Or do not follow your observations as anecdotal
evidence.
Clearly you are clueless on your own OP and so
your 'remedy' - to wit;
"What I do is that I put a terrarium heater into smallest hives."

Bill

Thanks Bill. I change my medication. ...
.

 

[coffindodger]

Not at all. You may calculate wattages from sugar amount.
A hive consumes 10 kg sugar in 7 months. Then you change sugar joules to W/hour.
Result should be about 4 W/hour, but not 40.
Then brooding starts and the rest of winter food , 10 kg, will be consumed in a month
.

Ignoring the jibes, there should be some serious consideration here. Finman's calcs seem OK. Whether the bees do use 10kg sugar in 7 months must be his own observations which should be accepted. Tom Seeley's leave one wondering. His 40 watts (assumed per hour) don't fit with his kilogram of honey a week, which would be around 21 watts/hr (I stand to be corrected) - but he does talk of midwinter and minus 30 C so we cannot make assumptions about the energy use at any given point in our winters. Also, Seeley is stating that 20 Kg of honey is needed for the winter period and in that context does not measure anything other than heat generated within the cluster and not energy use for movement, brood rearing etc. It's a great book, but you cannot automatically take his statements as being applicable in Europe.

 

[Finman]

http://beesource.com/resources/usda/electric-heating-of-honey-bee-hives/

Beesource has told about hive heating but this whole story does not make any sense with its bundles of wires.

************

Yesterday I put a terrarium cable into a nuc, 4 frames. I know that 3W is enough to such colony. I put only 1/4 cable inside the hive.


Cables produce heat W/metre.

Then next day or after a week you may look, (and it is better to do), how the heater works. Idea is that the cluster is calm and together and bees do not walk around the hive. = they must be in rest mode.


There are difference, if you put the heater onto floor, between frames or over the top bars.

In hard frost days the bees collect them selves arround the heater and in mild days the cluster has spread wide in the hive.


You can see this all with your own eyes. Then use your brains and do not run to internet.


When I started my heating experiments, I bought all kind of heaters, what I found from nearest pet shop. 3W, 7W, 11 W, 15 W, 20W.

Well, next day I knew which worked .

40 years before that on old fart 75 y old beekeepers has showed to me how he uses light lamp as heat source above the inner cover. So he heated the cover board.


So it took 40 years before I tried how heating works. We visited often with my boy in pet shops and there I saw water resistant terrarium heaters.

.
Such story.

.

 

[Finman]

.
When I have told about my hive heating with electric, quite many persons have lost their mind. And what is worts: permanently. They remember it after years.

 

[Finman]

.
Derekm has written this way about issue on beemaster forum.
Reply #2 on: August 30, 2011,

Not worth it unless you insulate a lot!- a small bare wooden hive dissapates around 5w per degree C. 25w = 5 degree C. (thats 9F). The Artic blast of -20C is only going to come upto -15C.
You can insulate down to 0.3W per degree C using standard(in the UK at least) building materials. Your 20W now gets you 60C difference.

This whole chain is full of fun from do nothing to Armageddon. https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=34552.0 I am there Finski

 

[Finman]

.
Patent: Bee hive with electric heating system

http://russianpatents.com/patent/227/2271654.html

 

[Finman]

.

TODAY'S WEATHER

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/othe...o-cause-uk-temperatures-to-plummet/ar-BBJmf9n

 

[Podilia]

Finman, you know what kind of hives is used in Russia (Siberia, Far East). It's dadant hives both horizontal and vertical. Here this type of hives is popular as well. Big dadant frames in one box for winter are better than Langstroth two boxes. Another type, which is even better for cold climate, is so called big polish frame or ukrainian frame - the narrow and long frame adapted to the dadant size (300/435mm). In such hives bees alway has honey over their heads. Cluster sits from the front side to back side of a hive near the bottom and moves up and up during winter. They don't have gaps between boxes. Even small colony is able to survive. I worked with them a few years ago when a man asked me to care of his bees while he was in military service. Small colonies can successfully overwinter when sits togethr in a horizontal hive with a thin wall between two clusters. Langstroth hive is not the best one for cold climate.
Anyway your idea of heating is good. Some beekeepers here use heating in spring to get big colonies for unstable acacia honey flow. Sometimes this game is of efforts.

We are expecting -20C this weekend.

 

[Finman]

.
I want big wintering hives, because their build up and ability to start honey making is very different than small hives.

Hive must bee on summer 6 langstroth boxes that it can handle 150 kg honey. First if all it needs space for nectar. IT is different thing what it does.

If a colony survive with 4 frames, without external help it cannot gather honey. So it must steal brood frames from bigger colony. In May that colony has only 2 frames of bees.

Yes, those Russian type hives were in usual everywhere around Baltic Sea, from Russia to Germany and to Norway. My brother had Langstroth hives in north Sweden 1970 but he did not got there foundations.

Nowadays Russians buy huge amounts of polyhives from Paradise honey, because his depot is near motorway Russia -Finland.

I try to get rid off from wintering nucs and join them to one full box hives. But it never goes as planned.

 

[eltalia]

@coffindodger
"Ignoring the jibes, there should be some serious consideration here."

Yes, there should be but unfortunately the poster of the OP is more interested
in selfpromotion than any science.

" Finman's calcs seem OK."

Nope.. totally worthless, the fellow hasn't even the concept of energy transfer
in an organism right.

"Whether the bees do use 10kg sugar in 7 months must be his own observations which
should be accepted."

IF the fellow can be trusted to accurately report what is seen then all the
good of that observation is his bees consumed sugar... nothing else.

To the value of the Finn's input?
If adding electrically radiated sensible heat into any wintering equation/scenario
had merit I am very sure some whizz would have done the legwork in establishing
a set of parameters loooong before today.
The link Finn supplied - as derision I suspect - simply holds an earlier version of
the very same waffle being put again by himself now. He was told back then all his
work is pointless until the boxes meet R factors for his region.
He was also told the setout he is using is unsuitable.
Soooo. in effect the guy is actually tr0llin' with his OP.

IF colony warmth (heat equation/enthalpy) is to be added into a b'keeps
apiary management then it needs to be ergonomic (word?) in being of stable
quantities when needed, regardless of outside influences on supply.
The only reliable way to provide this is in using either solar irradiation or
ground heat. I have written articles on the topic before today with the
science explained. It is exactly the stereotype ol' Finn projects which causes
such unique concepts to be buried. I have read he has been running his line
on his own colonys for thirty years and still hasn't a plan, that works.

Again all one can hope is that few to none take his message as legit
information worth applying, anywhere.

Bill