polystyrene hives not recommended for overwintering

[Finman]

.
I cannot understand, how energy saving can be the most important in beekeeping.

When I look the entrance, how much bees ventilate on landing board, I can see, do they have warm enough, do they need more wide entrance. If they make cluster, combs are full or hive is full. Humming sound tells, how much they ventilate moisture off, and that they do without me.


I cannot see, what thermodynamic knowledge helps in this.

Beekeeping is simple after all. You learn what that Wild creature is going to do, and you try live according its instincts.

Biggest problem to new beekeeper is, that he cannot anticipate, how fast bees fill the hive, and then swarm escapes. Escaping of energy via mesh floor is not a big issue.

When colony is small and it is food flow, it has not capacity to arrange brood, nectar, pollen and honey. Everything is a mesh when you open the hive.

Is the flow problem? For that we have waited a whole year like for Santa.

.

 

[user 6228]

.
I cannot understand, how energy saving can be the most important in beekeeping.

When I look the entrance, how much bees ventilate on landing board, I can see, do they have warm enough, do they need more wide entrance. If they make cluster, combs are full or hive is full. Humming sound tells, how much they ventilate moisture off, and that they do without me.


I cannot see, what thermodynamic knowledge helps in this.

Beekeeping is simple after all. You learn what that Wild creature is going to do, and you try live according its instincts.

Biggest problem to new beekeeper is, that he cannot anticipate, how fast bees fill the hive, and then swarm escapes. Escaping of energy via mesh floor is not a big issue.

When colony is small, it has not capacity to arrange brood, nectar, pollen and honey. Everything is a mesh when you open the hive.

How about this

honey by its very nature is energy saved by the bees ...
every Watt lost by hive is at least teaspoon per day in of itself. It costs many times that to fetch, accumulate refine and guard.
why shed honey/energy into wind?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Just because brother Adam says this, doesn't mean its true. Here's a pic from one of my hives that was opened up earlier than what should have. Manylocal bee keepers says that this build up was very good so early in the season and also take into consideration that these weren't full colonies going into winter last year. Yes brother Adam knew a thing or 2 about bees but he was probably using that aul sh1tty areo board or other useless insulation compared to this new stuff on the market.

View attachment 12543


Edit.. Near sure I opened these up in march and after reading your op again I just have to scratch my head and think are you on the same planet. How in the name of good **** would a hive with no insulation be better building up in spring than one with. Think about that one for a sec. So basicly your saying a hive with no insulation is better! Impossible IMO because that was mean that insulation has a negative effect somehow. Some of you people are nuts IMO lol

Probably fair to expect the warmth of the spring sunshine to penetrate the uninsulated hive sooner and signal to the bees that spring has sprung. However the colony within may have spent far more of its reserves just keeping alive through the winter. Then the colony has a lot of work to do to get going.
On the other hand for an insulated hive, when the warmth finally does penetrate the insulation the colony within is stronger, has some reserves in hand and hits the ground running. This may be an oversimplification but it's how I view the situation.

 

[user 6228]

Probably fair to expect the warmth of the spring sunshine to penetrate the uninsulated hive sooner and signal to the bees that spring has sprung. However the colony within may have spent far more of its reserves just keeping alive through the winter. Then the colony has a lot of work to do to get going.
On the other hand for an insulated hive, when the warmth finally does penetrate the insulation the colony within is stronger, has some reserves in hand and hits the ground running. This may be an oversimplification but it's how I view the situation.

In short you think its a survival trait, waiting a bit longer for spring to develop before sending out the foragers is less of a risk, if you have the reserves to do so? Sounds very plausible, a Phd for someone with a few hundred hives maybe?

 

[Finman]

How about this

honey by its very nature is energy saved by the bees ...
every Watt lost by hive is at least teaspoon per day in of itself. It costs many times that to fetch, accumulate refine and guard.
why shed honey/energy into wind?

I have studied plant physiology in university, and I know very well what is energy system in living cretures, from sun to photosyntesis and to capped combs.

At same time this forum gives madd advices, how to put bees move stores from lower box up to super. When bees move stores to another box, the moving process takes 24% from yield. --- Move the frames to he super and that's it. Or give the frames to be frames in wintering box. Or better: extract and feed with sugar.

Wats and spoons does not help in beekeeping. I measure energy with honey filled frames and honey filled boxes.

 

[Finman]

.

Here is sugar's energy cycle, but it does not help beekeeping. One of those.

 

[Finman]

Probably fair to expect the warmth of the spring sunshine to penetrate the uninsulated hive sooner and signal to the bees that spring has sprung.


On the other hand for an insulated hive, when the warmth finally does penetrate the insulation the colony within is stronger, has some reserves in hand and hits the ground running. This may be an oversimplification but it's how I view the situation.

That is magic. Nothing like that happens in the beehive.

 

[user 6228]

I have studied plant physiology in university, and I know very well what is energy system in living cretures, from sun to photosyntesis and to capped combs.

At same time this forum gives madd advices, how to put bees move stores from lower box up to super. When bees move stores to another box, the moving process takes 24% from yield. --- Move the frames to he super and that's it. Or give the frames to be frames in wintering box. Or better: extract and feed with sugar.

Wats and spoons does not help in beekeeping. I measure energy with honey filled frames and honey filled boxes.

well you obviously dont mind losing at least 10kg per summer per colony

 

[Finman]

well you obviously dont mind losing at least 10kg per summer per colony

Beekeeping and honey hunting does not go that way.

My job in summer is to find good pastures, where hives can get 100 kg honey poer hive. I cannot calculate what they have lost.

Í know how to grow hives big. Then the yield comes from pastures, when weathers are good in main flow period. Our main flow period is maximum 6 weeks.
The most difficult is to find good pastures to hives every year. If I shoose wrong, summer is too short to correct my mistake. Sometimes it succeeds, but mostly not.
.

 

[Cussword]

Thats what I have

Me Too!!

 

[beebot]

In short you think its a survival trait, waiting a bit longer for spring to develop before sending out the foragers is less of a risk, if you have the reserves to do so? Sounds very plausible, a Phd for someone with a few hundred hives maybe?

You would be very brave to set out on a PhD based on that.

 

[barney rubble]

so the jury is out then..... Is this about people beeks living in nice and toasty warm centrally heated houses, with nice and toasty warm cats and dogs living under their roofs, thinking they are doing their bees a favor by wrapping them up in toasty hives?? - just a thought..... or should we just leave them to 'do or die' and see if their genetics can manage the cold weather...? - I suppose natural selection could come in here - and should we only be breeding queens from the successful, hardy colonies that made it through winter in really drafty hives??

 

[pargyle]

so the jury is out then.....

Not for the vast majority on here I would suggest. The benefits of insulation on hives, no matter how small, have been well known for decades ... Why do you think a number of commercial beekeepers with hundreds, if not thousands, of hives have moved to polystyrene ?

There's only a couple of 'keep them cold - make them hard' beekeepers on here - the rest of us have come to the conclusion that hives that allow the bees to regulate the temperature of their environment with the least expenditure of energy has to be better for the bees.

No brainer ... dozens of threads on here about insulation .. worth hitting the search button if you are not convinced.

 

[barney rubble]

ah, thats ok then, the £50 I spent on polyspanning my colonies will be money well spent then.... just seeing which way the wind was blowing on the forum as no real conclusive decision seems to have been made on here thats all... happy bunny!!! so folks, batten down the hatches and insulate seems to be the message on the beekeeping forum... at least until the next post that is................. don't mention matchsticks though

 

[Finman]

just a thought..... or should we just leave them to 'do or die' and see if their genetics can manage the cold weather...? - I suppose natural selection could come in here - and should we only be breeding queens from the successful, hardy colonies that made it through winter in really drafty hives??

Natural seleklction is working all the time. Those beekeepers, who have "do nothing genes", their hives do not make honey and finally hives die.

What idea is to make really drafty hives? At least it is a new idea.


.
.

 

[Finman]

so the jury is out then..... Is this about people beeks living in nice and toasty warm centrally heated houses, with nice and toasty warm cats ??

20 years ago, when I visited in England, you had there 500 000 homeless people. How do figures now?

.

 

[B+.]

should we just leave them to 'do or die' and see if their genetics can manage the cold weather...? - I suppose natural selection could come in here - and should we only be breeding queens from the successful, hardy colonies that made it through winter in really drafty hives??

Thats an excellent question.
If your objective is to get the most honey you can from your colony, adding insulation probably allows them to conserve more of what they have over winter. They need plenty of reserves in the spring to develop unchecked, so, having sufficient stores to build up is a good thing. However, this approach allows less "fit" genes to survive and pass their genes on to the next generation. This is a downward spiral.

 

[Finman]

Thats an excellent question.

If your objective is to get the most honey you can from your colony, adding insulation probably allows them to conserve more of what they have over winter. They need plenty of reserves in the spring to develop unchecked, so, having sufficient stores to build up is a good thing. However, this approach allows less ".

You are not serious...

Even if wasp, or bumbble bee can over winter
In -30C, its brood is reared in 36C temp.

If you breed a honeybee, which can live in frost temps, the bee will not need honey store for winter.

That breeding is seriously much more harmfull than all GM things together.
Authorities should take off your breeding licence.


.

 

[Finman]

.
You out there dream about hardy bees, but we have such already here.

We have good warm hives too.

But no one is not forced to use not good queens, either good hives. Not to speak about proper floors or covers.

Among beekeepers there are no consensus. A Real Beekeeper does what he wants and he is always right. That is the basics.
.

 

[Finman]

.
How to breed a hive which make good yields on Britain's pastures.

My answer is that bees are too much out there. There are not flowers enough to share.

Only way is to breed a strain, which robs other hives.

the name of bee could be Sir Francis..