Oh dear, he doesn't look any futher than his table of physical and chemical constants.
[ got a collection of over 200 papers on bees ]
Yep, there are plenty of details on the net where the nectar is already of far higher solids than 20% at arrival in the hive. It seems that 30% is the typical minimum and 40% might be the norm.
He is pushing if if his honey is actually 16%, typical is more like 18 1/2%.
[16.5 and nearly all still uncapped]
He omits to mention evaporation is carried out by reduction of ambient air temperature and not by extra heat provided, although some will by virtue of bees fanning - like puddles evaporate by loss of molecules from the surface but the phase boundary is kept out of equilibrium by the removal of the evaporated molecules (by air movement).
Confusion of heat and temperature and work . Heat removal by evaporation occurs at low, as well as high temperatures. You then need to add heat just to maintain the same temperature (did this in my first physics lesson at grammar school) fanning is work is heat. the removal of the energetic molecules in the liquid surface reduces the average energy of the molecules remaining in liquid i.e. reduces the Temperature of the liquid.
He ignores the surplus of thermal energy which must be removed from the colony to avoid overheating, the need to remove the water vapour from the hive, not just to evaporate same.
[ simple observation of the insulated hive on a warm morning, during a flow shows there is no vigourous ventilation going on despite all the bees being inside. thus showing that the base heat loading in a insulated hive is not very significant, one of the things I checked cos I didnt want any overheating]
He says one thing and then makes increase of 50% - 40kg was good for him, but he sneakily increases it to 60kg (yes, over 130 lbs). What, I am wondering, is actually a good season? The average season yields what? I won't bother to look up the b-ka figures. Perhaps he doesn't mean good but exceptional?
[veg and finski always seem to do lot more and we are 2km+ from any farmers fields]
While a great deal more water is expelled by a colony over the season, I still maintain his figure of 300kg is very excessive for moisture reduction of the crop.
Have a look here to see that it is not as simple as some like to make out.
http://m.rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/3/299.fullHere
Here are a couple extracts from this work:
"...substantial increase in the concentration of the crop contents that was already apparent in honeybees captured at flowers and increased further on the return flight."
"Bees at Rust de Winter returned with an average of 7.2 mg sugar in their crops. Based on the residual nectar concentration of 21.8%, bees would need to collect 33.0 mg of nectar to obtain this amount of sugar. From this, 14.8 mg of water was evaporated before return to the hive, leaving 11.0 mg of water in nectar with a concentration of 39.5%. Roodeplaat bees collected smaller loads but also evaporated more than half of the nectar water before return to the hive."
Maybe in the UK, mellifera (the above was scutellata, but never mind) may be different, but
the principle will still apply, I am sure.
selective quoting - This was in VERY different conditions - RH for these findings was 10% . UK is dramatically higher lowest monthly average is 72% (june) So its completely invalid to use this
Now lets look at 60kg of honey at 18.5% water from nectar received at the hive at 60% water. Just 122kg of water to be removed, and a most of it by simple air movement and using excess heat from the colony (think here how long it does not take for a colony to overheat if not ventilated while travelling. Now whether that is due to the bees fanning more frantically, I do know not, but the brood and bees are all respiring, producing heat, just as we do. 40kg would drop that figure to around 80kg of water to be removed.
We are not in the same situation as in the winter cluster where all the heat derived from carbohydrate is used to maintain colony temperature; in summer the hive must be ventilated at all times anyway.
[ simple observation of the hive on a warm morning, during a flow shows there is no vigourous ventilation going on despite all the bees being inside. thus showing that the base heat loading in a insulated hive is not very significant.
In addition observation in wooden hive shows lots more of bees over the brood, both in flow and out of flow than in insulated hive which would account for faster build up in insulated hives]
So regarding the claim that more water needs to be evaporated to evaporate all the original water is, frankly, rubbish. There may be some, but not all by a long way.
[false assertion - the water of combustion is still water and needs to be removed from the hive that is all thats I claim.]
One perhaps need to look at the wood on occasions, not just the odd tree that happens to take your fancy? Not taking things to the extreme beyond common sense observation?
[our bees are in the garden hard not to observe] And being rather more susceptible to the notion that bees are not stupid and have been perfecting their techniques for far longer than **** saiens has been around.
I think I will rest my case at this point as it is pointless arguing - what with the paper about to be published.
Let's wait and see if this is included in it. Won't be long now, been coming for about the last couple of years?
[this is not included]
RAB
it has both cavity and roof insulation, cavity insulation is blown fibre . The house is built on 2' concrete foundations ,with suspended wooden floors . The void under the house has 2" site concrete.
