Potts' Snuggle Board

[WalthamBee]

Any one used them yet? I think they're rather new, and I'm tempted to try one out!


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[Hivemaker.]

An insulated floor, filled with cedar wood shavings, brilliant idea.

And this is the really appealing bit.

All hives successful.
Number of bees present consistent.
No winter losses of bees.

https://www.thorne.co.uk/image/data/Documents/Pottssnuggleboard.pdf

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Potts-Snuggle-Board-/111809662814

 

[charlievictorbravo]

An insulated floor, filled with cedar wood shavings, brilliant idea.

https://www.thorne.co.uk/image/data/Documents/Pottssnuggleboard.pdf

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Potts-Snuggle-Board-/111809662814

Interesting. A tight-fitting piece of 25mm celotex in place of the inspection board would have a similar insulating effect.

When I went to Totnes for the South Devon Beekeepers convention last month to hear DerekM talk about heat movement and insulation, the floor that he was experimenting with for his home-made PIR hives was a sort of under-floor entrance but with a solid PIR floor but no OMF.

I've been struggling to come up with a design for this that incorporates an OMF but has the facility to use some insulation that is removeable to act as a monitoring board (to see where the bees are, check for brood and mites, etc.). The photos of the Potts Snuggle Board on the Ebay advert appears to show it going under the floor with the whole weight of the hive resting on it. I suppose I could do the same thing but with a PIR base under a PIR under-floor entrance (UFE) but with an access on one side to insert an easily removable and cleanable monitoring board (MB). It means that all of the weight of the hive going through 3 sides of the BB and UFE because there's a gap for the MB under the 4th side, so no downward load is transmitted there. I'll have to sketch it out to see if that throws up any issues.

It appears that the Potts Snuggle Board is intended to be used only in the winter.

CVB

 

[Fraise]

Is this not restricting the airflow the same as leaving the monitoring board in?

 

[Finman]

.
I have used insulated floors 20 first years, but many kind of ants love to live in those hive cavities. Finally the floor worked as ant nest.

The last modification of insulated floor worked as a nest of biggest European ant species, Camponotus herculeanus. That was 5 years ago. Nest was big and several years old, when I broke it.

Soft polystyrene insulation board, especially Cellotex is very good to ants. When I bring a 3-frame mating nuc into the woods, often ants have moved in in 2 days with their eggs.

 

[oliver90owner]

Yes, they appear to be a new idea. I will not be tempted to try one. I could put the brood box on a solid floor for the winter, but choose to retain the advantages of the OMF.

Yes, the ventilation afforded by an OMF is in excess of that needed. Perhaps, with vastly improved top and side insulation for timber hives, the damp problem with timber hives is much reduced or even eliminated. A simple polyhive with poly floor would be better? So use a poly roof as a floor for winter?

But thirty quid to save very little is a joke. Most heat goes upwards in a hive, with likely only 15% lost through the open floor. The hive, at entrance level, will be close to ambient, after all? So very little temperature gradient across the floor (inside to outside) which means that conduction losses are minimal, insulated or not.

As isaid initially, I am not remotely tempted by this scam.

RAB

 

[oliver90owner]

Ha ha. I see Thrones sell them for 16 quid and they are on epay for 29 quid. I see thrones claim the under ventilation is maintained - not true, I would have thought!! The non-thinkers need to start thinking before splashing out their dosh.

The claim of no winter losses is more amazing. There can always be winter losses, whatever system is employed; my winter losses over the last approx ten years would not have been improved by more than about 5% at the most.

A couple sheets of varnished chipboard, with a sandwich filling of insulation, would be a cheaper way of trying out the idea with minimal outlay.

 

[Finman]

Most heat goes upwards in a hive, with likely only 15% lost through the open floor.

In windy weather so up and far away that you cannot see.

One thing is good in insulated floor. It does not condense moisture so much as cold floor. I have something plastic material in few hives which condensates easily moisture even in summer and all kind of dirty sticks onto surface. The material is odd too because bees make small wax lumps onto surface. I must take those sheet off from floors.

Warm is good to bees always.

 

[Itchy]

I've often considered a deep solid floor under the omf with leaf litter in to harbour those inhabitants that will eat fallen varroa. Same as the base of a tree hollow.

 

[For want of a better word]

I am lucky enough to keep bees that have adapted to the local environmental conditions.

May consider this hot hive cossetting for the NZ Italians as they seem to have retained their Mediterranean ways, not having benefit of 10,000 years of adaptations!

Mytten da

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Is this not restricting the airflow the same as leaving the monitoring board in?

It seems to me that the advantage of this Potts Snuggle Board over the monitoring board is that its heavily insulated so you won't get any condensation, which you get if your MB is exposed to external ambient temperature.

Ventilation for bees seems to be much over-rated. For millenia, bees managed to live in hollow trees with very small (30mm +-) entrances, which kept them warm and humid. It's only when mankind put bees in thin-walled wooden boxes that issues of condensation, and hence ventilation, arose. The only thing I can't reconcile with this point of view is how do bees in a hollow tree with only a small entrance/exit manage to drive off moisture in converting nectar into honey. Does all that humid air in the summer go out through that small hole at the bottom of the cavity or is it somehow absorbed by the structure of the tree? Maybe a combination of the two. Where's Derekm when you need him?

CVB

 

[Fritillary]

I've often considered a deep solid floor under the omf with leaf litter in to harbour those inhabitants that will eat fallen varroa. Same as the base of a tree hollow.

Some who have horizontal top bar hives use a 'deep floor' along these lines (though with mesh not solid floor under the litter which I think is better) under their hives all year round. I personally found that when I used them underneath a mesh floor (which wasn't recommended - the idea was to have no mesh and the deep floor filled up with litter) and the bees had no access to the leaf litter, that wax moth flourished in it. Where the bees did have access to the space, I think at least one returning mated young queen went in there instead of inside the hive. That wouldn't be a problem in winter of course.

 

[Plenty of honey]

So i get the impression that this board will actually absorb moisture( take it away from the base) as well as insulate? This is something new to me and obviously adds fuel to the big debate on ventilated bases. When i first saw it i thought your joking yea? but actually its got good merits
! I imagine the actual base is very much like a pre fab door you buy, in respect of a middle sandwich, filled with said items! Interesting.

 

[madasafish]

Around here, if I had anything around a hive capable of absorbing moisture, it would be soaking. It's winter and we get lots of gray wet windy weather.. Like the last two weeks. When it's not raining it's cold.

I just use insulation . Period..

I looked at the TBH deep floors. Bees tend to use floors as walkways. Period.. Round here they would be full of ants. Or earwigs. Or moths. Or spiders. Or all of them..So a waste of time.

(My TBH hinged roofs have enough non bee insect life thanks..)

 

[Thymallus]

Does all that humid air in the summer go out through that small hole at the bottom of the cavity or is it somehow absorbed by the structure of the tree? Maybe a combination of the two.

Tree nests are usually lined with propolis and as such are waterproof.
Good fanning by the bees one presumes.

 

[Plenty of honey]

Around here, if I had anything around a hive capable of absorbing moisture, it would be soaking. It's winter and we get lots of gray wet windy weather.. Like the last two weeks. When it's not raining it's cold.

I just use insulation . Period..

Same here, i do keep my bases open. We have plastic bases made by Nicot, which i am sure you've all seen. don't want to go off topic!
My Beekeeping buddy who has a lot more experience than me likes to close his bases off in late january, to allow more of a closed environment for greater early brood production. Well thats his argument . I am not sure, but will experiment this spring. Insulted bases might just attract ants, like Finman says!! thats one of our major problems in the summer.

 

[oliver90owner]

Insulted bases might just attract ants

Would they do this just because you swore at them or made some desultory comment? If they are likely to get that sort of treatment, I would just give them a miss!!

 

[Plenty of honey]

Insulted bases might just attract ants

Would they do this just because you swore at them or made some desultory comment? If they are likely to get that sort of treatment, I would just give them a miss!!

Hilarious, missed that one!! Yes Yes, well spotted!! Spell checker is a wonderful thing!! (well thats my excuse!!)

 

[Blacky50]

So is the suggestion now that the OMF isn't really worth bothering with and keeping bees warm outweighs any benefit of the OMF?

 

[Hivemaker.]

So is the suggestion now that the OMF isn't really worth bothering with

I never really have.