Recticel Hive

[charlievictorbravo]

I started this project about 6 months ago and finally got round to finishing it last week. It is a hive based on a 14x12 frame made of 30mm thick recticel. This is a bit thinner than DerekM recommends but 30mm of Recticel is equivalent to about 110mm of wood - thermally speaking. To increase the thermal performance of the hive, I've made a "cosy" roof out of 25mm that entirely covers the brood box, so in effect I will have 55mm of insulation over winter but with a small (5mm) air gap on the walls between the BB and the roof.

Where the BB meets the super, I have used 2mm Correx as a sort of gasket but I have worries as to whether the adhesive will stand up to the use of a hive tool - time will tell. If it does not work I'll have to modify it with some hard plastic at the "lever" points near the corners plus liberally coat the face with Vaseline.

For a base I've made a suitably sized under floor entrance out of wood. The OMF is a quarter of the total internal area of the brood box.

Anyway, here are some photos.

CVB

 

[user 6228]

...

Where the BB meets the super, I have used 2mm Correx as a sort of gasket but I have worries as to whether the adhesive will stand up to the use of a hive tool - time will tell. If it does not work I'll have to modify it with some hard plastic at the "lever" points near the corners plus liberally coat the face with Vaseline.

For a base I've made a suitably sized under floor entrance out of wood. The OMF is a quarter of the total internal area of the brood box.

Anyway, here are some photos.

CVB

You change your technique for splitting the boxes . You dont lever it off!
you push the hive tool between correx layers all the way round the box. The box on the top then just pops off.

You need to make the underfloor deep and insulated (i.e recticel) so that there is ~150mm vertical drop in the entrance, otherwise the heat bubbles out the bottom also insure that light does not go directly to nest area. Tree nests are very, very, dark as well as very, very, warm.

Derek

 

[Swarm]

Tree nests are very, very, dark as well as very, very, warm.

Derek

Really? I've seen some that could be considered neither.

 

[user 6228]

Really? I've seen some that could be considered neither.

I,m using the statistics from the survey of about 30 nests by t.d. Seeley. And r .morse in 1976. They give the average and standard deviation. If you want full citations i,m on a iPad without access to my papers database at the mo.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

you change your technique for splitting the boxes . You dont lever it off!
You push the hive tool between correx layers all the way round the box. The box on the top then just pops off.

yes, i had thought that a thin knife instead of a hive tool might do the job.

you need to make the underfloor deep and insulated (i.e recticel) so that there is ~150mm vertical drop in the entrance, otherwise the heat bubbles out the bottom also insure that light does not go directly to nest area. Tree nests are very, very, dark as well as very, very, warm.

Derek

would you have a sketch of what you have described - a picture speaks more than a thousand words

cvb

 

[Swarm]

I,m using the statistics from the survey of about 30 nests by t.d. Seeley. And r .morse in 1976. They give the average and standard deviation. If you want full citations i,m on a iPad without access to my papers database at the mo.

Yes, I understand the generally accepted stats but when there are so many variables, five totally different examples in one publication of the Welsh Beekeeper for example, these stats appear less convincing. Judging by the observations of those five nests alone, it seems they come in all configurations, that's all I'm saying.

CVB,
Nice job of the floor, the smaller OMF saves on mesh as well Question about your super, are those castellations tacked directly to the recticel?

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Nice job of the floor, the smaller OMF saves on mesh as well Question about your super, are those castellations tacked directly to the recticel?

In the brood box (the first box I made) I used a 40x10mm L shaped plastic moulding that was sold in the local diy superstore (Trago Mills). The recticel it sits on is just over 30mm wide so I recessed the long leg of the moulding in the hive wall and used lots of glue and aluminium adhesive tape to hold it in place.

When it came to to supers, I did the same thing and screwed the castellations to the short leg of the moulding using model-makers small self-tapping screws. I backed this up with some more strips of adhesive tape.

I won't know how successful it will be until it goes into service next week - fingers crossed!

CVB

ps I have been remiss in not acknowledging DerekM's role in the project. I shamelessly copied bits of his design but reduced the material thickness in the brood box. The cozy roof was my idea to increase insulation for the winter months.

 

[Cussword]

Just found this. Neat job CVB, will you let us know how it over Winters?

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Just found this. Neat job CVB, will you let us know how it over Winters?

Will do. It's occupied by a recovered swarm that was in a 5 frame nuc that I thought was ready to move into a bigger box but it has not prospered. It's now on about 6 frames (the rest is slabs of insulation) but the colony is not expanding fast so I may have to start feeding it to get it going a bit before the weather gets cold.

CVB

 

[madasafish]

I have 4 off 5 frame Lang jumbo nucs made from insulation board. Three full of bees.

Plans at http://tinyurl.com/zo3okzw

Work very well.. I have amended them to have large overlapping roofs. Some have mesh floors and underfloor entrances.

 

[TooBee...]

Just found this. Neat job CVB, will you let us know how it over Winters?

Yeah me to ...

any updates on how this overwintered? Anything you'd do differently?

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Well, the colony that was in the Recticel hive survived the winter but there are so many factors that contribute to a successful overwintering that I would not like to attribute any success to the materials and design used.

One thing I'd change is the method of securing the the Correx "gasket" material to the box. One piece has come adrift and will have to be re-fixed when I can empty the hive. I'm thinking of using a better quality contact adhesive and using a narrow strip of aluminium tape to go around the exposed edge of the Correx onto the box wall to assist with security.

Rather than us all reinventing this particular wheel, I'm hoping DerekM will get his finger out and write the book he's been promising about PIR hives. He's been making these things for years and has probably solved many of the problems we have not even found yet!

CVB

 

[oliver90owner]

I basically left a colony in a six frame 14 x 12 nuc which had 6mm thick ply side walls (it went vertical with a extra boxes, in the summer) on an OMF. It was provided with a substantial timber roof with another 25mm of polystyrene insulation. Basically a Robin Dartington ‘honey box’, as I recall

No problems of it overwintering for three seasons, maybe four, until stolen by some low-life petty thieving beekeeper.

So, that was equivalent side-wall thickness of less than 2mm of recticel? That sort of demonstrates how well bees can be accommodated with minimal protection for winter, although I wouldn’t recommend it as the norm!

The colony ouside Mary’s window, in Warwickshire, survived two winters before succumbing to wasp attack the following year. No varroa treatment may have contributed to its demise.

I’m not saying the overwintering conditions were ideal, but as an experiment it demonstrated that bees can survive in much less than an ideally insulated hive.

 

[TooBee...]

...made of 30mm thick recticel. This is a bit thinner than DerekM recommends but 30mm of Recticel is equivalent to about 110mm of wood - thermally speaking. ...
CVB

I don't understand, why is more than 30mm of insulation board advised when it is equivalent to more than 100mm thick of wood insulation - as I understand it DerekM will be basing his opinion on Seeley's research.

 

[TooBee...]

...I’m not saying the overwintering conditions were ideal, but as an experiment it demonstrated that bees can survive in much less than an ideally insulated hive.

I understand the point you're making... but if you were to multiply your poorly insulated hive concept by 100, and then take 100 ideally insulated hives and try and keep all other factors equal (which is really easy - sarc!) which group do you think will have the higher survival rate, and higher honey yield, greater health, etc?

I've heard of humans surviving months in the frozen Andes (a rugby team from memory), not an ideal environment, all it showed was that humans can survive extreme conditions for a period of time - but not long term, and not in good health.

 

[Helen]

I basically left a colony in a six frame 14 x 12 nuc which had 6mm thick ply side walls (it went vertical with a extra boxes, in the summer) on an OMF. It was provided with a substantial timber roof with another 25mm of polystyrene insulation. Basically a Robin Dartington ‘honey box’, as I recall.

Brought 4 mini-colonies through winter this year, with the 'dartington' 14x12 dartington 'carry boxes / nucs' - although mine have mesh floors. Placed them together and pushed some spare celotex on the ends and on the top. The 'honey box' is a 1/2 sized super only.

Have also built a 75mm thick celotex 'cosy' that slips entirely over one of these nucs, with a seperate celotex roof so could access the top to check on them easily. Used a bit of narrow pipe with a dog-leg to allow access from their entrance to the outside without losing heat. Again, worked fine.

 

[oliver90owner]

Helen,

I thought the Dartington ‘honey boxes’ were made to transport five or six 14 x 12 frames of honey. The silly ‘half supers’ which held only five shallow frames were not the same. The first winter, the honey/carry box floor had been removed and the box propped on a couple of National hive entry blocks, laid on a sheet of OMF mesh.

Honey boxes were made with 6mm ply side walls, but the half supers were of only 5mm side walls, as I recall.

The bees were simply plonked on the stand during the two days I had, to organise around 25-30 colonies, before my bypass op at the very end of September. They, like the rest, had to sort themselves out for the winter.

I did not return until mid December (after some snowfall?), when (with help from my wife) I actually fitted the extra roof insulation and reorganised another hive, which had been left as ‘nuc box unite’ over a brood box, using a Dartington cover board to cover the other half of the larger box. They were OK, too.

RAB

 

[Helen]

From my Dartington instructions:

The Honey Box is the small 1/2 sized super - contains 5 super frames. 150mm high, 9mm side walls, 18mm end walls. I don't use these on the main hives - replaced them with normal national supers right from the outset. But, if I have any bees in the Carry / Nuc boxes, I use the few 1/2 supers I did make for feeding and for the first time this year, supers for a particularly active nuc.



The Carry/Nuc Box is the one that fits 5/6 14x12 brood frames, and is 342mm high. 6mm side walls, 18mm end walls.



So...

 

[oliver90owner]

Fair do’s. I haven’t pulled out my Dartington plans for years.... I only ever made 4 of those silly half-supers - and they were used as top boxes (with 14 x 12 frames hanging down into the modified carry boxes) as bait hives or as extra winter feed storage for that colony.

RAB

 

[Helen]

I think I made 3 of them as they were on the original plans. Thn realised how daft they were.