The Rose Hive Method Again....Yawn???

[Erichalfbee]

I have just been offered a rose hive with Bees. Have not seen one before. interested to find out more about them. I use national hives

fiat500bee is banned. Hopefully somebody else will help you with an answer

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I have just been offered a rose hive with Bees. Have not seen one before. interested to find out more about them. I use national hives

well you can use it the same as a national if you like - it's only a box for bees in the end

 

[0bee-1]

fiat500bee is banned.

Banned ooh how did I missed that!

 

[Ian123]

There is nothing in the Rose Hive Method that can’t be transferred to a national. The boxes aren’t that well made and there expensive if purchased. But that’s just my opinion…..

 

[Newbeeneil]

There is nothing in the Rose Hive Method that can’t be transferred to a national. The boxes aren’t that well made and there expensive if purchased. But that’s just my opinion…..

I agree, using national supers throughout would be easier and cheaper IMO

 

[Ian123]

I agree, using national supers throughout would be easier and cheaper IMO

Or national broods I use few supers unless for cc

 

[Newbeeneil]

Or national broods I use few supers unless for cc

Lifting broods to put a new section into the nest would be hard work. Supers would make it easier.
A SBI told me this week he inspected an apiary, worked by three women, full of hives all based on national supers as they found them easier to manoeuvre.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I agree, using national supers throughout would be easier and cheaper IMO

Or national broods I use few supers unless for cc

or even a combination of National deeps and shallows to make manipulations easier

 

[Ian123]

or even a combination of National deeps and shallows to make manipulations easier

Lol yes…….but then that’s just called a hive and doesn’t need any fancy term or over thought explanations and book to follow. It also then can’t be pitched as natural or bee friendly…A box of bees is still a box of bees just missing the price tag

 

[Murox]

I have just been offered a rose hive with Bees. Have not seen one before. interested to find out more about them. I use national hives

Study the methodology; you can adapt/adopt Tim Rowe's methodology to most hive types.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

or just buy a galvanised steel queen excluder and trim it to fit.

 

[ericbeaumont]

There is nothing in the Rose Hive Method that can’t be transferred to a national. The boxes aren’t that well made and there expensive if purchased.

Good assessment, Ian.

I have just been offered a rose hive with Bees. Have not seen one before. interested to find out more about them. I use national hives

Boxes are supplied by Thorne and made of Russian redwood (two walls are of ply) and so heavy, though you could make you own. Footprint is as National at 460mm square. Tim Rowe's book covers his management methods and this video shows Tim at work.

 

[thorn]

I put bees into my rose boxes in 2020. They overwintered well and expanded rapidly. In 2021 I put the hive in my garden apiary, alongside two others. It gave the most honey that year. I followed Tim's way and didn't feed over the winter of 21/22. They came through that winter stronger than the two colonies in Abelo poly hives (which I had fed).
I made the mistake of using Apivar and had to work them out of the two boxes they overwintered in as I wouldn't have been able to take the honey from those boxes. There was a lot of honey that went to waste. Despite that, there's more honey there for me to take as a spring crop that in either of the other hives, and they're stronger than their neighbours.
The downsides are firstly the weight, too heavy for me to handle easily when full and five boxes up, and despite Tim Rowe's advice I do like to do full inspections, and secondly that there is only the one supplier, and if and when they pack up selling rose equipment I'll not be able to get frames and foundation for them. Also, the frames are hoffman, which I don't like. I intend to put spacers on the frames in new boxes
For those reasons I'll content myself with just the one rose hive. But I'm very happy to have the one to play with.

 

[Antipodes]

[

Lifting broods to put a new section into the nest would be hard work. Supers would make it easier.
A SBI told me this week he inspected an apiary, worked by three women, full of hives all based on national supers as they found them easier to manoeuvre.

You see thousands of them here in the forests. Not national supers but just a few millimetres deeper.

 

[Ely]

I am keeping my bees in paynes standard national deep boxes only. I'll let you know how I get on after next summer. This summer I'm building them up from a nuc. Cheers

 

[Ian123]

I am keeping my bees in paynes standard national deep boxes only. I'll let you know how I get on after next summer. This summer I'm building them up from a nuc. Cheers

You’ll get on fine plenty do it already

 

[Fusion_power]

Hive size and shape are almost entirely unimportant to the bees. Read that carefully, they will use just about any size or shape cavity so long as it is not too small. Hive size and shape are entirely for the convenience of the beekeeper. Maybe one size and shape hive is better because it is the standard in the area making it easy to purchase and easy to sell. The way to evaluate a hive for beekeeper use is to determine the advantages and disadvantages each hive brings to the table.

How many frames must be inspected to find the queen? Sounds rather innocuous, but think of the hours spent searching each frame in a hive with 24 frames vs searching a hive with only 12 frames. Time is an essential part of managing bees. Less time spent manipulating frames is very real savings to the beekeeper. This is one of the major flaws of the Rose hive. There are too many frames to inspect. As a comparison, a Square Dadant hive has 12 frames vs 24 in a double box Rose hive.

How heavy is the hive? There are two kinds of beekeepers. Those who have bad backs and those who will have bad backs. Think about the future when determining which hive to use. Your back totally refuses to negotiate how big a hive you can pick up.

Carefully consider how the hive will be managed. An entirely different management routine is required for a Rose hive as compared with a Square Dadant hive. Rose hives tend to be managed as "cassettes" meaning that each box is added as needed for brood or honey storage. Dadant hives tend to be managed per frame meaning frames are added or removed to manipulate colony size while supers are added as needed for honey storage. Splitting a Rose hive generally involves moving one box with bees and brood to a new location leaving a box of brood and bees as the original hive. Splitting a Dadant hive generally means moving 4 or more frames of bees, brood, and honey into a new box. I could go on about the different management techniques used for different hives.

Think hard about the detriments. A square Dadant hive may not be standard in the area, may require custom building of components, and weighs @60 kg's when full of honey. Detriments of a Rose hive include having to use 2 boxes for the brood nest, 24 frames to inspect for the queen, and is not generally available from multiple sellers.

Finally, consider the cost. I figured the cost of a fully equipped Square Dadant hive at $76 each a few years ago. The same capacity in Langstroth deep equipment was over $100. A Rose hive with similar capacity would be over $110. I know costs have gone up since I did the evaluation, but the overall concept is the same. A square Dadant hive is cheaper for a given capacity than any of the other hives on the market. If you are only keeping a few colonies, this is unimportant. Start buying kit for 40 or more hives and suddenly the cost of equipment becomes a crucial decision.

This does not make one hive right and the other wrong. It just means the beekeeper should do due diligence to figure out what works best under local conditions.

Here are the advantages I worked out for a Square Dadant hive:
1. There are only 14 frames to examine to find a queen, inspect, etc.
2. All of the brood a prolific queen can produce will fit in one brood box
3. It has enough room for wintering in one box
4. It is designed to run a horizontal 2 queen system using a divider
5. It reduces crowding effects so the bees are less likely to swarm
6. The wide entrance improves ventilation
7. The brood nest is more consolidated instead of being spread across multiple boxes of combs
8. My extractor was made to handle this size comb, the frames will fit my existing system if I need to extract
9. Easy to use to produce queens, just put a divider in place like a cloake board and have at it
10. It allows me to re-use the shallow extracting frames I already have, just add square supers.
11. It is highly efficient for space utilization
12. It costs less for a complete working hive than most other movable frame stackable super designs
13. It is much less likely to blow over in a strong wind
14. Square modified Dadant hives can easily be palletized
15. Can turn the supers 90 degrees so the bees fill them evenly and mature the honey all at one time.
16. Provides clustering space at night and in rainy weather
17. Diverts foragers from the broodnest directly into the supers
18. Can easily adjust the number of brood frames to fit the queen's ability

And here are the detriments:
1. A box full of honey will weight a bit over 100 pounds, not good for the back
2. These are obviously not standard which is a detriment if I ever sell out
3. Equipment is not normally available in the U.S., I have to custom build the frames and other hive components
4. Splitting has to be done by moving frames instead of separating boxes.

Compare the above with the Rose hive and you will find that the Rose system falls short on 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 11 of the advantages but gains ground on items 1 and 4 of the detriments.