Thorne's news & matchsticks

[Blacky50]

If you get Thorne's emailed news then I note that the their expert is suggesting matchsticks to increase ventilation. Apparently I need my bees to cluster to reduce consumption of stores so a good dose of cold achieves this. Although he does talk about wrapping hives in spring & summer. I'm note sure that does any good if you have a draught blowing through.

I think this discussion is set for many more years. Enjoy!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Keep 'em cold bouys, keep 'em cold

I think they must have employed a complete nutter to write that piece - talking of nutters - they also respond to a certain 'expert's' claim on here that the UK import all their smokers (wonder who that could have been, maybe we'll know before this thread Finnish...es) I was just about to post something - so here it is:

You need to encourage your bees to cluster… by keeping them as cold (and dry) as possible… if you pamper them and keep them warm, they will move around wasting energy, they will consume their stores more rapidly and be more prone to starvation. If it is warm in the hive they may attempt to forage and are unlikely to make it back to the colony, depleting cluster numbers; So quilts off, entrance block out, mouse guard on, allowing plenty of ventilation. You can even place matches at the corners of the crown board to increase through ventilation. I tend to leave the corex inspection sheet in, this helps to reduce damp from below, and it also allows monitoring of the clusters movement from the pattern of the debris on the board without disturbing the bees. You will see a changing pattern of the wax cappings on the floor as the bees move to fresh areas of stores. Clean it off once a week to keep an eye on cluster position and movement; it will also give you an idea as to the rate of consumption of stores.

When spring finally arrives, in March-April time, put the quilts on. At this time of year the day to night temperature is at its most extreme. The bees are expanding the nest and foraging during the warmth of the day. When we have a very cold night it sends the bees back into cluster; they can’t cover all the brood and we get chilled brood (the periphery of the expanding nest is killed by the cold). This will stress the expanding colony and may introduce brood diseases. A quilt will help to insulate them and keep in the heat they have generated during the day for brooding. It also allows the young bees (the wax workers) to start generating wax and expanding and repairing the nest (this is a very energetic process – the bees can get up to as much as forty two degrees Celsius in cluster to sweat out the wax).

The quilts can stay on all summer, “what keeps in the heat, keeps out the heat”. Just remember to remove them when it starts to get nippy in autumn.

What an absolute load of tripe to publish!!

 

[yeogi75]

tripe about his method maybe, but correct about the difference of temperature fluctuations in the hive, that's what the bees do to level off the temperature as they would in the wild

 

[user 6228]

I think they must have employed a complete nutter to write that piece - talking of nutters - they also respond to a certain 'expert's' claim on here that the UK import all their smokers (wonder who that could have been, maybe we'll know before this thread Finnish...es) I was just about to post something - so here it is:



What an absolute load of tripe to publish!!

If that piece was correct then Apis mellifera would died out anywhere colder than the subtropics. And skeps would kill colonies... they havent they dont so

I will just have to send out more missionaries to enlighten the ignorant about heat transfer.

Onward Thermal Soldiers marching as to ....

 

[Hivemaker.]

Think the idea was from Wally whatshisname.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=564332&postcount=19372

 

[masterBK]

Not as nutty as it seems at first sight.
Bees use less stores in cold winters as they brood less. Also until the temps outside the cluster get very low bees don't consume much in the way of stores in regulating temperature as without brood they regulate at a much lower temperature reducing the heat gradient between the cluster and its surroundings and control the heat loss (heat being produced by metabolism of the bees) by altering the size and density of the cluster altering the surface area volume ratio and the convection flow through the cluster by altering the air channels within the cluster ie behavioural control. If bees were totally insulated they would, of course, overheat ( a rise of a couple of degrees to 37 C for any length of time shortens their life considerably) . In my limited experience a fair sized colony uses about 12 lbs of stores between end of september til end of december. It is only when temps get very low that they need to raise extra heat by metabolism using rapid contractions of their wing muscles and this uses up the stores. The main use of stores as everyone knows is during feb and march (and April in areas with no early spring flow) when brooding is really getting going again as the temperature of the brood nest needs to be maintained at 34-35C . So the main value of insulation in my opinion is from january onwards. The brood break in winter with a long clustering period is probably an adaptation of A.m.m (and many of our local mongrels have quite a few of their genes) to living in cold northen temperate regions. If you keep A.m.l then I suppose you need to insulate them all through the winter .
.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Think the idea was from Wally whatshisname.

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=564332&postcount=19372

they must have dug deep in the archives then as he no longer teaches such nonsense. And even in the past the only time he mentioned matchsticks was for extra air circulation during honey ripening.
Looks like the old BBKA dogma is showing its ugly head again

 

[B+.]

What an absolute load of tripe to publish!!

With the exception of the matchsticks and adding quilts, I agree with a lot of what he/she says. There is a tendency to "pamper" the bees to such an extent that they can't express their natural winter behaviour.
As Mike Palmer has said "winter is our friend". It selects those colonies for survival that are fit and healthy.

 

[Hivemaker.]

he no longer teaches such nonsense.

....old habits die hard and all that.

 

[Jimmy]

Not as nutty as it seems at first sight. .

Especially if your core business is selling wooden hives with minimal insulation.

 

[For want of a better word]

Not as nutty as it seems at first sight.
Bees use less stores in cold winters as they brood less. Also until the temps outside the cluster get very low bees don't consume much in the way of stores in regulating temperature as without brood they regulate at a much lower temperature reducing the heat gradient between the cluster and its surroundings and control the heat loss (heat being produced by metabolism of the bees) by altering the size and density of the cluster altering the surface area volume ratio and the convection flow through the cluster by altering the air channels within the cluster ie behavioural control. If bees were totally insulated they would, of course, overheat ( a rise of a couple of degrees to 37 C for any length of time shortens their life considerably) . In my limited experience a fair sized colony uses about 12 lbs of stores between end of september til end of december. It is only when temps get very low that they need to raise extra heat by metabolism using rapid contractions of their wing muscles and this uses up the stores. The main use of stores as everyone knows is during feb and march (and April in areas with no early spring flow) when brooding is really getting going again as the temperature of the brood nest needs to be maintained at 34-35C . So the main value of insulation in my opinion is from january onwards. The brood break in winter with a long clustering period is probably an adaptation of A.m.m (and many of our local mongrels have quite a few of their genes) to living in cold northen temperate regions. If you keep A.m.l then I suppose you need to insulate them all through the winter .
.

Well there you go... obviously me and my bees did not get to read that book as yet!
Nos da

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Never seen so much tosh spouted in so little time. I agree a bit with B+ view that some are going OTT with winter wrapping their bees, a piece of celotex in the roof is fine, anything else could be seen as a bit much but I though the idiocy of cooling the bees down for winter, gaping holes in crownboards etc had been consigned to the waste bin a long time ago.
Why don't we just dispence with roofs and crownboards altogether just lean a sheet of corrugated iron against the hive to keep the rain off?


Or is rain good as well?

 

[user 6228]

Not as nutty as it seems at first sight.
Bees use less stores in cold winters as they brood less. Also until the temps outside the cluster get very low bees don't consume much in the way of stores in regulating temperature as without brood they regulate at a much lower temperature reducing the heat gradient between the cluster and its surroundings and control the heat loss (heat being produced by metabolism of the bees) by altering the size and density of the cluster altering the surface area volume ratio and the convection flow through the cluster by altering the air channels within the cluster ie behavioural control. If bees were totally insulated they would, of course, overheat ( a rise of a couple of degrees to 37 C for any length of time shortens their life considerably) . In my limited experience a fair sized colony uses about 12 lbs of stores between end of september til end of december. It is only when temps get very low that they need to raise extra heat by metabolism using rapid contractions of their wing muscles and this uses up the stores. The main use of stores as everyone knows is during feb and march (and April in areas with no early spring flow) when brooding is really getting going again as the temperature of the brood nest needs to be maintained at 34-35C . So the main value of insulation in my opinion is from january onwards. The brood break in winter with a long clustering period is probably an adaptation of A.m.m (and many of our local mongrels have quite a few of their genes) to living in cold northen temperate regions. If you keep A.m.l then I suppose you need to insulate them all through the winter .
.

Here we go again. The Curve that is used to justify this thought is from an isothermal environment i.e. the bees are nailed to a set nest temperature and they lose all heat that they dont conserve by direct action i.e. mass conductance ratio =0. It isnt correct once the mass conductance ratio (MCR) increases from 0 and seriously wrong by the time MCR =0.7. Honeybees evolved with winter nests available with MCR of 3+. Wooden hives have MCR between 0.25 to 0.7 in still air when they dont have holes in the top. Polyhives have MCR 1+

 

[Hivemaker.]

Or is rain good as well?

Yes, they need a lot of water when raising brood.

 

[masterBK]

Well there you go... obviously me and my bees did not get to read that book as yet!
Nos da

No book -just good old practical experience. Weigh /heft/ examine your hives and you will find that most winter stores are used during this period . Sarcasm is the lowest form etc.....

 

[user 6228]

No book -just good old practical experience. Weigh /heft/ examine your hives and you will find that most winter stores are used during this period . Sarcasm is the lowest form etc.....

No I take it all back honeybees die off when they live in trees, they are tropical insects that can only live with the intervention of man.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Weigh /heft/ examine your hives and you will find that most winter stores are used during this period

....and usually the ones to be concerned about during this time are the ones that are not losing much weight.

 

[B+.]

I agree a bit with B+ view that some are going OTT with winter wrapping their bees, a piece of celotex in the roof is fine, anything else could be seen as a bit much but I though the idiocy of cooling the bees down for winter, gaping holes in crownboards etc had been consigned to the waste bin a long time ago.

Absolutely.
Mind you, I have a lot of sympathy with beginners who are desperate to keep their one, or two colonies alive. When I first started, I was the same. However, with experiece comes the realisation that not all colonies are worth keeping. Some are aggressive, unproductive, unhealthy, etc and will eat you out of house and home.
My advice to all beginners is to get yourself some good stock. They will be much more satisfying in the long run.

 

[masterBK]

With no brood present bees don't maintain the inside of the cluster at a set temperature although, as with all invertebrates, there will be a minimum temperature below which they die. I obviously can't argue my case from my limited physics knowledge (only got B at A level) so it is easy to blind me with jargon but somehow I have managed to keep my colonies in thermally inefficient double brood wooden hives for 50 yrs without losing many (often none most years) during winter and my yields are better than most in my area. I don't use matchsticks (and never have done) but have used insulation the last 10 yrs above crownboards to reduce my sugar bill for winter feed (saves on average about 2 kg per hive )

Bees in trees do die off. Even before Varroa only 25% of prime swarms that built nests in cavities in trees etc managed to survive their first winter compared with over 80% of bees in managed hives. I suppose this is all part of the argument of comparing natural with artificial selection.

I read somewhere that clustering behaviour in Bees probably developed in the Himalayas (not really tropical there)

 

[Stiffy]

Absolutely.

My advice to all beginners is to get yourself some good stock. They will be much more satisfying in the long run.

Problem is there are a lot of poor bees for sale with some really horrible traits.
S