Next season I'll be running an experiment managing 5 Langstroth hives Warre style(ish) i.e. using frames, standard sized box (medium), nadiring without a queen excluder and cutting out the 10 day inspection cycle. I'll measure the results against 5 true Warre colonies, managed by the book, and 5 conventional Langstroth, also managed by the book (but it's a different book!).
I'll make the results available. I have no idea where this might lead. I have no absolute loyalty to any particular strand of beekeeping. All that matters to me is keeping healthy, productive and profitable bees.
Any suggestions for how to conduct the trial and what to measure will be appreciated.
Sounds absolutely fascinating! What an opportunity, I am very jealous.
For it to be a true study you need to determine your parameters at the start and you are going to struggle with the Warre hive because you will have limited access. So we must use what is observable and measurable, perhaps by outcome. So the parameters to measure would be:
POPULATION
* bee numbers (population growth during season)
* number of swarms (variation in population during season - assume £15k bees for a swarm and 7k for a cast)
* size of brood area (how much difference does a queen excluder really make? Are brood boxes too small?)
* population balance - how much drone brood do you get
ENVIRONMENT
* time hive wakes up in the morning
* time hive goes to bed
* date at which hive seems active and at the other end of season when it stops being active.
* overall number of foragers sent out
* temperature of brood box. (Get some of those fridge thermometers with a probe on a wire. These would be inserted through the entrance and into middle of brood box to give you an idea of environmental temperature. This will be different to the brood core temperature - unless the cluster sits right on top of the probe itself!
PRODUCTS
* honey produced
* pollen produced
EXTRANEOUS FACTORS
* you should record the odd factors that might make a difference or might change the outcome of the experiment.
Drop me an email or PM with your progress, I really want to hear how you get on.
My observations between my conventional National hive and my TBH are that the latter are more active, have more brood, more drones, wake up earlier, go to bed later and have more foragers out than the National despite the fact that the queen is now two years old. The TBH mob are up and about a good hour before the others and have far more bees flying that the National lot.
One of my recent fears is that the TBH community is becoming a bit of a ghetto and a minor one at that. No manufacturers, responding to a big demand for TB hives and adding to them to their cataloges, no fall in demand for National hives, no changes in practice or technique. Business as usual at the BKKA. I think the way forward to improve the environment for bees will be to persuade conventional beekeepers to change their practices using their existing equipment, so your experiment is very timely. Myself I am considering a Warre hive for next year but may opt for a Rose hive instead simply because you can extract from the latter but can only press from the former. It is all very well saying that there is no contamination from brood (and they are right) and that we should all eat comb but the great British public want honey as they see it now.
