Why do people use large beehives like national?

[Anduril]

What's the advice on using supers for brood and honey due to the lightness? One can add extra supers as the brood grows and use a QE to control where the queen lays. A bit like the Rose hives - one size box and one size frame. I'm attracted by the idea but aware there must be issues or everyone would be doing it.

One of the main issues is the number of frames you have to examine.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Try our multiple hive types the love of long frame lugs. Limited suppliers and lack of a large commercial market

And the propensity of equipment makers to listen and act on any complaint/suggestion that comes from the bee fiddlers who turn up at their stand during conventions, ending up with another bit of kit on the market which actually pleases noone.

 

[gmonag]

What's the advice on using supers for brood and honey due to the lightness? One can add extra supers as the brood grows and use a QE to control where the queen lays. A bit like the Rose hives - one size box and one size frame. I'm attracted by the idea but aware there must be issues or everyone would be doing it.

There are "issues" with the Rose Hive method, but nothing too onerous.

If you want to examine all the brood at every inspection, then there are lots of frames to go through. But I don't inspect all the fames every time. The upper box(es) tell you all you need to know most of the time.

When full, the boxes are heavier the National shallows, but at 25kg are manageable.

When taking a harvest each frame has to be checked for brood.

However, the boxes, frames and foundation are cheaper than Nationals. The queen has more space to lay (no QE) and if she is prolific, very large colonies can result. The extra space and freedom reduces swarming and the incidence of disease.

Using one size of box means that frames can be used and swapped anywhere. Manipulating the brood nest, for example, is easy and making splits is a breeze. Additionally old comb can be rotated out without any special procedure.

 

[Ian123]

There are "issues" with the Rose Hive method, but nothing too onerous.

If you want to examine all the brood at every inspection, then there are lots of frames to go through. But I don't inspect all the fames every time. The upper box(es) tell you all you need to know most of the time.

When full, the boxes are heavier the National shallows, but at 25kg are manageable.

When taking a harvest each frame has to be checked for brood.

However, the boxes, frames and foundation are cheaper than Nationals. The queen has more space to lay (no QE) and if she is prolific, very large colonies can result. The extra space and freedom reduces swarming and the incidence of disease.

Using one size of box means that frames can be used and swapped anywhere. Manipulating the brood nest, for example, is easy and making splits is a breeze. Additionally old comb can be rotated out without any special procedure.

View attachment 27684

Can you tell me what part of rose hive beekeeping can’t be replicated in a National or non rose hive.Ian

 

[Anduril]

Can you tell me what part of rose hive beekeeping can’t be replicated in a National or non rose hive.Ian

The same principle is used in the US they're called medium boxes. The Rose hive is just another reinvention of the wheel as it were.

 

[Ian123]

The same principle is used in the US they're called medium boxes. The Rose hive is just another reinvention of the wheel as it were.

Agreed I’ve often asked the question not really had any answer!

 

[gmonag]

The same principle is used in the US they're called medium boxes. The Rose hive is just another reinvention of the wheel as it were.

True.
But there is no National Medium box. So what Tim Rowe did was develop one and called it the Rose (Rowe's) Hive.
I have said several times on this forum that it is not the box that matters, but the method of hive management. Many use the same method using medium boxes in USA and Europe and probably elsewhere. The method can be used with any box. It does not matter who first invented it or what you call it.

 

[Anduril]

True.
But there is no National Medium box. So what Tim Rowe did was develop one and called it the Rose (Rowe's) Hive.
I have said several times on this forum that it is not the box that matters, but the method of hive management. Many use the same method using medium boxes in USA and Europe and probably elsewhere. The method can be used with any box. It does not matter who first invented it or what you call it.

Some used the National shallow boxes before Tim Rowe. Beekeeping is like some sports, people see a new technique in their sport and everyone wants to be taught it because they want to get up the rankings. What they don't realise is the these techniques have been done before and it is just something that goes in and out of fashion. Someone comes along with another technique and rockets up the rankings. Seen it many times.

 

[Darryl]

There are "issues" with the Rose Hive method, but nothing too onerous.

If you want to examine all the brood at every inspection, then there are lots of frames to go through. But I don't inspect all the fames every time. The upper box(es) tell you all you need to know most of the time.

When full, the boxes are heavier the National shallows, but at 25kg are manageable.

When taking a harvest each frame has to be checked for brood.

However, the boxes, frames and foundation are cheaper than Nationals. The queen has more space to lay (no QE) and if she is prolific, very large colonies can result. The extra space and freedom reduces swarming and the incidence of disease.

Using one size of box means that frames can be used and swapped anywhere. Manipulating the brood nest, for example, is easy and making splits is a breeze. Additionally old comb can be rotated out without any special procedure.

View attachment 27684

I was thinking along the lines of just having a pile of supers. Two at the bottom for brood (approx 1.5 x the size of a standard national brood box) with a QE on top followed by as many more supers for stores. This way I would only need supers and super frames.

 

[gmonag]

I was thinking along the lines of just having a pile of supers. Two at the bottom for brood (approx 1.5 x the size of a standard national brood box) with a QE on top followed by as many more supers for stores. This way I would only need supers and super frames.

I assume you mean National Shallow boxes. Yes, you can use shallow boxes throughout, but bear in mind that there will be more boxes and frames per volume of hive. Of course they will also be lighter than Rose/Medium boxes.

 

[oliver90owner]

standard brood box - deep
14x12" - either extra deep or Jumbo

No. They are all British Standard size frames - shallows, deeps and extra deeps. No such thing as a “standard” brood box except that lots of beekeepers mistakenly described the deep as ‘standard’ for so many years that it seems to be the accepted as normal.

A bit like cells and battery (there were never a single gun in an anti-aircraft battery?), or vacuum cleaner and hoover as examples of *******isation of the language. People calling all British Standard shallows ‘supers’ is another example (even when nadired). Bees emerge from pupae (not hatch) is yet another - a clear indication that some people don’t really know the difference!

 

[Boston Bees]

I was thinking along the lines of just having a pile of supers. Two at the bottom for brood (approx 1.5 x the size of a standard national brood box) with a QE on top followed by as many more supers for stores. This way I would only need supers and super frames.

Yes, you can do this, whether you are using the Rose Hive method or not.

One thing to consider is that you will lose some of the ability to interact with other beekeepers in terms of giving/selling them bees, or getting bees from them. If you end up with excess colonies, for example, not many people will want to buy a nuc of bees on shallow frames. But that may be irrelevant to you.

I have chosen to just use national brood frames, and stop using super frames completely. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Darryl]

I assume you mean National Shallow boxes. Yes, you can use shallow boxes throughout, but bear in mind that there will be more boxes and frames per volume of hive. Of course they will also be lighter than Rose/Medium boxes.

Thanks for the advice. I will give it a shot next season with a new nuc but keep my present setup of mediums/shallows with my current hives.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

One of our aging, now retired, beeks used to use a rotating system of three shallows for the brood nest. I have the leaflet somewhere for later... Seems very practical. A LOT of frames, but on the double-brood principle, two tips of a box gets you most of the way there in swarm season.

 

[Finman]

Can you tell me what part of rose hive beekeeping can’t be replicated in a National or non rose hive.Ian

No excluder = Rose hive

With excluder = hive or douple hive or one and half

 

[Boston Bees]

No excluder = Rose hive

With excluder = hive or douple hive or one and half

Simply leaving the excluder out isn't the Rose Hive method

 

[Finman]

Simply leaving the excluder out isn't the Rose Hive method

I have nursed hives 60 years without excluder.
Are the boxes same size or two size, it makes no difference. I cannot see any special in Rose hive "method".

Simply leaving the excluder out, beekeepers could avoid lots of stupid questions and they would learn about bees' instincts.

 

[Boston Bees]

I have nursed hives 60 years without excluder.
Are the boxes same size or two size, it makes no difference. I cannot see any special in Rose hive "method".

Simply leaving the excluder out, beekeepers could avoid lots of stupid questions and they would learn about bees' instincts.

I agree about not using an excluder

But the Rose Hive Method has two defining features. Only by doing both is someone following the Rose Hive Method:

a) use no queen excluder
b) if a new box is added before the longest day, it doesn't go on top of the hive, it splits the brood nest in two (so, for example, if there are 2 boxes, and those boxes get full, you put the new box in the middle of the two existing boxes)

This aggressive vertical splitting of the brood nest is the absolute core of the Rose Hive Method.

It is also why, when I see people say "the Rose Hive method can be done with any size box" I'm a bit sceptical, because a national brood box is a pretty big gap to open up in a brood nest. But then I wouldn't open a vertical gap in a brood nest with any size of box, so what do I know.

PS: (If a new box is needed after the longest day it goes above the brood nest)

 

[Finman]

I

This aggressive vertical splitting of the brood nest is the absolute core of the Rose Hive Method.

I would never do that . I keep the brood area compact.
If you split brood area so, that is not "a method". Very strange
If the colony want to keep every brood frame inside the brood ball, what idea is to split the brood ball? Weather can change when ever in Finland and cool weather can damage brood production.

It cannot be swarm priventing method, because swarm reventing is not that easy What it is then?

 

[Boston Bees]

I would never do that . I keep the brood area compact.
If you split brood area so, that is not "a method". Very strange
If the colony want to keep every brood frame inside the brood ball, what idea is to split the brood ball? Weather can change when ever in Finland and cool weather can damage brood production.

It cannot be swarm priventing method, because swarm reventing is not that easy What it is then?

I don't like it myself and would never do it, but that is the Rose Hive Method. The theory is to force /encourage a very rapid expansion of the brood area, thus providing a huge forager force and a huge honey crop. There are three videos on You Tube that explain his method well