Winter brrrrr

[oliver90owner]

So how does one insulate the area above whilst maintaining roof ventilation?

I simply left holes to the exterior. There is minimum gap there, but it is ventilated. Expansion/contraction will change the air above the crownboard slowly. It is not a problem; the amount of damp air in there is minimal and nothing much will go through my ply crownboards - and they do remain dry in winter.

 

[drstitson]

"or do you run it with two boards i.e. insulation above first board followed by another crown board, giving ventilation between 2nd board and roof?"

most roofs have battens around the inside to give a ventilated space above the crownboard.

if your insulation above the crownboard is 460x460 then that space remains untouched. no extra crownboard needed.

 

[BBG]

those are not alternatives, cold or damp.

I do not understand that old slogan because you may arrange the both, that no hives will die.

Im sure that majority do not undestand that at all.

Mesh floor was introduced into England with polyhive about 20 years ago. How did bees survived before that?

OPen Mesh Floor was trialled by Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries in 1990 in an attempt to improve the health of the National Bee Stock.

It worked and they asked all beekeepers to use and keep OMF.

20 years on and the penny has not dropped in all areas.

They survived - as you know Finman, British Isles is special place in beekeeping!!!!!!

 

[Finman]

.
You have at least one exception in your special isle. Hivemaker uses fast bottoms.

Here is many who use mesh floor. Some keep open and some close it with varroa plate.

Mesh floor users are like mad. They believe that a piece of mesh makes them "a modern beekeeper".
But very few knows how to get good yields.

Now I have heated bottoms with electrict in spring 8 years. I know a lot what heat means to the colony. With pollen patty and heating I may accelerate 2-3 fold spring build up. One problem is that hives grow very fast and it has brought extra swarming to the yards. "big hives swarm first".

Mesh bottoms do not fit to that system.

 

[Beeline]

most roofs have battens around the inside to give a ventilated space above the crownboard.

if your insulation above the crownboard is 460x460 then that space remains untouched. no extra crownboard needed.

Doc surely less than 460 x 460 so it fits the internal area......but I get it now. Thanks.

BL

 

[itma]

Something that occurs to me is that with better insulation, less stores are going to be metabolised to maintain warmth -- which means less water vapour is going to be generated!

So improving the insulation could have the side effect of *reducing* the need for brood box ventilation ...

 

[Finman]

Now your calculations are out of practice.


A warm hive has lower relative moisture and that makes the air dryer.
The less extra space the less surfaces which conduct heat outside.

Polyhive looses its advantages if you keep bottom open.

I wonder and wonder why a small colony, 1/5 that of summer size, needs the same ventilation as in summer heat.

That is grand-grand-grand father's advice that moisture kills. It does not kill when you arrange it but not brainless way.

I have fast bottom and lower entrance is in winter 10 cm wide. Upper entrance is 1,5 cm cross section. Extra space is squeezed away.
My hives need on average 20 kg sugar during Sept to May =8 months. There is about 5 kg honey per hive. We have moist and cold here. In spring I have usually problems how to get rid off extra winter stores.

When we have here hard winter, cold kills hives, not moisture. Last two winters were hard.

During -18C temps moisture turns to ice cryctalls inside the hive. The upper entrance is stucked by ice crystalls. When it comes a mild weather, snow inside the hive melts away and drills out along slanting bottom.

If i keep the hive inside near zero temp and air is standing, hives get a bad nosema and colony looses half of its bees.
.

 

[drstitson]

"Doc surely less than 460 x 460 so it fits the internal area......but I get it now. Thanks."

only if you are putting the insulation blocks inside an eke or empty super. either way no extra crownboard is needed. crownboard just tells bees where top of hive is!!!!!

 

[Chris58]

We have a varroea floor on our national, but under that is a solid floor. The air can come in normally from the back of the solid floor - it's the old floor, when we ordered a varroea floor from Tho*n*s, it came with a leaflet explaining how to turn the old floor around and utilise the mesh floor with it. Is this OK - it allows us to slide in a tray to check for varroea, with the bottom floor not there, we can't put a try in.