Winter ventilation for a solid-floor hive?

[Beefriendly]

Are you serious that you seek advice to ventilation from 150 years back?

Are you saying that a man with your education has never bothered to read the historically important bee literature that defined the way we keep and understand bees today?
Are saying you have never read authors like Huber, Langstroth, Dierzon, Dadant etc etc???
Whether there is anything still to learn from them is an open question! But they all wrote fascinating stuff about bees.
Bit like saying Darwin isn't worth reading because he wrote Origin of Species over 150 years ago!

 

[peteinwilts]

Are you saying that a man with your education has never bothered to read the historically important bee literature that defined the way we keep and understand bees today?
Are saying you have never read authors like Huber, Langstroth, Dierzon, Dadant etc etc???
Whether there is anything still to learn from them is an open question! But they all wrote fascinating stuff about bees.
Bit like saying Darwin isn't worth reading because he wrote Origin of Species over 150 years ago!

we had snow in those days. now just damp, wet and more damp.

keeping bees in skeps and killing them every year was an improvement on finding them in old tree logs.
Beekeeping take steps as materials improve, but also as new nastys appear on our shores. The climate is also changing. Different methods in different countrys also have to apply.

As with evolution, things may improve, but failed improvements are tried and regress.
I do not agree with the matchstick method, but I would not say it is wrong. It is just a 'different' way of doing things, and I choose not to do it.

without trial and error, there will never be improvements. However, if you find a way that works for you, there is no shame in sticking with it. There is also no shame in trying different methods.

... unless you are in the BBKA, then there is only one way of doing things.

 

[peteinwilts]

Are you saying that a man with your education has never bothered to read the historically important bee literature that defined the way we keep and understand bees today?
Are saying you have never read authors like Huber, Langstroth, Dierzon, Dadant etc etc???
Whether there is anything still to learn from them is an open question! But they all wrote fascinating stuff about bees.
Bit like saying Darwin isn't worth reading because he wrote Origin of Species over 150 years ago!

One could question whether anything is worth reading, as it was technically written in the past and therefore potentially out of date. Books predating 1992 and later may not even mention varroa, yet it is one of the most important aspects of modern beekeeping.

I have not read any of the aforementioned authors, but is on my todo list if I ever get the time (for historical purposes!).

 

[Finman]

Are you saying that a man with your education has never bothered to read the historically important bee literature that defined the way we keep and understand bees today?
Are saying you have never read authors like Huber, Langstroth, Dierzon, Dadant etc etc???
Whether there is anything still to learn from them is an open question! But they all wrote fascinating stuff about bees.
Bit like saying Darwin isn't worth reading because he wrote Origin of Species over 150 years ago!

Get a life .

Heh heh heh...

What heck I would do in my education with those guys.
I have not read anything about those guys.

We must learn on university Darwin things, but about movable frames? And different sizes?

You do not even use Langstroth frames in UK, even if you have read about it. I have used 52 years.

Someone suggested that our university should teach to do sugar syrup. Do you put water to sugar, or sugar to water?
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[Beefriendly]

Get a life
.

Whatever.
Here's a little link to my favorite one for anyone interested, by Huber written in 1814 and translated from the French by Dadant. Despite being blind his acute insight (using the eyes of his assistant and wife) and observations on bee biology formed the corner stones we base much of our modern beekeeping practices on. He even discovered bee space, but didn't realize the practical observations of such a finding. His finding were so controversial at the time that books were written to counter his findings by attempting to discredit him. Things like virgin queens must leave the hive to mate, go stale after 3 weeks etc etc....
Best of all it's free to read!
New Observations Upon Bees by Francis Huber.

 

[B+.]

You do not even use Langstroth frames in UK, even if you have read about it. I have used 52 years.

I do....but, not for that long.

 

[Karsal]

I have converted half my hives to solid wood insulated floors. Hive Cosies, floor inclined slightly down to front to remove any moisture.
No signs of condensation in two winters , no mouldy combs...no matchsticks.
160m above sea level and frost pocket - we saw -16C in 2011-12 winters - and edge of the Peak District so a good test.

I treat all UK reports of holes in crown boards /matchsticks as science mired in the past.

And I also treat all derision of insulation from those living in maritime parts of the UK or the balmy South of the country as ignorance of other climates..

My bees overwinter better with lower use of stores with insulation and better with solid insulated floors than OMF - even with the varroa board inserted.. Varroa boards inserted in OMFs in uninsulated floors end up going mouldy so I have insulated below varroa boards.. takes 10 minutes per hive.

I lost hundreds of bees in three of my hives overwinter a couple of years ago. No obvious signs of disease.
I closed all the OMF's up after this and soon noticed that the bees thrived and there were no more piles of dead bees around the entrance and on the ground in front of the hives.
Closed them up last winter and even the poly nuc with just two frames of brood and bees going into winter survived.
I will do the same this winter as well.

 

[Finman]

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We had in Finland Robert Huber. He was born in Switzerland. He brought water pipes to Helsinki 1879.

Everyone can drink water in Helsinki without reading about R. Huber from Wikipedia.

To the Honour of Robert, we know piper water as huber.

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