Words fail me ...

[Little John]

Exactly, just think of it in a non beekeepers prospective, plonk it in your garden, swarm moves in, honey boxes get nice and full and then remove them

Bl##dy expensive honey ...
LJ

 

[REDWOOD]

Bl##dy expensive honey ...
LJ

Price is no object to some, or more money than sense.

 

[Olivia9801]

Arghh.... That John Noakes is a clever chap!

Haven't seen him for years. Glad he's keeping himself busy!

By the way..... how is "Shep" these days?

 

[ugcheleuce]

I don't even know how to introduce this 'thing' to the forum, so I'll just post the link...

If all goes well, I'll have extra bees this spring, so I'm now actually thinking of building this thing. With some adjustments, obviously.

Populating the hive can be done with a shook swarm (no mucking about with lemon grass oil and hoping for a cast swarm).

Cost: approximately €30 (excluding paint, roof and legs), plus about €10 per honey box (four of them).

I'd prefer the brood column to be 50-60 litres, but one can't accomplish that with British scaffold board (as in the original design) unless the brood column is 3 meters tall (!!). Dutch scaffold board ("steigerhout") is thinner but also narrower, so similar problems apply.

One of the design principles of this hive is that is uses cheap, readily available sized planks, and the cheapest standardised planks in my region are 1.8 x 8.0 cm tongue-and-groove planks. If I use three of them side by side, I can obtain my target volume with a brood column that's just 1.5 meters tall.

Additionally, making the brood column in two sections of 75 cm tall (screwed together more or less permanently) will make it easier to clear out old brood comb after 3-5 years or to perform a brood dump during flows that require much larger numbers of foragers.

I'll make removeable observation windows at various heights so that I can check the hive's progress through plexiglass windows and optionally take comb samples. This is such an odd-looking hive that I'm sure it'll be a hit with the public on beekeeping association open days.

Since the honey boxes don't need to be durable, I'll make them from multiplex, to dimensions that can take 5 standard British National honey frames hanging vertically. This gives complete control over beespace in the honey boxes and will ensure that the boxes don't stick to the sides of the brood column (as they inevitably will in the original design). Using framed honey boxes will also enable me to swap out single frames so I don't have to wait for the entire honey box to fill up, or to produce sections, or to separate honey from different flows.

The honey boxes will be affixed with clasps (not screws, as in the original design) -- it's a bit silly to have to carry an electric screw driver to harvest honey.

One should not add honey boxes until there is sealed honey in the upper region of the brood column, so the risk of the queen getting into the honey box will be minimal. Varroa control and varroa counting can be done in ways similar to that of framed hives.

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts.

 

[seaknight]

I do hope that's an ill timed April Fool, my dog wouldn't micturate, defecate or have intercourse next to it! Makes a mockery of everything we stand for!

 

[Little John]

The weird thing is, this hive will actually produce honey.

Of course. Bees will move into almost any structure - rubbish bins, compost bins, sheds, inside old machinery or disused refrigerators - and still produce honey.
But a 'beehive' is supposed to be a little more than that - allowing for humans to easily extract the honey, inspect the bees, feed them as necessary, and generally ensure that they have the best possible chance of survival. And it's an added bonus if the hive is reasonably pleasant to look at, rather than being an assault on the visual senses.

Ironically, I wholeheartedly support the idea of people building their own hives, and am currently engaged in the (slow) process of building a website with as many examples of my own DIY as possible. I'm actually encouraging people to settle for 'good enough' rather than build beehives to the same level of construction as fine Chippendale furniture, and to use scaffold boards or pallet planks in order to bring down the cost to just a few pounds per box. But - I don't sell beehives and I don't sell plans, and any information I possess is provided in a warm-hearted spirit of shared information and thus completely free-of-charge.

I have seen many finely-built Kenyan Top Bar Hives (for example) - built to a standard which would not look out of place in suburban middle-class drawing rooms - being offered to sale at the same price this guy is asking for his crude lash-up. No doubt that is why I am so scathingly dismissive of this pi$$-poor effort, which smells so strongly of a blatant rip-off. If the guy had simply built his contraption, taken a few photos and maybe included a diagram for anyone else who might be tempted to build one - he'd get no criticism from me - but to give it the big sales pitch and with a £185 basic price tag (+£60 for 'de-luxe) to boot - well, in my book that's no different than mugging little old ladies.
LJ

 

[Little John]

If all goes well, I'll have extra bees this spring, so I'm now actually thinking of building this thing. With some adjustments, obviously.

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts.

I've often thought about making a vertical 'scaffold-board' hive, but there was always one design issue I couldn't solve - that of easily inspecting the brood nest. I don't know what your own laws are pertaining to bees, but over here a Bee Inspector has the right to insist on inspecting brood combs individually and, if there's been an outbreak of Foul Brood within the vicinity, then to take comb samples as well.
In order to do this a hive must either have boxes with framed combs, or have fixed-comb boxes which can be removed from the stack, and their combs then cut-out for close inspection.

Because of this requirement, a contiguous vertical 'scaffold-board' hive with fixed combs, relying for spiles for support etc., appears to be a non-starter.

There are a couple of alternatives, one of which can be seen here:
http://heretics-guide.site90.com/beek17.htm
http://heretics-guide.site90.com/beek17a.htm
where scaffold boards have been used to make 8-frame boxes in a fairly orthodox way.

You say "I can obtain my target volume with a brood column that's just 1.5 meters tall." Well - that's an interesting comment - because 1.5 metres just happens to be the frame length in this hive, which was made by Polish prisoners-of-war in Cumbria, England during WWII:

From time to time I've considered making something similar, but the frame depths would need to fit into my existing apiary somehow ...

This is one idea I've had - it's essentially a one-box framed Warre hive, where the boxes are actually 'virtual' boxes, and formed by inserting a movable floor. No need then to lift a stack of boxes to nadir another - just move the floor down a notch and insert 8 more frames:

Dunno if that sort of thing appeals to you - you could make the sentry box itself from scaffold board, or whatever you have available. If you leave a hollow compartment at the sentry box's base, a couple of paving slabs could then be inserted there to give the box some much needed stability.

As you seem to have a design more-or-less firmed-up, I won't comment on that directly, except to say that it sounds interesting and I'm sure your workmanship will be up to the job.

I can't easily figure out what your intended hive cross-sectional area will be, but if you were to select 30cm x 30cm (internally - same as a Warre) by a length of 0.75m , that would give you a little over 65 litres.

'best
LJ

 

[Erichalfbee]

This is one idea I've had - it's essentially a one-box framed Warre hive, where the boxes are actually 'virtual' boxes, and formed by inserting a movable floor. No need then to lift a stack of boxes to nadir another - just move the floor down a notch and insert 8 more frames:

Now, that is ingenious

 

[ugcheleuce]

Inspectability

I don't know what your own laws are pertaining to bees, but over here a Bee Inspector has the right to insist on inspecting brood combs individually and, if there's been an outbreak of Foul Brood within the vicinity, then to take comb samples as well.

We have no bee inspectors (anymore). There are laws with regard to AFB (and now also small hive beetle) outbreaks, but no ease-of-inspection regulations. Obviously if your region has these extra rules, you should stick to framed or top-barred hives.

Personally I find the requirement to be able to inspect combs individually unnecessary -- no bee inspector is going to inspect all 1000 brood frames in a 50 hive apiary. No, he'll check the middle frame of each hive (if indeed he does inspect every single hive).

In the skep beekeeping days, bee inspectors inspected the brood nest by cutting away a strip of comb from the middle of the centre comb, using a knife on a stick.

I'd like to think of myself as a responsible beekeeper w.r.t. brood inspection, but having the ability to take samples from the middle of the brood nest would be sufficient for my liking. The easiest way to accomplish that in a fixed-comb hive is to have openings in the hives walls (or, in the case of horizontal fixed-comb hives, a removable floor). These openings can be doors large enough to stick a gloved hand into or plugged round holes into which a long apple corer type of device can be inserted into.

On using scaffold board

There are a couple of alternatives ... where scaffold boards have been used to make 8-frame boxes in a fairly orthodox way.

Yes, I've also often thought of scaffold board ("steigerhout") as a potentially easy to use building material for stacked hives. With local scaffold board I can make hive bodies that're 19.5 cm high, which is too short for BN brood frames, but you can use long screws to attach a second bottom bar to the bottom of a British National honey frame to get the right sized frame:

However, such hive bodies would be very heavy. And scaffold board tends to warp (due to which part of the tree they're typically made of), and shrink or expand in unpredictable ways that wouldn't bother a scaffolder but which is critical for beekeeping.

Also, while using scaffold board for a column hive (such as the Hancock hive) means glueing edges to edges, using it for a stacked hive would mean glueing edges to ends, which is not the strongest joint.

Front/rear opening hives

1.5 metres just happens to be the frame length in this hive, which was made by Polish prisoners-of-war in Cumbria, England during WWII...

You can actually count the cells on those combs, and if you do, you get this:

* if it's all worker comb: 16 cm wide x 37 cm tall
* if it's all drone comb: 19 cm wide x 46 cm tall

So, about the same size as a Langstroth hanging vertically. Not 1.5 metres, I think.

This is one idea I've had - it's essentially a one-box framed Warre hive, where the boxes are actually 'virtual' boxes, and formed by inserting a movable floor. No need then to lift a stack of boxes to nadir another - just move the floor down a notch and insert 8 more frames...

I'm afraid I can't (yet) produce hives to the precision required by front/rear access hives. Also I think the material is likely to be more expensive because you'd need to use wood that keeps it's shape no matter what.

If you're going to build something like that, then here's an idea: instead of hanging individual frames into that hive, try making removeable "trays" by using thin multiplex, i.e. essentially hive bodies cut down somewhat so that they don't rest on top of each other but can slide in and out of the hive like drawers in a cupboard. Still, you'd have to do precision work to ensure the bees don't glue everything together... because you won't be able to just crack it open with your hive tool.

Dunno if that sort of thing appeals to you...

No, the reason why I'm considering the Hancock hive is because it's a fixed-comb hive with a narrow diameter that would also allow easy honey harvesting. I've always wanted a fixed-comb hive, as a curiousity.

I can't easily figure out what your intended hive cross-sectional area will be, but if you were to select 30cm x 30cm (internally - same as a Warre) by a length of 0.75m , that would give you a little over 65 litres.

True -- that would give you 900 cm2. What I like about the Hancock hive is that it is a *narrow-diameter* hive, i.e. like a real tree would be, hence my design's cross-sectional area of 20 cm x 20 cm (400 cm2). So 1.5 metres is tall enough for 50-60 litres. The original Hancock design's cross-sectional area is 15 cm x 15 cm (225 cm2), which is too narrow.

The original Hancock hive unnecessarily tiny. Its brood column is only about half the size of a single British National brood box, and it's three honey boxes put together are smaller than half of one single British National super.

 

[Little John]

You can actually count the cells on those combs,

Maybe you can, but my eyes aren't up to that task ...

and if you do, you get this:

* if it's all worker comb: 16 cm wide x 37 cm tall
* if it's all drone comb: 19 cm wide x 46 cm tall

So, about the same size as a Langstroth hanging vertically. Not 1.5 metres, I think.

Thanks for going to the trouble of measuring those frames - the 1.5 metre figure comes from the Dave Cushman site, together with a reference to the original Bee-Craft article about that unusual hive - suggesting perhaps that the 1.5 metre frame length was mentioned there ?

Like yourself, I had doubts - as the drone cells (which are visible as such) do seem very big - if that were a 1.5 metre frame.

But unlike yourself, I just accepted that figure for now on the basis that a genuine sentry box would be somewhere around 1.8-1.9 metres high and therefore 1.5 for the frames would be about right. I assume Dave Cushman thought the same.

So - it would appear that sentry box is a miniature then ? A 'toy' sentry box, and not a real one - LOL

LJ

 

[ugcheleuce]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3j_7SXTsmc

 

[chrisb]

Jeez, you really do have issues with Townies and people from down south dont you!

I dont think I have ever read a post from you that isnt derogatory towards them.

I live in a town and find the comment of " townies" abusive and rather racist, but the term townie is usually only used by carrot crunchers