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Joined: 08 Feb 2009 Posts: 309 Location: UK, devon
Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:24 pm Post subject:
Fascinating. Keep us posted please _________________ Nic, born in the Netherlands, living in the UK, Devon, my written skils are disabled by my dislexia.
WHO DOESN'T KNOW HISTORY WILL REPEAT IT.
Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 896 Location: Germany, NorthWest
Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:00 pm Post subject:
Today I dismantled the hive the first time!
The boxes were not interconnected - just as predicted (still I do not know why). But the cell orientation (the edges) were predicted to point sidewards. That was not the case - the cells pointed in every direction one can imagine! Bees....
Honey comb in the super-vertical hive:
Connection or bridges were relatively rare. I should have spaced the gaps between topbars more narrow as is in the original Warré design. That will produce even better results.
That is the brood box - combs totally covered by bees!
Bernhard _________________ ~ ubi apis, ibi salus ~
Joined: 08 Dec 2008 Posts: 332 Location: N.Ireland, Co.Antrim
Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 7:23 pm Post subject:
Great to see your creation in action Bernhard. How far down/how long are the brood combs? Did they take up the whole length of your super vertical yet? _________________ 'Leave your bees alone' Charlie Nothing
Joined: 26 Nov 2007 Posts: 896 Location: Germany, NorthWest
Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 7:46 pm Post subject:
Not the full length, yet. One box of brood, another box of honey. They felt heavy, so they will be fine for winter. It was amazing how warm the brood box was.
Bernhard _________________ ~ ubi apis, ibi salus ~
Joined: 10 Dec 2008 Posts: 13 Location: Rusia, the Urals
Posted: Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:55 am Post subject: Cross-bars
zaunreiter
Bernhard,
a simple way to ensure that deep top-bar boxes will not get interconnected with combs is two cross-bars near the bottom of a box. Cross-bars are fixed in the box across the direction of the combs and they are located at 10 mm higher than the lowermost edge of the box, so there are 10 mm gap ("bee-space") between the cross-bars and the top-bars of the lower box.
As a result:
1. Bees understand that these cross-bars may serve as good base for the combs and attach bottoms of the combs to cross-bars, not to the top-bars of the next box.
2. Even if wax connections or bridges occur, it's easy to divide boxes without wire, because you are guaranteed that there will be at least 16 gaps free of wax and propolis (each gap is 1 square inch) in the places where 2 cross-bars go over the 8 top-bars of the next box.
3. When a box is taken off the hive the burden is effectively distributed among either top-bars and cross-bars, so break-off will hardly happen.
(2 cross-bars near the bottom of the box were invented by Illarion Kullanda, Rusian beekeeper of 1880x, who used Warre-like top-bar straw hive with deep narrow boxes, resembling to your super-vertical. His boxes were cylindrical and their dimensions were: diameter - 267 mm, height - 356 mm).
Last edited by Serg on Sat Sep 05, 2009 8:22 am; edited 3 times in total
Joined: 08 Dec 2008 Posts: 332 Location: N.Ireland, Co.Antrim
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:06 pm Post subject:
Wooooaaahhh!!!!!!!!!! Check out the twig! What an inspired idea for comb strengthening. File it in biodynamics now Gareth. _________________ 'Leave your bees alone' Charlie Nothing
Wooooaaahhh!!!!!!!!!! Check out the twig! What an inspired idea for comb strengthening. File it in biodynamics now Gareth.
Actually, I downloaded the book. I hadn't realised it was in Russian.
As to the twig, I've tried this, or something similar, but the bees built two separate combs, one on either side. It was the following season before the comb fully integrated the central support. I think others have found similar results. _________________ Gareth
Other experience may lead to different conclusions. I live in a maritime climate with cool summers and wet winters.
Joined: 10 Dec 2008 Posts: 13 Location: Rusia, the Urals
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 2:17 am Post subject:
Gareth wrote:
As to the twig, I've tried this, or something similar, but the bees built two separate combs, one on either side. It was the following season before the comb fully integrated the central support.
Gareth, thanks for this notice. Did you use it in horizontal top-bar hive?
As for Kullanda's advise, I guess, his hive was deep and narrow, bees' comb-building conduct differs in different hives and depends on the type of the box.
A "bright" idea came to me - to spit pieces of comb on a central twig to quicken its integration. And to experiment with different thickness and length of the twig.
Joined: 14 Jun 2007 Posts: 5078 Location: UK, England, S. Devon
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:51 am Post subject:
Gareth wrote:
As to the twig, I've tried this, or something similar, but the bees built two separate combs, one on either side. It was the following season before the comb fully integrated the central support. I think others have found similar results.
I found they did one of four things:
1. They build a separate comb each side of the twig
2. They bend the comb around the twig, not attaching to it
3. They incorporate it into the comb
4. They built comb one side only, then used the vertical edge to build queen cells.
I didn't do it on a big enough scale to say which tendency was dominant, but there was enough variation for me not to bother recommending it as a practical technique.
Somewhere... I saw pictures of somebody using a string with a weight on the bottom instead of a stick/twig. I can just imaging the horrible tangle that would result from transporting a box of top bars with strings and weights... but if you are tidy and wind the string around the bar, it might be worth a shot. I'm not entirely sure what it sould achieve though - I have never known my bees to need a plumb-line in order to build vertical comb. _________________ The Barefoot Beekeeper The podcast Guide to Swarming and Swarm Management
very interesting. Alas would not be able to use that over here due to inspection laws.
I am assuming that the bees don't mind the scent of charred wood? _________________ Greg Hounsell Seldom Fools Apiculture http://sfapiculture.ca
Eastern Ontario's first biodynamic top-bar apiaries
The honey super looks as though it was built as storage comb and no brood was ever raised in the combs. Is this true? Do you know which box the brood was first started?
Curious as to how they organized their nest at the start and how they built out from there. _________________ I'm not as serious as I look!
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- to spit pieces of comb on a central twig to quicken its integration. And to experiment with different thickness and length of the twig.
