Natural Beekeeping Network

biobee · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:46 pm Post subject:

Hello Gunther,

Are you the Gunther who has bees near Start Point? If so, I would like to visit you sometime, if that's possible.

The reason for not having a top entrance is that you would create a 'chimney' effect and the hive atmosphere would escape. This makes a lot of extra work for the bees, as they are unable to plug the 'leak' easily, but in my experience they will try to propolize any entrance that is more than about halfway up the total height of the hive.

Welcome here anyway, whichever Gunther you are!
_________________
Friends of the Bees www.friendsofthebees.org
The Barefoot Beekeeper www.biobees.com

gunther · flying bee Joined: 23 Jul 2008 Posts: 120 Location: devon

cheers for your reply.
i did'nt mean atop and bottom entrance, but only a top one. the bees could'nt propolize their only entrance, suppose feral bees found a hollow tree, which entrance would they prefer, given the choice.
i think for the hive, they prefer vertical to horizontal, i am just fascinated with frere warre's system, but since i have now only this one swarm, and they are lovely gentle bees, iwant to do everything i can, not to loose them over winter. i wonder what to do about varroa, and what to feed them if i have to. every i sit in front of the hive and watch them, they are still cleaning out bits of that mouse nest. they drop dry leaves and stuff outside the hive, but other bits they take far away. i dont know what it is and where they go. all i 've done is changed the floor, and closed half the entrance, since i saw a wasp trying to sneak in.
my bees are near gunnislake just across the tamar river. i have field, where i keep some chickens, try grow some veg. etc.
you are welcome to visit, i understand you are somewhere in devon also

biobee · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:09 pm Post subject:

gunther · flying bee Joined: 23 Jul 2008 Posts: 120 Location: devon

i have just stumbled across ian rumsey's "hollow tree experiment" and other stuff of his about horizontal and vertical cell construction etc. all in line with warre's thinking of hive dimensions. looks like bees can handle the mites and probably brood diseases by themselves, given the right circumstances. modern beekeeping seems to be responsible for the sad state of our bees. maybe some conspiracy from those guys selling the expensive equipment and all the cemicals, just out of sheer greed. ha ha!
my swarm today very busy flying, and carrying lots of pollen, hope the weather lasts a bit, must be getting towards the end of flow now. not worried about honey now, just get this swarm into next season. cherio

biobee · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:30 pm Post subject:

zaunreiter · Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject:

I try to adapt the Warre hive with Rumsey's findings.

See: http://www.biobees.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=9859

Bernhard
_________________
~ back to the bees ~

tmackic

zaunreiter · Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 10:07 am Post subject:

I stumbled over the same. I'm unsure about this, but 21 cm to 34 cm is exactly the Fibonacci Golden Ratio thing. Maybe the bees include the hive body into their sense of the bee colony's organism?

In my super-vertical Warre' I swapped the measurements, so the box became 21cm in width and 34 in height. Well, although the hive was packed with comb only little connection between the boxes occured.

Without further experiments we know only nothing.

Bernhard
_________________
~ back to the bees ~