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British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • Is this normally do-able, or unusual?

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #8916  by NigelP
 19 Sep 2020, 12:38
That is probably an endorsement given the rubbish that is posted on "that" forum as advice for beekeeping.
A quick read tells me they are still spouting rubbish.....two posts yesterday, one stating wet supers do not attract wax moth. As anyone who has had wax moth devastate their wet supers will know; that is baloney. Another stating pollen doesn't go mouldy over the winter because the pollen mites eat it all!!!!! Wish they did mine ....as it always goes mouldy...although not this year as frozen the stuff.
You could be forgiven for thinking those were posts of rank amateurs but no they were posts from two of the people who run the forum (apparently called staff and super administrators).....no hope for anyone over there with type of poor advice being brandied out.
Last edited by NigelP on 19 Sep 2020, 17:49, edited 3 times in total.
 #8936  by pingping
 20 Sep 2020, 12:29
I'll pass over the insults and the allegation that I was banned elsewhere. I do find it a little frustrating coming up against closed minds.

To answer a couple of questions at once, I have used conventional hives, understand it as a moment of genius, but that moment was 170years ago. I have beekeeping books from 1890 that are indistinguishable from today's in general methods.

I also appreciate that over time and in the experience of individual keepers a vast amount of effort and skill has been expended and developed to overcome the shortcomings of what is now a very outdated technological breakthrough.

I find that if I propose an idea for example here it is taken as an assault on the experience and skill of some beekeepers. I do not do think like that, nor are my findings a challenge to them personally or their skill. But discoveries are made. The tank replaces the cavalry.

I have assembled into a hive solutions to several major obstacles and any beekeeper who also loves this activity and business should not take that as a personal challenge but an intellectual one.

The Internet allows researchers to de-silo local and past knowledge. Research papers from extraordinary, vast studies in the US from the 30's to today are remarkable, but they don't translate to market. Nor do the individual breakthroughs of 50 year beekeepers who start blogging at 70. Pulling all that together is a wonderful thing.

I was in the past a research botanist and ecologist. I know more about plants than most. In this instance the thermal characteristics of tree trunks in which bees live and to which they are perfectly adapted. You all instinctively know that trees do not freeze, for example, even in the Arctic. Bee hives do. Trees never feel hot or cold to the touch, but ambient. How exactly is external ambient temperature governed internall in a tree, and is it communicated to the bees within?

Langstroth's breakthrough completely failed to replicate these natural thermal bee conditions, and no one else has done so. Poly hives, for example, are like putting an engine on a horse: they fail to completely rethink to fully utilise new knowledge.

I haven't solved everything, but I have a system that makes that critical thermal relationship its central object. No one has effectively cracked the issues that come from insulating standard type hives - condensation, thermal isolation, etc. I seem to have, and very cheaply.

The outcomes are extraordinary, to such a degree that they are described as tall tales, above. I will go so far as to say that almost everything we think we know about bee behaviour in the hive that has been learnt from studying bees in standard hives is wrong. A standard northern hemisphere queen will lay, for example, 3000-4000 eggs per day, not 1000, for two years, slowing to 1000 in year 3. Colonies are regularly 80000 strong. Slotting foundation into the middle of a brood nest in February to force expansion will be drawn and laid in in a week. Such is the true rate of productivity and reproductive capacity of bees properly accommodated that nucs should be productive colonies in 1 month, rehived swarms in May will draw 16-20 brood frames, fill them with 50+lb and be ready to swarm again in 1 month. Etc. This translates commercially. The honey that comes out is so rich and strong it sells on markets for £12-24 /lb. I expect 100 commercially run hives would comfortably make 20-30,000lb per year of broad spectrum honey for the hive management time input of 25 hives. Extraction takes longer, though, quantity wise.

I asked this question in the header because I need genuine references for normal output as a baseline. It was put badly and I have not the info I wanted. I should have asked the following instead. I would be grateful if you answered it honestly:

If you started a colony in early March on 2 seams at 5" across and without adding brood or population, what would you expect of that colony in the season?

Thanks in advance for sharing your expertise.
 #8941  by pingping
 20 Sep 2020, 15:19
huntsman. wrote:
20 Sep 2020, 14:34
You say; <A standard northern hemisphere queen ...>

Please define such a mythical creature.
The spectrum of black, Bucks, mongrel, swarm, other N. Hem. strain found in UK hives.
 #8943  by NigelP
 20 Sep 2020, 17:34
pingping wrote:
20 Sep 2020, 12:29
I'll pass over the insults and the allegation that I was banned elsewhere. I do find it a little frustrating coming up against closed minds.
Very few closed minds on this forum, but you are proving a lot of rhetoric with little substance to back it up.
If you are determined to keep your method secret so be it....but is it fair to tantalise other beekeepers with your "holy Grail".
Many beekeepers are prone to exaggeration to the nth degree, how can we tell your claims are genuine without more information as to your methodology?