bees covered 19 frames and Long White covered 17 frames. There were a lot of bees but few drones.
By 13 May, Long Blue bees covered 21 frames, had several capped queen cells but the queen was still present. The enormous size of this colony enabled two six-frame insulated nucleus hives to be made up with queen cells and the remaining colony was split in two parts in the long hive using a divider board. The old queen with flying bees was put in one end of the split and queen cells and the brood in the other. Both entrances were opened fully.
On 21 May, bees were carrying pollen into the two nucleus hives, indicating the possibility of successfully mated queens. On 28 May, both colonies had brood on two to three frames. They developed normally and were transferred to the insulated standard hives on 27 June, and a super was added in early July.
Expectations dashed
While expectations were high that Long Blue would develop similarly, no such thing happened. First the old queen disappeared, rendering one half of the split queenless. Then the queen cells emerged but the virgin queen was lost, making the other half of the split queenless. The division board was replaced with a queen excluder, the splits reunited and more queen cells added. A new queen was produced – nice looking, quite large, but stubbornly refused to leave the hive to mate. Meanwhile, the colony still had large numbers of bees, comb was pulled out, bees foraged and honey was stored.
By 17 July, this large beautiful queen had become a drone layer. She was removed and a frame of eggs and larvae introduced. Again nothing happened, no queen cells were built, the brood was capped, bees emerged and the colony carried on storing honey. By early August, and to avoid the
ABOVE Finished long hive showing my own design of adjustable entrance porch which helps bees defend against wasps BELOW Drone brood
development of drone layers, Long Blue was emptied and the 16 frames of bees shared between two standard hives.
When Long Blue was split, the Long White colony was quite large but had not developed queen cells. Long White was therefore similarly split on 17 May with the queen and flying bees in one half of the hive and the brood in the other half. No queen cells were subsequently built by the bees in the queenless split. On 22 May, the addition of a ripe queen cell produced a small queen, but she also was reluctant to leave the hive and took about five weeks to mate and lay.
Principles put to the test
The principles underlying the hive design – well insulated, sealed at the top with no ventilation other than through the open- mesh floor – worked extremely well for the bees. Both long hives developed strong colonies in 2018, went into the winter with adequate stores and aſter autumn treatment were relatively free of varroa. Wintering in insulated long hives with open-mesh floors produced no problems and I think the methodology is probably superior to wintering strategies in thin- walled timber hives. Both hives expanded well in the spring of 2019.
In both the 2018 and 2019 seasons, periodic colony inspection was unbelievably simple. The bees were invariably calm on the comb and the hive height made inspections straightforward without bending or heavy liſting. The extra horizontal space allowed frames to be easily moved sideways without having to take out complete frames unless required. The roof, when open, sheltered the top of the hive and the independent covers permited any part of the hive not under inspection, to be leſt untouched.
Daily observations showed that the long hive bees were the first to fly in the morning and the last to stop in the evening when compared to bees in thin-walled
Bee Craſt April 2020
hives. That suggests that the insulation improves the wellbeing of the bees and possibly simplifies the thermoregulation of the hive in both warm and cold conditions. Moreover, the large numbers of bees in both long hives were maintained despite the absence of laying queens. The bees also seemed to live longer than the three- or-so weeks indicated in textbooks.
Although the primary aim of the long hives is not to produce honey surpluses, my experience so far shows that large colonies of bees housed in them readily pull out foundation and store honey.
The most negative experience was queen mating. While there are many reasons for unsuccessful queen mating, it seems that the mating of virgin queens from the very large colonies in the long hives was fraught with difficulties. The simple system of swarm control and queen replacement using a colony split with the queen and flying bees in one half of the split and a queen cell and brood in the other half of the split did not work.
Thoughts for the future
Although my experience has been limited to only two seasons, it seems that there are significant behavioural differences between honey bees in insulated long hives and those housed in more conventional thin-walled hives. In consequence the insulated long hive methodology and its management is a work in progress with much to be learned. I look forward eagerly to the 2020 season.
My thanks to Simon Lee Design Ltd, Stockton-on-Tees, who provided the metal sheet offcuts.
REFERENCES
Seeley, Thomas D, Morse, Roger A and Nowogrodzki (1982). Bait Hives for Honey Bees, Information Bulletin No 187, A Cornell Cooperative Extension Publication.
tinyurl.com/BC2020-04-02
Reid, Alister (1996). Cold Wintering of Bees in Bee Craſt, February 1996.
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