Poly hive musings.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... I've mentioned before that there isn't a bee space between two brood boxes so my top box has a strip of wood on top of the plastic runner to give me the right space and less bees get squashed. ...

I wish I took more note of your post, Adam. I've just discovered the lack-of-bee-space problem when using two MB brood boxes. The space between the frames is about 5mm. Can a bee squeeze through that?

I'll buy another roof and floor so that I can use the two brood boxes as single-brood hives, and then that's it - no more MB nationals.

Kitta

I've just discovered Dave Cushman's page on bee spaces. It seems bees can use a 5mm gap and because the box is polystyrene, the sides will not shrink, so that 5mm shouldn't reduce - but still, it's perhaps a bit tight.

PPS: I found a pair of callipers. The space between the frames is 4mm so, according to DC, only usable by the smallest of bees.

[fatshark]

I made the first of a phased move out of an MB National this w/e ... I transferred the brood to a cedar box (bottom bee space) and then added a 9mm shim built from 32x9mm stripwood. This was built (er, bodged) so the internal space was the same dimensions as the internal space of a National BB. Therefore it protruded out on all sides and provided a platform to balance the (reassuringly heavy) MB supers on top. I think this should solve the bee space problem until the end of the season. This shim will also be useful when I use a clearer board once they've eaten all the honey in the coming week of bad weather ...

Yet again, when dismantling this box, the QE was propolised to the bottom super (despite lashings of vaseline) and they were not happy with me when I prised it all apart

I've also bodged a couple of Paynes 8 frame nucs as suggested by Adam via Gavin a couple of page ago. I used "Mega Grip" to glue everything together (and fill the inevitable crevices from my 'surgery') and then added a thin skin of Polyfilla wood filler over the butchered bits, the rough inner poly and around the entrance. The Paynes poly nuc I transferred bees out of into this new luxurious accommodation had 3 inches of fermenting syrup and several hundred corpses in the feeder

A few more left to modify before breaking up hives for over wintering nucs ...

[Adam]

I wish I took more note of your post, Adam. I've just discovered the lack-of-bee-space problem when using two MB brood boxes. The space between the frames is about 5mm. Can a bee squeeze through that?

I'll buy another roof and floor so that I can use the two brood boxes as single-brood hives, and then that's it - no more MB nationals.

Kitta

I've just discovered Dave Cushman's page on bee spaces. It seems bees can use a 5mm gap and because the box is polystyrene, the sides will not shrink, so that 5mm shouldn't reduce - but still, it's perhaps a bit tight.

PPS: I found a pair of callipers. The space between the frames is 4mm so, according to DC, only usable by the smallest of bees.

With my MB hive, I tried to pass a 4 mm drill shank between the top and bottom frames with two brood boxes and it wouldn't go, so the space was less that 4 mm. Between a super and brood box the space was about 12 mm (from memory) wigh is too big. I had painted them before assembly, otherwise I might have returned them. The MB hive would make a good 10 frame "nuc" for over-wintering a colony. My MB hive is now empty. The bees had not done as they were told before-hand - like they do sometimes - so now sit comfortably in an 8-frame nuc. I will give them a stiff talking-to so they behave next year.

[Mellifera Crofter]

I don't know, Adam - I might have complained too early. I already have a National MB double brood-box hive in use. I was unaware of the small gap between the top and bottom frames when I put the bees in that one - however, yesterday, when I inspected that hive, the bees were moving quite happily between the two sets of frames. They did not seem to struggle at all. I've seen bees struggling to get through a queen excluder - but not there.

I was wondering whether there might be a reason for the small gap - for example, it reduces the gap in the middle of a mid-winter cluster when the bees are clustered between the two boxes. In nature the combs would have been large sheets from top to bottom - no gap at all. Also, as long as the frames are lined up above each other (and that might sometimes be difficult), does it matter?

Kitta

[prakel]

Has anyone used the Paradise langstroths with the interlocking lip and their beespace split between lower and upper boxes?

Got to say that if I was considering a poly hive their jumbo would appear to be the most competively priced for someone with bees already in md boxes -although I assume that you'd only fit 9 (proper) md brood frames in a jumbo box. On the other side of the coin I imagine that the interlocking feature could easily result in lots of crushed bees.

[Mellifera Crofter]

Yes, I'm using them (MB all-medium hives), but I've now decided to change back to Nationals.

You're right, Prakel - a lot of squashed bees as a result of the interlocking lips. At first I liked them because I thought no wind can force its way into the hive - but I hate hearing that crunching noise. The design of the MB Nationals is better. The top of the box is flat, and the overhanging lip (from the next box up) is slanted so it's a bit easier to push the bees aside.

Why do you think the bee space is split between the two boxes? I'll have to go and check. If you use MB's frames, then I suppose it can be thought of as split, but I thought it resulted in a bottom bee-spaced hive. I've posted this image before:

IMG_3572.jpg

I haven't tried the boxes with the more usual frames where the lugs are thinner than the top bar, but I was under the impression that if you do, that would change the hive to the usual Langstroth top bee-space. (I do not recommend the MB frames.)

What is an 'md box' and 'md frames', Prakel?

Kitta

[fatshark]

You're right, Prakel - a lot of squashed bees as a result of the interlocking lips. At first I liked them because I thought no wind can force its way into the hive - but I hate hearing that crunching noise. The design of the MB Nationals is better. The top of the box is flat, and the overhanging lip (from the next box up) is slanted so it's a bit easier to push the bees aside.

I increasingly see the overhanging lip of the MB National as good in theory but not in practice. It makes adding boxes askew and gently rotating them almost impossible - you can't see them crawl up or down onto the broad flat connecting faces of the boxes - the and it prevents using a hive tool to separate the boxes. I suspect it does help prevent water ingress and (perhaps) wind, but I think that's one of the things the bees use propolis for.

[gavin]

Sounds like the key design feature of the Wormit hive, widely regarded as a good idea but impractical for those who enjoy neither squashing bees nor chewing up their woodwork with the hive tool.

[Adam]

I don't know, Adam - I might have complained too early. I already have a National MB double brood-box hive in use. I was unaware of the small gap between the top and bottom frames when I put the bees in that one - however, yesterday, when I inspected that hive, the bees were moving quite happily between the two sets of frames. They did not seem to struggle at all. I've seen bees struggling to get through a queen excluder - but not there.

I was wondering whether there might be a reason for the small gap - for example, it reduces the gap in the middle of a mid-winter cluster when the bees are clustered between the two boxes. In nature the combs would have been large sheets from top to bottom - no gap at all. Also, as long as the frames are lined up above each other (and that might sometimes be difficult), does it matter?

Kitta

My concern is that if you slide the frames in the top brood box across, you'll squash bees underneath. Of course it's difficult to slide frames as the ends of the top bars are hard up against the hive!

[prakel]

Why do you think the bee space is split between the two boxes? I'll have to go and check. If you use MB's frames, then I suppose it can be thought of as split, but I thought it resulted in a bottom bee-spaced hive. I've posted this image before:

IMG_3572.jpg

I haven't tried the boxes with the more usual frames where the lugs are thinner than the top bar, but I was under the impression that if you do, that would change the hive to the usual Langstroth top bee-space. (I do not recommend the MB frames.)

What is an 'md box' and 'md frames', Prakel?

Kitta

Hi Kitta, I did actually ask the question of the guy who used to own MB after wasting too much time staring at the cross section photos on their website and his email reply was that the bee space (with 'off the peg' frames) is split between the two boxes rather than being top or bottom. I have wondered whether this might be in part an effort to avoid lifting the lower frames when removing the top box due their being connected by so called ladder comb; if the boxes were top bee space there would be a greater 'lift' before you could get the hive tool in to break the joining comb.

I think that after a couple of years regular use this ladder comb issue will probably become the bain of their BS type boxes -with such a narrow gap the bees will surely start joining the combs unless of course they're better behaved than mine!

md hives: modified dadant. The proper md frames although superficially the same size as the jumbo are spaced at one and a half inches rather than the one and a three eights (?) of the langstroth jumbo brood frame. I know that some people will disagree with this, but a md frame is -and has always been- based on the one and a half inch spacing. To my mind the narrower spacing moves it into the Langstroth jumbo class. It's based on this that I would assume that the Paradise boxes will only take 9 md frames; the primary assumption being that they're designed to take 10 Langstroth Jumbo frames. None of this is overly important, I was just trying to get my head around the dimensions.

EDIT: It's this frame spacing issue which I believe has resulted in the ability to fit 12 new frames in a national box or to have a slightly larger than necessary gap at the side -the boxes were designed for 11 frames with wider spacing than is commonly available today. In the same way that my (few) BS boxes with external dimensions of 18.5"X20" which were built and used by Manley and written about by him as being 12 frame boxes actually take 13 modern BS frames. Luckily they're a little more forgiving than the national and take the 13 frames easily at all stages.