What next - Tilia lime ?

[The Drone Ranger]

sorry busybee you got me again whats an "arnia scale hive"?

[busybeephilip]

sorry busybee you got me again whats an "arnia scale hive"?

The Arnia scale hive is a hive that Belfast BKA has at the minnowburn queen rearing site which Jon manages. It is a hive on a set of scales that monitors the weight in real time and allows the person in charge (Jon) to observe the weight gain or loss through a web site via PC or wifi phone. see http://www.arnia.co.uk for details. The profile graph for weight should show when the flow starts and finishes and how the bees eat the stores at the end of the flow. Jon has the graph profiles for Belfast

I'd love to have a complete system for my own hives but it costs a fortune

[gavin]

The Arnia scale hive is a hive that Belfast BKA has at the minnowburn queen rearing site which Jon manages. It is a hive on a set of scales that monitors the weight in real time and allows the person in charge (Jon) to observe the weight gain or loss through a web site via PC or wifi phone. see http://www.arnia.co.uk for details. The profile graph for weight should show when the flow starts and finishes and how the bees eat the stores at the end of the flow. Jon has the graph profiles for Belfast

I'd love to have a complete system for my own hives but it costs a fortune

Don't get him started though on the build quality of the electronics, or the need to reboot from time to time (or was it an issue to do with the battery?).

[busybeephilip]

Don't get him started though on the build quality of the electronics, or the need to reboot from time to time (or was it an issue to do with the battery?).

Yes, I'm aware of the problems during the initial set up at Minnowburn but the Arnia people were very good in sorting out the problems. I beleive it was due to ingress of moisture into the electronics and bad signal coverage due to the remoteness of the location that were the main problems. Even with that the system is supposed to be very useful as a watchman for your hives.

I've seen hive profiles from Dromore association which showed typical weight gain and losses that a beekeeper would expect with hives in that area (out in the country) , I would imagine profiles for Belfast would be different given the increase in variable floral conditions from the urban setting

[alancooper]

The optimum temperature for secretion .... and the average nectar yield varied significantly among clones of different geographical origin. One clone secreted two to four times more than others at 10°C. ..... suggests that breeding for high nectar production at low temperature is plausible.

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/conten....full.pdf+html

As beeks, most of us know the value of locally adapted honey bees. There are also many locally adapted wild plant populations (clones) that are valuable to us. We should not forget the importance of maintaining local clovers and other local forage plants in grasslands so that plant breeders still have the building blocks to work on.