looking at the discussions on other posts I thought I would start a new thread to talk about peoples experiences and thoughts about the various set ups they have and what they consider works best for them. This isn't intended to say one way is better than the other rather than just hear peoples differing opinions.
I use mostly wooden hives and for the first 5 or 6 years I had open mesh floors with roof ventilation and the crown board insulated & Varroa insert in over Winter. This worked fine although I always had small colonies and didn't really know any better.
Then I was gifted 5 colonies at a local farm whose owner had died. They were in ancient hives and probably not been inspected for 3 or 4 years looking at them. They were a mixture of nationals, commercials and Smith hives with all the frames mixed up as well. Some were nailed together and I had to crowbar the boxes apart. Inside the frames and dummy boards had woodworm. But the bees were in amazing condition. What caught my attention was they were all on the old solid Yorkshire heather floors, no mesh and solid crown boards with hessian bags ( smelling of creosote ) for insulation. The floor of every hive was immaculate. Not a sign of Varroa, deformed wings, CBPV or Nosema. Combs were jet black.
So I began to experiment with my colonies using solid floors and insulating the crown boards all year round and its been a revelation. Those colonies all grew faster, bigger and were more productive than any of the ventilated hives. Next year I plan for all my colonies to be sealed up.
This year there was another development which has never happened before in my beekeeping experience, we had a warm and sometimes HOT June and July , there I have gone and said it !! Now my bees reaction to this was to seal themselves in very tight. Every colony that still had a feed hole which I cover with mesh sealed it up completely. Several colonies even sealed up the entrances leaving just a few holes for access. I can only presume that they wanted to exclude the ambient air temperature as it was too warm for ooop norf bees.
I also have been using a couple of poly hives over the last 4 years as I had heard so many reports about how good they were and decided to get some. I have used them alongside my wood hives, sometimes with sister queens side by side, at different apiaries and different amounts of exposure to the elements. My experience has been very different to what I was expecting and I am in the process of removing them from use. I am not suggesting they are bad, they just don't work for my bees. I do wonder if there is a bit of groupthink around poly hives. 2 legs good 4 legs better. Anyway, they rarely overwinter better than the wood and are always flooded with water come the Spring inspections with several rotting and mould covered frames and comb full of stagnant water. I think the bees just don't seal the sides up on double brood. Once Spring arrives they are always blown away by the wood colonies. This I put down to the fact they are too insulated and don't warm up with the sun on them while the ambient air temp is still cold. I put a wooden hive and a poly hive in my garden so I could observe them in the sun. Some days the poly bees never left the entrance while the others were out foraging for hours. The big advantage of poly is the weight. They are a pleasure to work with but I now have a proper 4x4 so I can drive right up to all my colonies and weight isn't so much of a concern.
Sorry to waffle on, the wife is on the lash up at the Toon so just sat in Billy no mates writing this..LOL
I use mostly wooden hives and for the first 5 or 6 years I had open mesh floors with roof ventilation and the crown board insulated & Varroa insert in over Winter. This worked fine although I always had small colonies and didn't really know any better.
Then I was gifted 5 colonies at a local farm whose owner had died. They were in ancient hives and probably not been inspected for 3 or 4 years looking at them. They were a mixture of nationals, commercials and Smith hives with all the frames mixed up as well. Some were nailed together and I had to crowbar the boxes apart. Inside the frames and dummy boards had woodworm. But the bees were in amazing condition. What caught my attention was they were all on the old solid Yorkshire heather floors, no mesh and solid crown boards with hessian bags ( smelling of creosote ) for insulation. The floor of every hive was immaculate. Not a sign of Varroa, deformed wings, CBPV or Nosema. Combs were jet black.
So I began to experiment with my colonies using solid floors and insulating the crown boards all year round and its been a revelation. Those colonies all grew faster, bigger and were more productive than any of the ventilated hives. Next year I plan for all my colonies to be sealed up.
This year there was another development which has never happened before in my beekeeping experience, we had a warm and sometimes HOT June and July , there I have gone and said it !! Now my bees reaction to this was to seal themselves in very tight. Every colony that still had a feed hole which I cover with mesh sealed it up completely. Several colonies even sealed up the entrances leaving just a few holes for access. I can only presume that they wanted to exclude the ambient air temperature as it was too warm for ooop norf bees.
I also have been using a couple of poly hives over the last 4 years as I had heard so many reports about how good they were and decided to get some. I have used them alongside my wood hives, sometimes with sister queens side by side, at different apiaries and different amounts of exposure to the elements. My experience has been very different to what I was expecting and I am in the process of removing them from use. I am not suggesting they are bad, they just don't work for my bees. I do wonder if there is a bit of groupthink around poly hives. 2 legs good 4 legs better. Anyway, they rarely overwinter better than the wood and are always flooded with water come the Spring inspections with several rotting and mould covered frames and comb full of stagnant water. I think the bees just don't seal the sides up on double brood. Once Spring arrives they are always blown away by the wood colonies. This I put down to the fact they are too insulated and don't warm up with the sun on them while the ambient air temp is still cold. I put a wooden hive and a poly hive in my garden so I could observe them in the sun. Some days the poly bees never left the entrance while the others were out foraging for hours. The big advantage of poly is the weight. They are a pleasure to work with but I now have a proper 4x4 so I can drive right up to all my colonies and weight isn't so much of a concern.
Sorry to waffle on, the wife is on the lash up at the Toon so just sat in Billy no mates writing this..LOL