What have you done today bee-related?

[NigelP]

Did you honestly read all that ?

Even worse Mick, he wrote it and a lot more like as well, that was part 4.3 or summat like that..
I'll say no more.

[NigelP]

"No, I was summarising succinctly.
An art well worth learning...less is more." summarising to zero, Rubbishing others with rhetoric. Harm with hyperbole are more accurate descriptions of your art.
The evidence as shown above becomes in your mouth "absolutely no evidence". You then "summarise" to obscure the facts
Where did you learn your rhetoric as deception?

Rather than use ad hominem in an attempt to discredit a criticiser, why not answer the questions asked of your research.
You have not conducted any actual experiments to confirm your theories.
Discuss

[Chrisbarlow]

Popping along to the association winter talk shortly.

[Chrisbarlow]

its a great winter / early Spring so far. Ive been out adding pollen subs today. Lots of boxes with lots of bees. Most boxes had taken the sub that was given 2 weeks ago and had nothing left. It was clear though that they were bringing plenty of pollen in as well. the poly nuc boxes all had the queen exlcuders on / mouse guards and you could see in front of the nucs where the pollen had been knocked off. These have all been removed now. All boxes except 2 were heavy enough. 2 nucs had fondant added. One colony had a spare super left above the crown board and to my surprise the bees had started moving in and store nectar in there. Well done ladies. Its definately been an interesting February.

[derekm]

Rather than use ad hominem in an attempt to discredit a criticiser, why not answer the questions asked of your research.
You have not conducted any actual experiments to confirm your theories.
Discuss

BeeFriendly

I don't have to do my own, I can use other peoples experimental results. That's what I have done. It is allowed you know. As regards ad hominem, I am only returning what you have dealt.

[NigelP]

What part of there "are no published peer reviewed experimental results on the rate of honey production in wood vs poly hives" do you not understand?


.

[Jim Norfolk]

Nigel I seriously doubt that such an experiment would be published in a peer reviewed paper. The probems of conducting a controlled experiment on honey yields are such as to probably render any results open to challenge. How many uncontrollable variables are there? Bee genetics, strength of colony, position in the apiary, tendency to rob or be robbed, disease status, etc. On the other hand, there must be many beekeepers who have used both wood and poly hives on the same site and in the same season and have data on honey yield, yourself included. Maybe members of this forum can answer the question for you, even if it is only anecdotally. I am unable to help as I use wooden WBCs. I will however be leaving my insulation on over summer since Derek's conclusions make sense to me.

[NigelP]

It's a numbers game Jim. The science was published many years ago...I shall look out the paper(s) if required.
Essentially if you double the number of bees in your hive you triple your honey yield. Easy experiments to do estimating bee numbers in hives and yields in same apiary.
Poly hives come into their own in the spring, as their heat retention allows a faster production of eggs and larvae as less bees are required to generate the necessary heat. When I conducted back to back experiments in spring over a couple of years bees kept in poly vs wood there was an obvious difference in frmaes of brood. Although the numbers are low (about 15 poly vs 15 wood ), the consistent result I saw was an average of 3-4 frames of bees in wood vs 6-7 in poly. at first inspections. As I recall your wooden ones where on 6-7 frames about the same time as mine wooden hives were on 3-4.....illustrating micro-climates quite nicely.
When you have a higher number of bees = larger workforce in poly hives than wood. (all other things being equal) then you get a larger honey harvest.
Honey doesn't ripen any quicker in poly supers than wooden ones. I interchange during major flows....I haven't enough poly supers to cover my needs and see wooden supers ripen at the same rate. If there is a difference it is so small it is not of any use to the practical beekeeper.
All the theory in the world doesn't beat hands on experience or experiments.

[Jim Norfolk]

Interesting points Nigel. I agree insulation increases the amount of brood in spring so a bigger workforce and more nectar collected. So the argument is that about rate of ripening. Ripening has always puzzled me, some supers are ripened very quickly while others seem to hang about uncapped for ages. Is it the number of bees on the job, or the air flow through the super or even temperature in the super? Why also are some supers capped at 19% water while others are lower? Is there any difference between poly and wood in terms of % water in capped honey for example?

[NigelP]

More bees = more wings = faster ripening....not rocket science
When honey gets capped with a water content over 20% it's usually when there is a very strong flow on and long hours of good flying weather. I had it last year on the rape where I harvested supers at 22% water. They had filled and capped them within a week during , what was the start, of our extended summer good weather. This was hives actually sat on the edge of a rape field, it didn't occur where the bees had to fly longer distances to it....also their yields per hive where lower due to the extra flying time.
You get the same on the heather, nearly all my extracted sealed heather honey last year was between 21-22% water.
My thoughts are that the bees are bringing in nectar at such a prodigious rate that they run out of room to process it.
And they cap it at higher water content than they would do normally. It's noticeable that heather honey ,in years of poorer flying weather is usually under 20% water.
There are ,lots of complex bits to this equation, but that's what biology is all about, trying to understand how all the different factors influence the whole.