Vertical Tbh

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

After reading about David Heaf's modified Warre' Hive and Ian Rumsey's Simple Beehive and Beekeeping, and browsing through the Warre' hive material at Biobee, I wondered if a vertical tbh hive might be the ultimate natural cell hive. If it were managed like Ian runs his Simple Beehive, natural cell beekeeping would be easier than ever.

So, I've tossed in a few of my own tbh ideas and fiddled around with those noted above. And I've come up with an unproven version of a vertical tbh.

It's a little larger and a whole lot taller than a Warre'. It's not well insulated or as simple and Ian's hive. And it isn't a nice as David's.

But, here's the basics:

www.bwrangler.com/bee/tver.htm

What do you think?

Regards
Dennis

[stangardener]

[QUOTE=BWrangler;296940]Hi Guys,

What do you think?

my smart aleck answer to this is always "as little as possible". smart aleck but not without merit.
i don't think it's neccesary to make non lang size boxes. lang dimensions are as good as any for me. if i wanted more insulation or a smaller cavity a follower board on each side would do it. if you don't want to put a spacer on each bar you could use one 3/8" spacer. put down the spacer place a top bar pull the spacer put it down place a top bar etc. etc. in time the bar rest and your eye would know where to place it.
when i first heard of warre hives about a year ago i was glad to see a way to go verticle without frames and still have the communication and ventilation. but with kenya hives and tanzanian hives and lang hives and long hives i said enough's enough a box is a box and decided the bees could do just fine in lang dimensions. i also don't worry to much about letting the odour of the hive escape. i also don't believe frames are inherently bad and figure if you have them use them but don't be lost without them. since i use no foundation i have been trying to treat each brood box as an entire section keeping all combs in their place and not rearranged.

i would really like to thank you for the long hive plans you've shared. i have a number and really like them. i plan on supering some of them with the above metioned method though spaced for 1 1/2" combs.

[MIKI]

There are those that choose to work with nature and then there are those that settle for less. Glad to see your back in the saddle Dennis!!!

[JaiPea]

A rough calculation of three 14.5" cubes came to <30gal capacity. A medium is not quite 8 gallons so in round numbers your 3 cubes are approximately the same capacity as 4 mediums.

It is unclear to me how a 3-cube hive with an annual manipulation from top to bottom can make it through a year without running out of room.

Warre never intended to have a stable year-round configuration. Kudos to David Heaf for making the translation freely available, as it has provided the wide distribution Warre's ideas lacked. Warre's success was based on heavy lifting, and he used a lift to manipulate the boxes. To handle nectar flows requires lifting either the top box or top two boxes to insert an empty.

A stack with such a small footprint can be unstable unless the base is level, really level. Not sure if locating them in blocks of four was a normal technique to reduce toppling or a cold weather adaptation to limit exposure to the elements to two sides.

There is mention somewhere on the web that alternating the direction of frames between boxes eliminates the need to use a cutoff wire between boxes. This can't be maintained if the recommended manipulation for adding boxes is followed.

If you do pursue building one I'd be interested in a side-by-side of four deeps with top bars managed exactly the same way as the Warre. A 3-deep is closer in capacity but doesn't provide the height which is the essential element in both Warre ad Rumsey.

[Michael Bush]

>I'd be interested in a side-by-side of four deeps with top bars managed exactly the same way as the Warre.

I did side by sides of three or four deeps with top bars. The lack of communication between the boxes was a problem.

[JaiPea]

> The lack of communication between the boxes was a problem.

If you were using fullwidth top bars then lack of communication for sure.

Warre top bars are not full width, they are like Lang top bars (see the photos at http://www.mygarden.me.uk/ModifiedAbbeWarreHive.htm).

I don't see how there can be any lack of communication otherwise neither Langs nor Warres would work.

[BWrangler]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the comments. There are some good ones.

I don't know a thing about how bees construct natural comb in a tall vertical cavity. I do know, from my horizontal tbh observations, that the vertical component can be critical to colony behavior at certain times during the season.

Lots of ifs here.
...Does a vertical orientation have some biological advantage over a horizontal one?
...Will the bees construct a broodnest core in an empty box placed on the bottom?
...Is it economically worth building tall vertical boxes versus buying/shipping shorter lang deeps?

A beehive is really an adaption to the beekeepers needs as long as it doesn't interfere with the bees. To make this hive viable, a positive answer would be required for all the above. If the results are only marginally different, it would be hard to justify any vertical hive over the advantages a horizontal hive possess, especially the heavy lifting and possible tipping.

I originally planned this hive's volume at a 3 deep Lang equivalent which works out to 4 boxes. My horizontal tbhs are quite happy in about 2 1/2 deeps equivalent volume. I thought about making the boxes taller but didn't like the idea of additional weight to lift.

Regards
Dennis

[Dinor]

Dennis, in 1976 George Davis wrote a book called "Beekeeping in the Swarming Season". In it he describes a colony of bees found in a wall during demolition. The comb was only 4.5 inches wide but 4 foot 4 inches long. He described it as having no brace comb and very few drone cells; he removed it and weighed the stored honey which was 40 pounds, most of it candied. Before removal the cluster was just above half way down the combs and it could be seen that the queen had used the lower parts of the comb for laying. His observations lead him to believe that this arrangement really suited the bees in that they naturally either moved up or down the comb with the ebb and flow of the nectar. He also postulated a simple method of low intrusion beekeeping which imitated this using two British National Brood boxes where each Spring the lower box has all the comb removed and refilled with empty frames cept the middle one which should have foundation. Supers above these two brood boxes but no further examination. He reckoned this easy method of beekeeping had been used on 12 colonies for twenty years with good crops of honey and wax.
This seems similar to your concept vertical hive. I will be most interested in your results. Good luck.
Norm
PS I have a photo of that colony in the wall!