Hives As Home Insulation?!

[Cacklewack]

Greetings all,

I had an interesting conversation with a man yesterday who claims he grew up in a massive 11,000 SQFT home in Kelso, Washington created by Bill Renner with the intention of housing bees in one of the walls. He lined inside of the wall with glass, supposedly to protect it from staining/destruction from honey. Apparently there were numerous hives in the wall that he wanted both for the honey and the insulation.

Have any of you heard of anything like this? The man is a crazy woodworker, so who knows if he can be trusted! He even gave me the address of the home...

Best regards,
Matt

[xC0000005]

THat's a couple hours from here. It would be interesting, but that's one heck of a drive.

[alpha6]

Not sure what the R factor would be on a "bee wall" but probably not great. Though you could build a regular insulated wall with dry wall on both sides for the outside wall then create an inner wall of glass which would work fine. The question would be how to harvest the honey. You would have to do this from the outside as if you did it from the inside you would have lots of bees in the kitchen and as chef can attest too many bees spoil the soup. Additionally the costs associated with this would be high. Why not make a large observation hive and raise your bees in standard hives for the honey production? Lastly, resale market would be very small. Other then the nuts on beesource I am sure a bee hive house would drive away the majority of buyers.

[Ian]

Remember, their cluster size shrinks in size as the temperature gets colder, so there will be a spot where you have generated heat off the clusters, but the rest of the walls would be nothing.

[Swobee]

The home would actually be losing heat to the bees, not the other way around (most likely). I would think this may cause unnecessary activity in the colonies and cause them to use up their stores more quickly. In the summer, the colonies would generate a lot of heat and some of that would be lost into the home. Remember, heat doesn't rise (hot air does) but it radiates, conducts or convects to a place that is less hot. Not aware of the local environment in that area, it might be a rather unwise decision. The wall would have to be ventilated with an escape to the outside for cleansing and other flights. Openings in exterior walls is a no-no, period no matter what building scientist you talk with.

I'd rather see an OB hive instead with an access pipe or tube to the exterior. If anyone gets photos, please send them to me. I have a conference on building science to attend in 3 weeks. This could be an interesting study!

[riverrat]

wax being flamable I sure would hate to have it around the electrical outlets. There are far more better options to insulate a wall than with bees. I would sheetrock then buy an OB hive.

[alpha6]

I'd rather see an OB hive instead with an access pipe or tube to the exterior. If anyone gets photos, please send them to me. I have a conference on building science to attend in 3 weeks. This could be an interesting study!

Did Cacklewack get the idea from this??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzv5aWYrSaw

Swobee thought you would also find this interesting.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ANTSvKj1AZEC&pg=PA314&lpg=PA314&dq=house+built+with+a+bee+wall&source=web&ots=I9NL1zHzgn&sig=t56m_4E_cP31388YKwagJo-ZM9Y&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result

[Cacklewack]

Thanks for the responses, folks. I'm certainly not a proponent of bees in walls! I'd just never heard of anything like this, for seemingly obvious reasons. Next time I see the fellow I'll have to get some more information...

Cheers,
Matt