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Final Year Student Redesigning the Beehive

10K views 32 replies 14 participants last post by  Saltybee 
#1 ·
Hello, my name is Sarah.
I am a student at Loughborough University studying Design with Engineering Materials and my final year design project is titled "A Beehive for the 21st Century".
I would be grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes of your time to complete a questionnaire I have produced with the aim of obtaining some quality data from those who interact with this product frequently.
The questionnaire is anonymous and the results will be used for nothing other than helping me define an area of the hive I feel can be improved, though results of the project can be made available to participants upon request. There are 10 short questions and an opportunity for you to suggest any ways in which you feel the hive could be improved. To access the questionnaire, just follow the link below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JCGBTVB

Your experience and knowledge will greatly assist me in the completion of this project, and will hopefully lead to a feasible solution to one or more of the many problems encountered in the act of beekeeping.

Thank you in advance.
:w
 
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#32 · (Edited)
Abejas y miel, which one can find on Facebook, illustrates some pretty interesting beehives. Some which I have never seen before. Check them out.

One photo I came across looks like a HUGE acorn hanging from a timber. It's made out of material similar to what skeps are made from. I have no idea how it is managed. Maybe it is worked in a fashion similar to skeps. Or log gums.
 
#33 ·
The shape of comb built in a top bar without foundation is a slightly fat half football shape that grows fairly uniformly in length and depth until it runs out of space in one direction. For heat and material flow I suspect bees would prefer a similarly shaped top bar as the half football. Bowed rather than flat. Just the shape beekeepers would hate to build.

But then maybe the trouble with top bar hives in cold climates is they need to be flipped over! Who says frames have to hang down and not stand up.

All those bees who choose walls and floors to swarm into have it wrong, frames would never be straight or removable in there.
 
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