Insulated hive and insulated bottom

[Finski]

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A Finnish professional beekeeper has filmed a couple of days ago beehives.
Temp is -25C. Location near Tampere. 1000 hives. http://beekeeping.honeypaw.fi/


The hive has solid insulated bottom. You see later that the cluster is agaist the bottom.
The upper cover is pieces of insulation board.

bees wintering in finland

Extracting honey

HoneyPaw slituncapper 40 1

[Vance G]

Thankyou sir those were fine video's and I enjoyed both.  How much honey do the bees consume per month before they start brooding up in the spring?  How deep is that hive body?  It appears to be deeper than a Langstroth.  It appears the honey being extracted had started to sugar.  Are those steam lines to the honey paw?

[splitrock]

Very good video's Finski. Thanks for sharing with us.

I am surprised to see only one deep for wintering.

Joel

[Finski]

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Yes, professionals here keep only one brood box. They keep the excluder. Hives are easier to handle and move.

Note, that the winterfood from September To Aprill/May are all in there.

Tampere town latitude is  61° N

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[S.M.N.Bee]

Finski

Nice video's. I have not insulated the floors of my hives to date. I always thought heat will only rise so what would be the point.
The only benefit would be from radiant heat. Maybe I will install some insulation next winter. How thick of insulation is commonly used in the bottom board?

John

[derekm]

Insulating the bottom will only be of use if the top and sides are already well insulated. A well designed entrance that allows plenty of air but keeps the heat in, then follow that with an insulated bottom of the hive.  An air filled cavity with a heat source and external heat lossing sets up convection currents. These convection currents circulate around the cavity, thus making the insulation of the bottom of the cavity a factor in the overall heat loss. Simple physics until the bees step in an alter things, like blocking the entrance, restricting airflow...  

finski: v interesting ... how much insulation on the floor? at present I have ~ 50mm PIR = 75mm polystyrene

[Finski]

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Here beeks keep many kind of bottom boards. Polyhives have 2 standards, mesh and solid. It means 2 cm polyurethane. It is equal 20 cm wood - theory, because entrance is open and cold air come in.

Mesh floor may be too a type which many close for winter.

I am just making new floors which have slanting polycarbon board. When I made first, the condensation was huge onto polycarbon surface. Really much water droplets. So I must insulate them.

It means that when moist hive air meets the bottom, it condensates the more the less it has insulation value.

[Finski]

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Clarification of "thermo bottom" by producer

- Polystyrene foam plastic
- Entrance 30 mm high - that will not be blocked by dead bees.
- a slanting bottom, fore 30 m, back 10 mm
- experience of wintering 900 hives on these bottoms.
- price 12.50 euros (in Finland)

[Finski]

A well designed entrance that allows plenty of air but keeps the heat in, then follow that with an insulated bottom of the hive.

One secret of wintering is that the clusters of these professionals are really full of bees in Autumn.

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[BlueBee]

Nice videos Finski, it’s been a while since we had a nice debate on insulated hives here.  Maybe it is due to the mild winter here in North America.  It looks like Finland is getting our snow this year

What is the white stuff along the edges of the inner cover and brood box?  Is that mold or frost?  Look at the video at about the 2:08 mark.

[Finski]

Nice videos Finski, it’s been a while since we had a nice debate on insulated hives here.  Maybe it is due to the mild winter here in North America.

What is North America - mild winter eh!  forecast of Winninpeg Canada.'
Now +6C  tomorrow night -21C, thursday -8C day and night -20C.

Our winter started 2 weeks ago. In some places we had last night -40C. In Helsinki we had -25C.

http://www.weatherforecastmap.com/united_states/
http://www.weatherforecastmap.com/canada/

What is the white stuff along the edges of the inner cover and brood box?  Is that mold or frost?  Look at the video at about the 2:08 mark.

It is frost, condensated moisture from breathing of bees. It tells that interrior temp is under zero

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The cluster is very tight. When disturbed it expands to the whole box.

[edward]

  How much honey do the bees consume per month before they start brooding up in the spring?

On the other side of the Gulf of Bohtnia in Sweden we feed the bees 12 to 18 kg of sugar to see them through the winter , a large portion is use in early spring to feed the new larvae.

mvh edward 

Really COOL beekeeping    sorry couldn't help myself 

[edward]

I tried to use the google interpreter on this but didn't get it to work  

There are hives that are monitored over the net throughout Scandinavia

Ökning/minskning = Increase / decrease

Drag = honey flow , in this case fodring = feeding

Max -min Utetemp = max min outdoor temperature

Nerdebörd = rainfall , 0 = snow

Kuptemp = hive temperature

Click on ( Väljvåg ) then click on ( SE- Enköping ) to look at data , kg and celsius

http://biavl.volatus.de/bsm0/BSM.html#language=sv_SE


mvh edward  

[BlueBee]

It’s warmer in Winnipeg today (43F/6C) than it is in Michigan (38F/3C), I’m pretty sure that isn’t normal!  We’ve been running about 5C above normal this winter.  The price of natual gas (home heating) has nose dived in North America due to our exceptionally mild winter.

Finski my hives have 5cm of polystyrene insulation.  I haven’t seen any frost inside.  In fact they are running about 70F/21C inside right now.

[rdy-b]

  cozy box of bees they have there- dont seam bothered a bit by the cold-was a lot of the ice
 we saw on the mouse guard from moisture from bees exhaling and condensing and running
 out the front of the hive or is there better way for vent-?

 the video about the extracting set up says they have the future method -because you dont need
 a wax centrifuge--dose the system revolve around what at first looks like a capping plane or knife
but with a closer look i think it is some kind of capping fork they run steam through to heat-
 so when it is hot and they scratch with it it dose not remove the capping it just opens it-a cold
capping scratcher always removes small size capping from the cell- Interesting approach and very clean

    RDY-B

[Finski]

but with a closer look i think it is some kind of capping fork they run steam through to heat-
 so when it is hot and they scratch with it it dose not remove the capping it just opens it-

Well seen that system rdy-b,

The name to machine is "slit uncapping knife".  It has tiny hot blades which split the caps.
http://beekeeping.honeypaw.fi/Slit-uncapping.php

[Finski]

Thankyou sir those were fine video's and I enjoyed both.  How much honey do the bees consume per month before they start brooding up in the spring?  How deep is that hive body?  It appears to be deeper than a Langstroth.  It appears the honey being extracted had started to sugar.  Are those steam lines to the honey paw?

The frame size and box is normal Langstroth.

Those hives use mere sugar . You know that full feeded 10 frames of Langstroth has about 20-25 kg sugar and honey.  It is consumed from September to May, 9 months.

Hives start a small brood rearing in February during heavy frost. About first of May willows start to bloom and real brooding is possible.

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[edward]

The name to machine is "slit uncapping knife".  It has tiny hot blades which split the caps.
http://beekeeping.honeypaw.fi/Slit-uncapping.php

how much does it cost ?

[Finski]

how much does it cost ?

Core tools seems to be 210 euros
http://biodling.honeypaw.fi/Hinnasto.php

[BlueBee]

Finski it looked like this hive had 3 or 4 parts for an inner cover?  Do you think those were just extra insulation boards to keep the top warmer than the sides or were they some type of top ventilation system?

You are using a top vent or entrance on your hives right?