Some people have commented to say that they've seen bees flying when the air is less than 10 degrees C, believing this casts doubt on Derek Mitchell and Thomas Seeley's conclusions. But this is a conflation of air temperature with the temperature of the bees themselves. It's accurate to say that a person is unlikely to live if their body temperature falls below 75 degrees F. This is not the same thing, obviously, as saying that a person can't survive if the ambient air temperature is below 75 degrees F. It's correct to say that bees aren't physiologically able to function at low temperatures, but once bees operate their wing muscles they increase their body temperature above ambient conditions and can survive and fly as long as they maintain adequate thorax temperatures.
Sounds like 🤨Derick discovered R-value and how insulation works.😂I was a housing contractor for 15 years. Of course thicker walls more insulation make less stress on the bees, "common sense." In my opinion beekeepers need to watch how their bees behave and learn from that, adapt your beekeeping to your area(environment) and your bees. From what I have seen with my little experience, honey bees look for environmental shelter and that can be different things in different areas. The more extreme the environment the more extreme the shelter. Thanks for sharing your time, 👍Have a great day.
Based on his past research on hive enclosures, I don't think the benefit of thick-walled hives is lost on Derek. The big surprise from this study is that we've been wrong this long about the insulating value of the bees, themselves. For a long time, I think beekeepers have diminished the role of the hive because we thought the bees provided their own insulation. Now that we know that the bees are better heat conductors than insulators, the hive enclosure becomes that much more important.
@@SuburbanSodbuster I was just trying to 🐝a little fun, it doesn't seem to work well in text.😅 I noticed when I watched videos on bee trees or bees in structures. Coming from a construction background I just always saw it as insulation and or environmental shelter. I noticed real quick by watching cut out videos mostly. The more extreme the environment the more shelter they bees look for. They don't like to waist energy if they can help it. When I became a beekeeper I wanted to understand the how's and why's of what my bees faced in my location. I found that the bees will tell me what they want/need of me over time. I forget sometimes that not everyone looks at it that way. Thanks for your time and efforts to spread information.👍
I thought your comment seemed a little saltier than typical; was about to ask if things are okay. 😆 You're right that humor and sarcasm sometimes don't translate well in text - a trap I get caught in, myself.
Ever spend a day in an ice shanty? I always thought it was about the thermal break. That's why they build comb with least amount of connections to limit thermal convection. I like the hat method of insulating top and sides. I leave the bottom not insulated and have floor entrances. This allows condensation to escape. Think it's easier for bees to clean the hive too. Plus no mice issues. My hives are at least 2 feet off the ground. The frozen ground is just like being on a lake of ice. The closer you get to the frozen ground the colder it is. It's why the bottom 2 feet of ice shanty frost. Tons of warm air at head level in an ice shanty but not a foot level. Just having your feet on the ground allows the cold to radiate into them. I wonder how many btu's a basketball size cluster of bees puts out? And how much water vapor they expel a day? This seems like useful info. Real science not bro science. I have read many shit books on bee keeping. Not too many actually quantify their research. I would like to see studies on temperatures and humidity levels of over wintering bees. To be able to say this hive with r value of 14 in zone 5a gives a 80% chance of survival with 80 lbs of honey for 6 months of Northern MI winter. Just make sure they get sunshine in early spring and not shaded by pines in a snow bank. Even a well insulated hive dies out in a bad location.
I put furniture blankets over my hives first to insulatedand then a tarp as a wind break. Had really good success. Everyone says you need great ventilation but the bees seem to manage it well because there's virtually no draft or flue effect.
This is great information, and not the first I’ve heard of it. I agree-bees are not meant to cluster all winter. I do wrap for winter. But am even considering wrapping all year long. It’s time to change our thinking.
I’ve been having conversations with many beekeepers about this. I found these great hive wraps that are only like 3/8” thick but help give an extra Rvalue of 8 to the winter hive. All my hives are made of cedar, which has better thermal properties than pine, yet still I was planning on keeping these wraps on all year long when others recommended me only keeping the top insulated year round. What are your thoughts?
Just a question guys , I understand the wrap for a pre existing hive especially langs. But why not find a lumber yard or local spot and get slabs at least 4" with the rest of the inner dimensions the same. I get weight but this is a natural beekeeping and quote hives/colonies are not meant to be moved or even entrance changed (unless swarming obviously) . What others possible reasons for why not ? Or Even exoskeleton our hives with 4×4s ?
all my hives are FlowHives-which I paid a lot of money for. And it’s just been recently that I’ve started learning about the benefits of insulation. Trust me-I’m doing all that I can. The one bonus is FlowHives are all cedar wood, which has a better thermal value some other soft woods and does not need a lot of treatment. Moving forward into spring, I will be keeping all my roofs heavily insulation. Plus all my hives entrances are HiveGates. I believe they alone are game changers for consistent microclimate inside the hive. We are all still learning.
I do think that all-around insulation is beneficial year-round, and side insulation might actually be more beneficial in summer while top insulation of greater value in winter. But I also know that some of the commercial winter wraps are coated in black to absorb heat from the sun, which could pose a problem during summer. In summer a light colored or even reflective wrap could be more beneficial (although I wonder how bees would react to a reflective hive).
I have watched many of your videos. While I don't agree with many of the things are you are doing in beekeeping, I find your perspective refreshing. So keep up the good work. The article you commented on, however, has some issues. I think the author cooked up the article in a lab with a computer. He said in the publication that "If the temperature falls much below 10 °C, the bees there will die." That is simply not true. My bees would come out when it is 40F. The lowest temperature they would come out for water is 38F (3.3C), which is "much below 10C". These bees would fetch some water and go back to the hive. They don't die.
Thanks for watching and commenting. I believe the difference in the discussion is the temperature of the bees, themselves, vs. the ambient temperatures. In his chapter on temperature control, Thomas Seeley discusses the limitations of the bees' physiology at certain temperatures, but also their capability of raising their thorax temperatures above the ambient temps. Below is a related response I posted, earlier, based on Seeley's figures: The key is the temperature of the bee and the heat they generate. Seeley describes bees going through a pre-flight "warm up" for them to warm the flight muscles adequately to fly - but need to be warm enough to begin that process. The efficiency of the bee's "flight apparatus" is about 10-20%, so 20% of the energy they use goes into flying and the other 80% is expended as heat. During sustained flight the bee's thorax temperature is "typically 10-15 degrees (C) above the ambient temperature". Like a diesel engine they might need to be warmed to start, and "idle" to come to operating temp, but then can function properly. Like you, I've had a hive that was regularly flying if the temps were above about 40F (4.5C), so as long as the hive is warm enough for them to "get started" it seems they can go about their business, within reason. I've also seen bees fly out from a hive within a fallen tree at 14F (-10C) but once they got into the outside air they cooled rapidly and became inactive very quickly.
I have been insulating my Langstroth hives with Reflectex bubble wrap for the last 3 years. As a result, all of my colonies have come through into spring with honey left over. I use a deep and a medium and have between 45-60 pounds of honey for the bees. I have read this information also and see that it reflects my limited experiences. I maintain 25 colonies and have kept bees since 2012. I just found your channel and subscribed tonight. I am located in Rural Montgomery County, Missouri so I'm a about 5 degrees colder than your St Louis/St Charles location.
Interesting. I'm still new enough (5th summer) to maintain an open mind about what works. In the last two years, I've moved away from the ventilated method of wintering hives for more of a convection method. Those last two winters were the only times I've had hives survive a northern Illinois, and this may be the next step. That, and the fact that as I approach 70, my fondness for lifting boxes (and bending over to inspect lower boxes) has diminished. I'm relatively new to your work and find it both interesting and well produced. Thanks for your work.
I am also getting up in years so im interested in a layens conversion of my langstroth boxes and i will work on that this winter, I really dont want to lift heavy boxes when im in my 80s so setting up the equipment now is a must.
If wrapping the hives, just remember that condensation forms on the coldest inner surface first, so make sure the inner cover will be kept warmer than the walls or you'll be causing condensation to form above the cluster and then drip onto the bees. Cool and wet is much worse than cold and dry. Just put a quilt box or something to insulate the top amd make sure to wrap the sides all the way up. Check your R-value to make sure the walls are less insulated than the top. Now for some other thoughts... It's worth pointing out that Langstroth himself decided that it would be best to keep bees in double-walled (insulated) hives as he didn't feel it was right to keep bees in hives made of "inch-stuff" (i.e. standard 1x wood). His patented design incorporated this. Unfortunately, the "Langstroth" hive we have now is a poor approximation of what he came up with. I'm curious about a few things though... What do the bees spend their time doing through the winter if nothing is blooming, it's too cold outside the hive for flying, and they aren't clustered? Will the queen keep laying, just in smaller numbers? Presumably they've got some bee bread and honey left to support some brood rearing. Can a hive be too insulated? The metabolic rate of the colony goes down with a drop in temp (to a point, then it starts to go back up), so should we be leaving much more honey in the hive to support the extra caloric needs?
I do agree that insulation can help with regulating summer heat as well as winter cold. It's not very practical for a typical Langstroth hive because the added insulation is one more thing to remove when inspecting. But last year I added insulation to the lids of all of my insulated Layens hives and didn't see issues - in fact I saw less summer bearding of the Layens hives than the Langstroth, and less than the previous year when I used ventilated lids.
I disagree. When in cluster the bees at the core are vibrating their wing muscles to generate heat, which uses a significant amount of calories. To fuel this the cluster must move up the frames to consume honey stores. In comparison, when bees can move about the hive without having to exert themselves for heat generation, I believe their food consumption is reduced. In practice, I've seen that my insulated hives have much more honey left at the end of winter than uninsulated.
I read the same article this week and knew you would cover it. I appreciate your work on accommodating the bee's nature instead of making them adapt to the beekeeper.
@@SuburbanSodbuster Keeping bees with a smile, Fedor lazutin Pg.66-67 starting at bottom paragraph " And so, in Defiance of all logic, a French hive was introduced in Russia.(langstroth In the west,US.) then came the revolution. under the Soviets the danant frame, along with the hive itself, became standard, and was introduced coercively and irrevocably at every apiary in the country. Why am I dedicating so much attention to this topic? Because the dandant hive remains, to this very day, the most common hive in Russia! (Langstroth for USA) And anyone who's even considering keeping these will certainly encounter convinced advocates of the dadant hive(like langstroth hives), although it must be said that their position isn't as entrenched as it once was.(sounds like current state of beekeepers). I've even met more than one harsh critic of this hive, even some who dubbed it a "killing machine." Now listen to the quote from one of the biggest advocates. Starting at the third sentence" he considered the hive to be practical and convenient to work within all respects however difficulties associated with the hive's design soon became apparent. At the end of the honey flow season for example he would discover that the broods nest were almost empty while the supers were Full of honey to remove them would mean to leave the colony without food so the bees had to be given sugar syrup or honey deluded in water for the winter this in his words wasn't the end of the world but it was extremely labor-intensive chore and even unsafe in the sense that it promoted robbing and the spreading of disease." The topic of the video was we got it wrong about insulation when they actually conduct , leading to us talking about thicker walls in hives. Pointing out yet another problem with todays traditional hives from USA to Europe..., hence quoting " death machines " Long explanation but hopefully sparks some to look into natural beekeeping with extra deep frames in a extra thick/ insulated horizontal hives
thank you again for another informative video. Regarding your Layens hives what did you do for the roof insulation and it looks like you're wrapping them in foam insulation for the winter? Thanks
On the Layens hives I put 3" of rock wool in the lids with 1/4" plywood on the underside of the insulation. My insulated Layens hives have 1-1/2" of either raw sheep's wool or rock wool in the walls and bottom so I don't wrap those. The three wrapped hives that I show in the video are Langstroth hives that I managed in single deeps this year. Besides the foam insulation on the sides I put a quilt box with 3" rock wool on top of each.
On the contrary, I've found that the colonies I keep in insulated hives tend to use less resources over winter. I presume that's because they aren't using as many calories to generate heat.
The key is the temperature of the bee and the heat they generate. Seeley describes bees going through a pre-flight "warm up" for them to warm the flight muscles adequately to fly - but need to be warm enough to begin that process. The efficiency of the bee's "flight apparatus" is about 10-20%, so 20% of the energy they use goes into flying and the other 80% is expended as heat. During sustained flight the bee's thorax temperature is "typically 10-15 degrees (C) above the ambient temperature". Like a diesel engine they might need to be warmed to start, and "idle" to come to operating temp, but then can function properly. Like you, I've had a hive that was regularly flying if the temps were above about 40F (4.5C), so as long as the hive is warm enough for them to "get started" it seems they can go about their business, within reason. I've also seen bees fly out from a hive within a fallen tree at 14F (-10C) but once they got into the outside air they cooled rapidly and became inactive very quickly.
If the bees were still and not metabolizing their insulation ability would be measurable as any static material would be. But they ARE moving and metabolizing, totally different calculation!
Well I can say it is interesting but I live in NC an we do have a fairly warm climate here but we do get very cold at times . I run screen bottom boards and screen top inter covers an have never lost a colony over winter ( yet ) . The last two winters my Bees coming out of winter I had to do splits in February because they were so big. Knock on wood this winter or next season may be totally different can never tell . My hives are 8 frames with a deep an a medium brood box . This season I have a few that was not as big of a nest as I would have liked so I will see in a few months what happens. Thanks
I'm glad things have gone well for you. As the saying goes, all beekeeping is local. What's required in my environment may not be as applicable to yours. I'm sure your (relatively) warmer climate is, naturally, less stressful on the bees.
I’m moving in this direction, making double walled, insulated hives for bee installation next spring. I am concerned though about ventilation over winter. Can you comment or direct me to a video you might have on this?
@@SuburbanSodbuster I actually saw this video prior to my question posed to you. I found it well done, like everything I’ve seen from you. And I value the concept of setting up condensing hives rather than those that are ventilated at the top. My question really relates to the amount of fresh air they may get when the hives are sealed up for winter. As you are aware, traditional Langstroth hives have a screened bottom that allows fresh air into the hive, even with bottom boards inserted. With no screen bottom in the Layens, do you keep one or more bottom openings available for some fresh air, as well as for cleansing flights?
So honey bees do what penguins do. Penguins cluster in freezing temperatures & they rotate individually outside & inside their cluster to keep from freezing 😊
The article actually mentions the behavior of penguins, but points out a difference: "In contrast, when penguins are huddling in the Antarctic winter, they all keep their body core hot at similar temperatures, and therefore there is little or no heat transfer between the penguins. Unlike the bees in the mantle, there aren't any penguins in a hypothermic shutdown."
I'm glad this guy has written a book telling european bees how they should behave. They seem to cluster in dead trees in europe. I like the air pocket insulation idea. I put empty supers on top of my national hives to increase insulation, like they have "in nature" after pulling the honey down.
The laws of physics and the natural behaviors of Apis Mellifera are consistent regardless of continent. Regardless, Derek Mitchell is located in the UK, at the University of Leeds. Regarding insulation: the key is multiple pockets of static air, contained within a material that doesn't readily allow the air to circulate and transfer heat. Wool insulation, or similar materials, provides this environment well. An empty box above the bees would not. Instead, the heat the bees generate will rise and displaced, cool air will move down. This will raise the level of the heat "bubble" generated by the bees, requiring them to work to generate more heat. If there's a top vent then the warmed air will pass to the outside and be replaced by cold air from the lower entrance.
You will likely hear a lot of comments about how successful many people are. One thing a lot of beekeepers don't realize is that when Brother Langstroth first wrote about things like bee space and all the things modern hives are designed around, he made a point of saying that the wall should be a minimum of two inches thick. Most commercial beehives in use have 3/4 inch walls with thiner spots for handle cutouts.
I knew a guy years ago that used 2 inch lumber for his hives. He had the same outside dimensions of a 10 frame hive so there was only 7 frames. He was non migratory so it worked quite well for him.
I've often heard "bees heat the cluster, not the hive" and, based on our previous understanding, I could accept that. But even if that's the case it always seemed that we could help the bees heat the cluster by providing a hive that better regulates the internal air temperatures. As you say, I saw that as "common sense". Now that we know that the bees don't insulate the cluster as previously thought, that consideration becomes even more important.
I agree with much of what Jim is doing with the bee barns. He and I would agree on the benefits of fully insulated hives; no upper openings; and continuous, deep frames. These are addressed in both the bee barn and Layens hives. But I disagree about the vertical hive orientation. It's true, as he says, that bees move vertically - not across frames - when in cluster. There seems to be a misunderstanding that a horizontal hive ignores this behavior. The 16" deep frames of the Layens hive, like the frames of the bee barn, provide adequate vertical space for the cluster's vertical movement without supering. I don't like the frame gaps between boxes, or expecting bees to expand upward to store honey - both of which differ from how bees build or utilize comb in nature. From the keeper's perspective you're still dealing with lifting supers, which is a form factor that's led many people to horizontal hives. Having said this, these are my opinions; not a condemnation of the design. Like Jim, I had 100% winter survival last year - and I think we both saw this as a benefit of deep frames in insulated hives with no top ventilation.
I am building bee Barns to over winter next year. This year they are over wintering in ghetto hives. I call them that because I used junk to build them. They have 2 inch insulation on all the sides, top and bottem.
All these 'academics' hypothesising about how bees survive best in winter is a joke. Basic common sense tells you these tiny creatures have a high chance of perishing in standard thin walled, ill maintained hives. Consider this ~ try leaving the front door of your house and upstairs windows open on a cold windy bleak day and see how you feel after just ten minutes. Then ask yourself if bees feel the same??? I came to this conclusion when first starting bee keeping so made my own insulated hives from the outset. Use condensing tecnique sealing top and packing under roof completely with high grade foam. Use less foam sheet on side so they condense leaving 5 inch sealed space at bottom to allow air to circulate. Rember bees don't breath in the same way as mammals so won't die of hypoxia, hence no need for top to be ventilated. By having hives condense, they give off water therefore have plenty to drink so live longer without stress. Bees love it and always come out with healthy plentiful brood in spring. This equates to at least twice to three times brood of hives with no insulation. They also do cleansing flights with temperatures as low as 5 degrees C throughout the year, so important for health and keeping bottom of hive free from building up of dead bees therefore less disease problems. Surrounding hives with no insulation have zero activity when temperatures drop below 10 degrees C. Why anyone would not want copy how bees have survived in trees having spent tens of thousands of years evolving this way of living is sheer arrogance and stupidity. Learning bee keeping tecniques is similar to religion. We tend to believe what we first learn from elders who have in turn had theories passed down from their peers and when modern science proves old tecniques are merely old wives tales with no merit disregard the truth. And so the practice with bad bee keeping continues. It is also important to remember bees never have the need to 'beard' on well insulated hives in hot weather. That simply equates to more forraging and bees spending less time wearing their wings out fanning hives. They will also start foraging earlier in the morning because of being warmer. In autumn when wasp raid hives, because they are warmer guard bees can defend the entry in cooler weather more effectively and not allow them to sneak in whilst they are incapacitated through being cold. Professional bee keepers move their hives into barns for overwintering. Hobbyist rarely do, so with no insulation, no wonder mortality rate is so high!
I would advocate for the insulation but not anything that adds heat to the hive. The bees will produce the heat; by insulating we can help them retain it. Adding heat could cause the bees to react in unseasonable ways - e.g. act as if the weather is warming and start building up brood early which will increase resource usage prematurely.
7 month ago I started looking into bees. I was thinking: everybody knows zillions of thing and I know nothing. Turns out that I was wrong. Most of the beekeeper know nothing and they are the worst bees enemy. So, I had to start far away from commercial beekeeping almost from scratch. happy to see that you keep learning and finally some light pass throught the fog walls . Langstroth, Dadant were wrong, or lets say, they were damn good for their time that was a century ago. The bees that are living in my beehives actually are passing the winter ( In europe's ALPS) and they arent conglomerating at all. At least for now and we are at -9 celsius at the moment. Some make a small trip out during midday but they are passing their time in various part of the beehive. The beehive is 24x times more insulating than the traditional langstrooth..
Ronald Reagan famously said (of his political opponents, but I'll keep it non-political) "The trouble... is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so". Common advice for new beekeepers is to find a beekeeping club and a mentor, and these can both be good advice, but it also seems that many clubs are protectors of "groupthink", harboring and promoting the same ideas (good or bad) and many mentors teach just what their mentor taught them...which their mentor taught them...etc. It seems that many beekeeping classes focus more on the steps of keeping bees than on understanding the bees, themselves. But I've found that learning as much as possible about the nature of bees has made the keeping of them more straightforward. I agree with you that the lessons of commercial beekeeping are often unhelpful for new hobbyists, but that's often what beekeeper instruction is based upon. I'm hopeful that sharing as I learn, and basing what I share on the best information I can find (and refine from many opinions) is helpful to others. Although sometimes my videos might be of the "lets see how this goes" variety, I try to teach from supported information rather than opinion. As this video shows, sometimes we have to be open-minded when new evidence challenges what conventional wisdom, and even respected science, has taught. Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts.
Hallelujah! Its time some closed minded people woke up and took notice. There is a big difference between Thriving and Surviving. I started insulating my hives from the start. and lost count of the amount of abuse from so called Bee keepers. Telling me that I was doing it all wrong and it would end in disaster and "They will end up with Nosema" Usually recomending I keep them in standard British National hives. Which in my opinion are too small, the wrong shape, uninsulated torture boxes which people keep using because 'thats how its always been done'! Well I havent lost a colony since I started 5 years ago. just increased each year from 1 to 7 hives. So what am I doing wrong?! No species want to become extinct. Provide the habitat its taken millions of years to evolve to live in. (In this case a good solid insulated hive) and it doesnt need any more help, Or hinderance from us. My hives are either Layens or 14 x12 national frames. The It is a lot more work To build them but well worth the effort. Iin the autumn the supers are removed and replaced with insulated supers containing pillow cases stuffed with wood shavings covered by the insulated roof. Once a month I check and if the shavings are very damp. (sometimes they are sometimes not) I replace the damp area. I never disturb the Bees underneath, they have plenty of honey on the brood frames.I only ever take honey from the supers. Love the Videos Cheers
Thank you for the comments. "The way it's always been done" can be a terrible trap, as can be assuming that we have all the answers. I hope that I don't fall into either.
It would be more useful if Mr Michell actually studied a cluster of bees instead of using analogues, bewildering the reader with interesting equations, making sweeping assumptions then presenting his "findings" as fact. Bad science I'm afraid.
Some people have commented to say that they've seen bees flying when the air is less than 10 degrees C, believing this casts doubt on Derek Mitchell and Thomas Seeley's conclusions. But this is a conflation of air temperature with the temperature of the bees themselves. It's accurate to say that a person is unlikely to live if their body temperature falls below 75 degrees F. This is not the same thing, obviously, as saying that a person can't survive if the ambient air temperature is below 75 degrees F. It's correct to say that bees aren't physiologically able to function at low temperatures, but once bees operate their wing muscles they increase their body temperature above ambient conditions and can survive and fly as long as they maintain adequate thorax temperatures.
Sounds like 🤨Derick discovered R-value and how insulation works.😂I was a housing contractor for 15 years.
Of course thicker walls more insulation make less stress on the bees, "common sense."
In my opinion beekeepers need to watch how their bees behave and learn from that, adapt your beekeeping to your area(environment) and your bees. From what I have seen with my little experience, honey bees look for environmental shelter and that can be different things in different areas. The more extreme the environment the more extreme the shelter.
Thanks for sharing your time, 👍Have a great day.
Based on his past research on hive enclosures, I don't think the benefit of thick-walled hives is lost on Derek. The big surprise from this study is that we've been wrong this long about the insulating value of the bees, themselves. For a long time, I think beekeepers have diminished the role of the hive because we thought the bees provided their own insulation. Now that we know that the bees are better heat conductors than insulators, the hive enclosure becomes that much more important.
@@SuburbanSodbuster I was just trying to 🐝a little fun, it doesn't seem to work well in text.😅
I noticed when I watched videos on bee trees or bees in structures. Coming from a construction background I just always saw it as insulation and or environmental shelter. I noticed real quick by watching cut out videos mostly. The more extreme the environment the more shelter they bees look for. They don't like to waist energy if they can help it.
When I became a beekeeper I wanted to understand the how's and why's of what my bees faced in my location.
I found that the bees will tell me what they want/need of me over time. I forget sometimes that not everyone looks at it that way.
Thanks for your time and efforts to spread information.👍
I thought your comment seemed a little saltier than typical; was about to ask if things are okay. 😆 You're right that humor and sarcasm sometimes don't translate well in text - a trap I get caught in, myself.
Ever spend a day in an ice shanty? I always thought it was about the thermal break. That's why they build comb with least amount of connections to limit thermal convection. I like the hat method of insulating top and sides. I leave the bottom not insulated and have floor entrances. This allows condensation to escape. Think it's easier for bees to clean the hive too. Plus no mice issues. My hives are at least 2 feet off the ground. The frozen ground is just like being on a lake of ice. The closer you get to the frozen ground the colder it is. It's why the bottom 2 feet of ice shanty frost. Tons of warm air at head level in an ice shanty but not a foot level. Just having your feet on the ground allows the cold to radiate into them. I wonder how many btu's a basketball size cluster of bees puts out? And how much water vapor they expel a day? This seems like useful info. Real science not bro science. I have read many shit books on bee keeping. Not too many actually quantify their research. I would like to see studies on temperatures and humidity levels of over wintering bees. To be able to say this hive with r value of 14 in zone 5a gives a 80% chance of survival with 80 lbs of honey for 6 months of Northern MI winter. Just make sure they get sunshine in early spring and not shaded by pines in a snow bank. Even a well insulated hive dies out in a bad location.
I put furniture blankets over my hives first to insulatedand then a tarp as a wind break.
Had really good success. Everyone says you need great ventilation but the bees seem to manage it well because there's virtually no draft or flue effect.
This is great information, and not the first I’ve heard of it. I agree-bees are not meant to cluster all winter. I do wrap for winter. But am even considering wrapping all year long. It’s time to change our thinking.
Just like in our homes, I think that insulation for a beehive provides benefits year-round.
I’ve been having conversations with many beekeepers about this. I found these great hive wraps that are only like 3/8” thick but help give an extra Rvalue of 8 to the winter hive.
All my hives are made of cedar, which has better thermal properties than pine, yet still I was planning on keeping these wraps on all year long when others recommended me only keeping the top insulated year round. What are your thoughts?
Just a question guys , I understand the wrap for a pre existing hive especially langs. But why not find a lumber yard or local spot and get slabs at least 4" with the rest of the inner dimensions the same. I get weight but this is a natural beekeeping and quote hives/colonies are not meant to be moved or even entrance changed (unless swarming obviously) .
What others possible reasons for why not ?
Or Even exoskeleton our hives with 4×4s ?
all my hives are FlowHives-which I paid a lot of money for. And it’s just been recently that I’ve started learning about the benefits of insulation. Trust me-I’m doing all that I can. The one bonus is FlowHives are all cedar wood, which has a better thermal value some other soft woods and does not need a lot of treatment.
Moving forward into spring, I will be keeping all my roofs heavily insulation. Plus all my hives entrances are HiveGates. I believe they alone are game changers for consistent microclimate inside the hive. We are all still learning.
I do think that all-around insulation is beneficial year-round, and side insulation might actually be more beneficial in summer while top insulation of greater value in winter. But I also know that some of the commercial winter wraps are coated in black to absorb heat from the sun, which could pose a problem during summer. In summer a light colored or even reflective wrap could be more beneficial (although I wonder how bees would react to a reflective hive).
Wrap and cover my hives. Also add an electric heater at the back side to kick on when it gets really cold.
Didn't lose any over winter BTW
Good information, thank you. I have been insulating my hives, but there’s new, nuanced information about how the bees deal with cold weather here.
All those years of "The bees don't heat the hive, just the cluster!"
😆Well, actually..
Oopsies. 🤷♂️
Good explanation Monty. Having a fully insulated horizontal hive certainly reduces the amount of work you have to do to prepare for winter.
I agree wholeheartedly!
I have watched many of your videos. While I don't agree with many of the things are you are doing in beekeeping, I find your perspective refreshing. So keep up the good work. The article you commented on, however, has some issues. I think the author cooked up the article in a lab with a computer. He said in the publication that "If the temperature falls much below 10 °C, the bees there will die." That is simply not true. My bees would come out when it is 40F. The lowest temperature they would come out for water is 38F (3.3C), which is "much below 10C". These bees would fetch some water and go back to the hive. They don't die.
Thanks for watching and commenting. I believe the difference in the discussion is the temperature of the bees, themselves, vs. the ambient temperatures. In his chapter on temperature control, Thomas Seeley discusses the limitations of the bees' physiology at certain temperatures, but also their capability of raising their thorax temperatures above the ambient temps. Below is a related response I posted, earlier, based on Seeley's figures:
The key is the temperature of the bee and the heat they generate. Seeley describes bees going through a pre-flight "warm up" for them to warm the flight muscles adequately to fly - but need to be warm enough to begin that process. The efficiency of the bee's "flight apparatus" is about 10-20%, so 20% of the energy they use goes into flying and the other 80% is expended as heat. During sustained flight the bee's thorax temperature is "typically 10-15 degrees (C) above the ambient temperature". Like a diesel engine they might need to be warmed to start, and "idle" to come to operating temp, but then can function properly. Like you, I've had a hive that was regularly flying if the temps were above about 40F (4.5C), so as long as the hive is warm enough for them to "get started" it seems they can go about their business, within reason. I've also seen bees fly out from a hive within a fallen tree at 14F (-10C) but once they got into the outside air they cooled rapidly and became inactive very quickly.
I have been insulating my Langstroth hives with Reflectex bubble wrap for the last 3 years. As a result, all of my colonies have come through into spring with honey left over. I use a deep and a medium and have between 45-60 pounds of honey for the bees. I have read this information also and see that it reflects my limited experiences. I maintain 25 colonies and have kept bees since 2012. I just found your channel and subscribed tonight. I am located in Rural Montgomery County, Missouri so I'm a about 5 degrees colder than your St Louis/St Charles location.
Agree with this concept 100%. Great video.
Thanks for watching!
Interesting. I'm still new enough (5th summer) to maintain an open mind about what works. In the last two years, I've moved away from the ventilated method of wintering hives for more of a convection method. Those last two winters were the only times I've had hives survive a northern Illinois, and this may be the next step. That, and the fact that as I approach 70, my fondness for lifting boxes (and bending over to inspect lower boxes) has diminished. I'm relatively new to your work and find it both interesting and well produced. Thanks for your work.
I am also getting up in years so im interested in a layens conversion of my langstroth boxes and i will work on that this winter, I really dont want to lift heavy boxes when im in my 80s so setting up the equipment now is a must.
If wrapping the hives, just remember that condensation forms on the coldest inner surface first, so make sure the inner cover will be kept warmer than the walls or you'll be causing condensation to form above the cluster and then drip onto the bees. Cool and wet is much worse than cold and dry. Just put a quilt box or something to insulate the top amd make sure to wrap the sides all the way up. Check your R-value to make sure the walls are less insulated than the top.
Now for some other thoughts...
It's worth pointing out that Langstroth himself decided that it would be best to keep bees in double-walled (insulated) hives as he didn't feel it was right to keep bees in hives made of "inch-stuff" (i.e. standard 1x wood). His patented design incorporated this. Unfortunately, the "Langstroth" hive we have now is a poor approximation of what he came up with.
I'm curious about a few things though... What do the bees spend their time doing through the winter if nothing is blooming, it's too cold outside the hive for flying, and they aren't clustered? Will the queen keep laying, just in smaller numbers? Presumably they've got some bee bread and honey left to support some brood rearing. Can a hive be too insulated? The metabolic rate of the colony goes down with a drop in temp (to a point, then it starts to go back up), so should we be leaving much more honey in the hive to support the extra caloric needs?
If you leave the hive insulted during the Summer, would that also help wth keeping the temperature regulated ?
Iinteresting video ...
I do agree that insulation can help with regulating summer heat as well as winter cold. It's not very practical for a typical Langstroth hive because the added insulation is one more thing to remove when inspecting. But last year I added insulation to the lids of all of my insulated Layens hives and didn't see issues - in fact I saw less summer bearding of the Layens hives than the Langstroth, and less than the previous year when I used ventilated lids.
Awesome! Thank you
Thank you for watching!
“The more active winter honey bee is during winter month the less it lives
(Taranov Georgy )
Thanks for this! Insulating my hives over the winter really really helped! Looking into a Layens hive too
It's amazing the benefit that insulation can give to the bees and, in turn, the keeper.
I would suggest if the hives are insulated which in turn allows the bees to be more active food/resources could become an issue
I disagree. When in cluster the bees at the core are vibrating their wing muscles to generate heat, which uses a significant amount of calories. To fuel this the cluster must move up the frames to consume honey stores. In comparison, when bees can move about the hive without having to exert themselves for heat generation, I believe their food consumption is reduced. In practice, I've seen that my insulated hives have much more honey left at the end of winter than uninsulated.
I read the same article this week and knew you would cover it. I appreciate your work on accommodating the bee's nature instead of making them adapt to the beekeeper.
I like using insulated hives very much. However I can also bare witness to how easily a mouse can chew a hole into a pure styrene hive. So go easy.
Im reading Fedor lazutin,
Death machines!!!
Great video layens brother
Death machines? You've got me puzzled.
@@SuburbanSodbuster
Keeping bees with a smile, Fedor lazutin
Pg.66-67 starting at bottom paragraph
" And so, in Defiance of all logic, a French hive was introduced in Russia.(langstroth In the west,US.) then came the revolution. under the Soviets the danant frame, along with the hive itself, became standard, and was introduced coercively and irrevocably at every apiary in the country. Why am I dedicating so much attention to this topic? Because the dandant hive remains, to this very day, the most common hive in Russia! (Langstroth for USA) And anyone who's even considering keeping these will certainly encounter convinced advocates of the dadant hive(like langstroth hives), although it must be said that their position isn't as entrenched as it once was.(sounds like current state of beekeepers). I've even met more than one harsh critic of this hive, even some who dubbed it a "killing machine."
Now listen to the quote from one of the biggest advocates.
Starting at the third sentence" he considered the hive to be practical and convenient to work within all respects however difficulties associated with the hive's design soon became apparent.
At the end of the honey flow season for example he would discover that the broods nest were almost empty while the supers were Full of honey to remove them would mean to leave the colony without food so the bees had to be given sugar syrup or honey deluded in water for the winter this in his words wasn't the end of the world but it was extremely labor-intensive chore and even unsafe in the sense that it promoted robbing and the spreading of disease."
The topic of the video was we got it wrong about insulation when they actually conduct , leading to us talking about thicker walls in hives. Pointing out yet another problem with todays traditional hives from USA to Europe..., hence quoting " death machines "
Long explanation but hopefully sparks some to look into natural beekeeping with extra deep frames in a extra thick/ insulated horizontal hives
thank you again for another informative video. Regarding your Layens hives what did you do for the roof insulation and it looks like you're wrapping them in foam insulation for the winter? Thanks
On the Layens hives I put 3" of rock wool in the lids with 1/4" plywood on the underside of the insulation. My insulated Layens hives have 1-1/2" of either raw sheep's wool or rock wool in the walls and bottom so I don't wrap those. The three wrapped hives that I show in the video are Langstroth hives that I managed in single deeps this year. Besides the foam insulation on the sides I put a quilt box with 3" rock wool on top of each.
In my opinion Having to reduce stress by keeping them warmer they will consume more than they have stored or what you have harvested.
On the contrary, I've found that the colonies I keep in insulated hives tend to use less resources over winter. I presume that's because they aren't using as many calories to generate heat.
My bees fly for pollen well under 10c. They're out and about today at 7c.
The key is the temperature of the bee and the heat they generate. Seeley describes bees going through a pre-flight "warm up" for them to warm the flight muscles adequately to fly - but need to be warm enough to begin that process. The efficiency of the bee's "flight apparatus" is about 10-20%, so 20% of the energy they use goes into flying and the other 80% is expended as heat. During sustained flight the bee's thorax temperature is "typically 10-15 degrees (C) above the ambient temperature". Like a diesel engine they might need to be warmed to start, and "idle" to come to operating temp, but then can function properly. Like you, I've had a hive that was regularly flying if the temps were above about 40F (4.5C), so as long as the hive is warm enough for them to "get started" it seems they can go about their business, within reason. I've also seen bees fly out from a hive within a fallen tree at 14F (-10C) but once they got into the outside air they cooled rapidly and became inactive very quickly.
If the bees were still and not metabolizing their insulation ability would be measurable as any static material would be. But they ARE moving and metabolizing, totally different calculation!
Well I can say it is interesting but I live in NC an we do have a fairly warm climate here but we do get very cold at times . I run screen bottom boards and screen top inter covers an have never lost a colony over winter ( yet ) . The last two winters my Bees coming out of winter I had to do splits in February because they were so big. Knock on wood this winter or next season may be totally different can never tell . My hives are 8 frames with a deep an a medium brood box . This season I have a few that was not as big of a nest as I would have liked so I will see in a few months what happens. Thanks
I'm glad things have gone well for you. As the saying goes, all beekeeping is local. What's required in my environment may not be as applicable to yours. I'm sure your (relatively) warmer climate is, naturally, less stressful on the bees.
I’m moving in this direction, making double walled, insulated hives for bee installation next spring. I am concerned though about ventilation over winter. Can you comment or direct me to a video you might have on this?
Just posted a week ago: ruclips.net/video/OqNxQ6WmOSM/видео.html
@@SuburbanSodbuster I actually saw this video prior to my question posed to you. I found it well done, like everything I’ve seen from you. And I value the concept of setting up condensing hives rather than those that are ventilated at the top. My question really relates to the amount of fresh air they may get when the hives are sealed up for winter. As you are aware, traditional Langstroth hives have a screened bottom that allows fresh air into the hive, even with bottom boards inserted. With no screen bottom in the Layens, do you keep one or more bottom openings available for some fresh air, as well as for cleansing flights?
So honey bees do what penguins do. Penguins cluster in freezing temperatures & they rotate individually outside & inside their cluster to keep from freezing 😊
The article actually mentions the behavior of penguins, but points out a difference: "In contrast, when penguins are huddling in the Antarctic winter, they all keep their body core hot at similar temperatures, and therefore there is little or no heat transfer between the penguins. Unlike the bees in the mantle, there aren't any penguins in a hypothermic shutdown."
I'm glad this guy has written a book telling european bees how they should behave. They seem to cluster in dead trees in europe.
I like the air pocket insulation idea.
I put empty supers on top of my national hives to increase insulation, like they have "in nature" after pulling the honey down.
The laws of physics and the natural behaviors of Apis Mellifera are consistent regardless of continent. Regardless, Derek Mitchell is located in the UK, at the University of Leeds.
Regarding insulation: the key is multiple pockets of static air, contained within a material that doesn't readily allow the air to circulate and transfer heat. Wool insulation, or similar materials, provides this environment well. An empty box above the bees would not. Instead, the heat the bees generate will rise and displaced, cool air will move down. This will raise the level of the heat "bubble" generated by the bees, requiring them to work to generate more heat. If there's a top vent then the warmed air will pass to the outside and be replaced by cold air from the lower entrance.
Dead trees, the wood is starting to rot, so it doesn't have the same density as living wood. Therefore, air pockets in the fibers act as insulation.
You will likely hear a lot of comments about how successful many people are. One thing a lot of beekeepers don't realize is that when Brother Langstroth first wrote about things like bee space and all the things modern hives are designed around, he made a point of saying that the wall should be a minimum of two inches thick. Most commercial beehives in use have 3/4 inch walls with thiner spots for handle cutouts.
I knew a guy years ago that used 2 inch lumber for his hives. He had the same outside dimensions of a 10 frame hive so there was only 7 frames. He was non migratory so it worked quite well for him.
Thank you. What you describe is « good old common sense » after you know what the bees do to regulate their environment. 👍
I've often heard "bees heat the cluster, not the hive" and, based on our previous understanding, I could accept that. But even if that's the case it always seemed that we could help the bees heat the cluster by providing a hive that better regulates the internal air temperatures. As you say, I saw that as "common sense". Now that we know that the bees don't insulate the cluster as previously thought, that consideration becomes even more important.
Check out vino farms bee barns. They are super insolated and he can not beleve how much different survival is with them
I agree with much of what Jim is doing with the bee barns. He and I would agree on the benefits of fully insulated hives; no upper openings; and continuous, deep frames. These are addressed in both the bee barn and Layens hives. But I disagree about the vertical hive orientation. It's true, as he says, that bees move vertically - not across frames - when in cluster. There seems to be a misunderstanding that a horizontal hive ignores this behavior. The 16" deep frames of the Layens hive, like the frames of the bee barn, provide adequate vertical space for the cluster's vertical movement without supering. I don't like the frame gaps between boxes, or expecting bees to expand upward to store honey - both of which differ from how bees build or utilize comb in nature. From the keeper's perspective you're still dealing with lifting supers, which is a form factor that's led many people to horizontal hives.
Having said this, these are my opinions; not a condemnation of the design. Like Jim, I had 100% winter survival last year - and I think we both saw this as a benefit of deep frames in insulated hives with no top ventilation.
I am building bee Barns to over winter next year. This year they are over wintering in ghetto hives.
I call them that because I used junk to build them. They have 2 inch insulation on all the sides, top and bottem.
"Ghetto hives" 😂
Roof tops should have at least 30% more insulation to allow for condensing to take place so you avoid ending up with water dripping on bees...
All these 'academics' hypothesising about how bees survive best in winter is a joke. Basic common sense tells you these tiny creatures have a high chance of perishing in standard thin walled, ill maintained hives.
Consider this ~ try leaving the front door of your house and upstairs windows open on a cold windy bleak day and see how you feel after just ten minutes. Then ask yourself if bees feel the same???
I came to this conclusion when first starting bee keeping so made my own insulated hives from the outset.
Use condensing tecnique sealing top and packing under roof completely with high grade foam. Use less foam sheet on side so they condense leaving 5 inch sealed space at bottom to allow air to circulate. Rember bees don't breath in the same way as mammals so won't die of hypoxia, hence no need for top to be ventilated.
By having hives condense, they give off water therefore have plenty to drink so live longer without stress.
Bees love it and always come out with healthy plentiful brood in spring. This equates to at least twice to three times brood of hives with no insulation.
They also do cleansing flights with temperatures as low as 5 degrees C throughout the year, so important for health and keeping bottom of hive free from building up of dead bees therefore less disease problems.
Surrounding hives with no insulation have zero activity when temperatures drop below 10 degrees C.
Why anyone would not want copy how bees have survived in trees having spent tens of thousands of years evolving this way of living is sheer arrogance and stupidity.
Learning bee keeping tecniques is similar to religion. We tend to believe what we first learn from elders who have in turn had theories passed down from their peers and when modern science proves old tecniques are merely old wives tales with no merit disregard the truth.
And so the practice with bad bee keeping continues.
It is also important to remember bees never have the need to 'beard' on well insulated hives in hot weather. That simply equates to more forraging and bees spending less time wearing their wings out fanning hives. They will also start foraging earlier in the morning because of being warmer.
In autumn when wasp raid hives, because they are warmer guard bees can defend the entry in cooler weather more effectively and not allow them to sneak in whilst they are incapacitated through being cold.
Professional bee keepers move their hives into barns for overwintering. Hobbyist rarely do, so with no insulation, no wonder mortality rate is so high!
Bee have been suffering ever since the Styrofoam trees went extinct many many years ago.
So styrofoam around and maybe heat tape around the hive it is! 😵💫
I would advocate for the insulation but not anything that adds heat to the hive. The bees will produce the heat; by insulating we can help them retain it. Adding heat could cause the bees to react in unseasonable ways - e.g. act as if the weather is warming and start building up brood early which will increase resource usage prematurely.
7 month ago I started looking into bees. I was thinking: everybody knows zillions of thing and I know nothing. Turns out that I was wrong. Most of the beekeeper know nothing and they are the worst bees enemy. So, I had to start far away from commercial beekeeping almost from scratch. happy to see that you keep learning and finally some light pass throught the fog walls . Langstroth, Dadant were wrong, or lets say, they were damn good for their time that was a century ago. The bees that are living in my beehives actually are passing the winter ( In europe's ALPS) and they arent conglomerating at all. At least for now and we are at -9 celsius at the moment. Some make a small trip out during midday but they are passing their time in various part of the beehive. The beehive is 24x times more insulating than the traditional langstrooth..
Ronald Reagan famously said (of his political opponents, but I'll keep it non-political) "The trouble... is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so". Common advice for new beekeepers is to find a beekeeping club and a mentor, and these can both be good advice, but it also seems that many clubs are protectors of "groupthink", harboring and promoting the same ideas (good or bad) and many mentors teach just what their mentor taught them...which their mentor taught them...etc. It seems that many beekeeping classes focus more on the steps of keeping bees than on understanding the bees, themselves. But I've found that learning as much as possible about the nature of bees has made the keeping of them more straightforward. I agree with you that the lessons of commercial beekeeping are often unhelpful for new hobbyists, but that's often what beekeeper instruction is based upon.
I'm hopeful that sharing as I learn, and basing what I share on the best information I can find (and refine from many opinions) is helpful to others. Although sometimes my videos might be of the "lets see how this goes" variety, I try to teach from supported information rather than opinion. As this video shows, sometimes we have to be open-minded when new evidence challenges what conventional wisdom, and even respected science, has taught.
Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts.
check out THE HIVE HUGGER, R-32 VACUUME sealed top cover r-7 sides...condensing hives...thanks for the video😊
Hallelujah! Its time some closed minded people woke up and took notice. There is a big difference between Thriving and Surviving. I started insulating my hives from the start. and lost count of the amount of abuse from so called Bee keepers. Telling me that I was doing it all wrong and it would end in disaster and "They will end up with Nosema" Usually recomending I keep them in standard British National hives. Which in my opinion are too small, the wrong shape, uninsulated torture boxes which people keep using because 'thats how its always been done'!
Well I havent lost a colony since I started 5 years ago. just increased each year from 1 to 7 hives. So what am I doing wrong?!
No species want to become extinct. Provide the habitat its taken millions of years to evolve to live in. (In this case a good solid insulated hive) and it doesnt need any more help, Or hinderance from us.
My hives are either Layens or 14 x12 national frames. The It is a lot more work To build them but well worth the effort. Iin the autumn the supers are removed and replaced with insulated supers containing pillow cases stuffed with wood shavings covered by the insulated roof. Once a month I check and if the shavings are very damp. (sometimes they are sometimes not) I replace the damp area. I never disturb the Bees underneath, they have plenty of honey on the brood frames.I only ever take honey from the supers.
Love the Videos Cheers
Thank you for the comments. "The way it's always been done" can be a terrible trap, as can be assuming that we have all the answers. I hope that I don't fall into either.
Honey bees have an R value of 0... lol
My secret plans to market honey bee coats (just in time for Christmas) are destroyed.
It would be more useful if Mr Michell actually studied a cluster of bees instead of using analogues, bewildering the reader with interesting equations, making sweeping assumptions then presenting his "findings" as fact. Bad science I'm afraid.