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Author Topic: Derekm's Hive  (Read 61984 times)

Offline BlueBee

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #200 on: October 06, 2014, 03:30:54 am »
Edward, maybe a road trip is in order to check up on our pal Finski?  I wonder if he had his electric hive heaters on a GFCI circuit. :)

Offline derekm

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #201 on: October 06, 2014, 04:03:07 pm »
Should I increase the thickness of my boxes ? They are 30mm, I can double the thickness
my climate zone is 6b

75mm  Polystyrene= 50mm PIR is a good target. but no top vent..
If they increased energy bill for your home by a factor of 4.5 would you consider that cruel? If so why are you doing that to your bees?

Offline edward

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #202 on: October 06, 2014, 04:31:09 pm »
Since a few years back it is a standard i Sweden, probably in the whole European Union in new houses, and all new wirering.
A better safer way to go is 12 -24 or36 volts DC.

I have an old Swedish beekeeping store catalog advertisement from the 1920 Selling in the new modern way of beekeeping with the new electricity  :thunder:

I'll have a dig and try to find it and see what kind of strength the used and type AC-DC

A road trip takes to long to Finland and crosses the Arctic circle twice, the ferryboats with TAXFREE is a better idea, took one in early summer but only half way to ÅLAND, Island and archipelagos half the way to Finland in the middle of the Baltic sea. Great food, couldn't bee botherd to carry any liquid taxfree so my head didn't heart the next day,  no :cheer: no Just chatted up the Girls insted :catchchick: :rainbowflower:

My beekeeping mentor in Sweden is of Finish decent,  :brian:

This year was payback time  :whip: :chop: He threw his back out and couldn't lift any supers, and was a littel help with the bee blower, also he lost his footing and fell in a ditch and half in the middle of the road, on top of his bad back, For a few minutes I though he was dead  :needhelp: i left him there for 15 minute so he could get his breath and bearings back Before dragging him up.

An extra harvest of 10 metric tones of honey.  :chop: :whip: :chop:

This force the issue of stream lining the operation and the way we work, to work less and smarter.

Will post later in the Winter what measures and new work routines were implemented.


E  :-P


Offline ScituateMA

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #203 on: October 06, 2014, 09:38:45 pm »
Bluebee,  I use big salmon foam boxes and the way I can increase the thickness is to glue one extra lid to the sides. In this way, my lid has still the same mating surface. I have some extra lids to glue on side. Can I benefit from extra lids glued on sides in my location  or that extra work not needed?
I will definitely glue one extra lid on top of every lids to be able to minimize the heat escape from to top for sure

Offline OPAVP

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #204 on: October 06, 2014, 11:03:49 pm »
Hi Bee friends,
I have made a bunch of boxes out of 2 " styrofoam.  I have used a few this summer and the bees did fine.
If some of you guys can tell me how I can add a picture or two,I'll try and show you how I did it.

I am going to winter 4 hives in the foam boxes.
Hope to hear from you.
Cor Van Pelt.
Alberta.

Offline BlueBee

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #205 on: October 07, 2014, 03:45:35 am »
This year was payback time  :whip: :chop: He threw his back out and couldn't lift any supers, and was a littel help with the bee blower, also he lost his footing and fell in a ditch and half in the middle of the road, on top of his bad back, For a few minutes I though he was dead  :needhelp: i left him there for 15 minute so he could get his breath and bearings back Before dragging him up.

I hear those fins are pretty though cookies!  Who knew bee keeping could be so dangerous  :-D

With respect to AC vs DC, it's Tesla vs Edison all over again.  DC is safer, but you just can't/couldn't transfer it long distances without excessive ohmic heating losses.  My heaters themselves run off low voltage AC (16VAC), but I ended up moving the transformer out to the hives due to the (ohmic) voltage drop over my wires to the nucs.  So I've still got 120VAC out to the nucs to be cautious of, but it is code here to have exterior circuits on a GFCI breaker.  Haven't fried any rabbits yet, but they do tend to nibble on the cords.

Offline BlueBee

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #206 on: October 07, 2014, 04:04:58 am »
Bluebee,  I use big salmon foam boxes and the way I can increase the thickness is to glue one extra lid to the sides. In this way, my lid has still the same mating surface. I have some extra lids to glue on side. Can I benefit from extra lids glued on sides in my location  or that extra work not needed?
I will definitely glue one extra lid on top of every lids to be able to minimize the heat escape from to top for sure

I think I debated this with Finski a time or two about the importance of the bees to insulation ratio and that plays a part in my advice. 

Finski seemed to view insulation as always providing a positive thing for wintering the bees, no matter what.  That is not my view, or experience.  My view is that insulation is only a positive force if you have a lot of bees in the box to begin with.  Lots of bees in a tight box, make a modest amount of heat which is slowed from escaping the box due to insulation.  That has the effect of raising the temperature inside the box; a good thing. 

However if you don’t have very many bees in an insulated box, then the box can act like a refrigerator/cooler.  That’s what insulation does; it keeps warm things warm and cool things cool.  If an insulated box has too few bees, the heat they generate isn’t going to do diddly squat unless you up the insulation levels to what Derekm recommend.  My opinion is you don't want to oversize your boxes in the winter!   

My hives are bursting with bees and 40mm of foam is more than enough to keep them above 60F all winter long and I’m in zone 5a.  So IMO, if you’ve got strong hives in those 30mm salmon boxes, I wouldn’t worry about putting more insulation on the sides; just the top.  Putting more on the tops should direct condensation to occur on the sides.


Offline derekm

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #207 on: October 08, 2014, 10:51:27 am »
You've tangled up and confused  a lot of issues there.
These are separate independent terms in the conduction rate equation (q=-kA.dT/dx) and shouldn't be mixed up.



1) heat loss from any container is reduced if the  insuation levels and/or sealing is improved.
2) A container with less surface area  (i.e. a  closer fit to its contents) loses less heat
3) The heat transfer is proportional to temperature difference.

An insulated box can't act as a net cooler if the average temperature difference is positive.
If they increased energy bill for your home by a factor of 4.5 would you consider that cruel? If so why are you doing that to your bees?

Offline jayj200

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #208 on: October 14, 2014, 12:46:39 pm »
Hi Bee friends,
I have made a bunch of boxes out of 2 " styrofoam.  I have used a few this summer and the bees did fine.
If some of you guys can tell me how I can add a picture or two,I'll try and show you how I did it.

I am going to winter 4 hives in the foam boxes.
Hope to hear from you.
Cor Van Pelt.
Alberta.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,37591.0.html

Offline ScituateMA

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Re: Derekm's Hive
« Reply #209 on: October 14, 2014, 03:08:03 pm »



Here is my nuc boxes made out of modified salmon boxes. I glued an extra lid to minimize thee heat lost from the top.
I also glued an extra lid to both  sides. The thickness of box is like 32 mm and after glueing extra lids to the sides, sides are like 70mm. I guess my nucs are well protected from new englands cold winter.
I was thinking to use the bottom as a feeder but im not sure about that if it would cause a lot of bees drowning

 

anything