New Bee Hive Invention

[Billhook]

I think I could easily become enthusiastic about bee keeping and have a few of these around if they do the job and are not too expensive.

 

Beekeepers in Australia invent 'revolutionary' hive - Telegraph

[Billhook]

A bit more trawling shows that there is always another side........

 

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[SteveA]

A bit more trawling shows that there is always another side........

 

 

Yet he doesn't mention the negative ways a lot of beekeepers currently keep their bees.

 

I think he's interested in the number of people clicking/ watching his video; like I did!

[Billhook]

Any bee keepers here with an opinion?

[Chopper Edoff]

Sorry no

 

Chopper Edoff - founder and only member of the North Yorks non opinionated bee keepers association

[TGB]

That's neat - I'm interested in beekeeping in general and by that idea very much so. You'd still need to keep up the animal husbandry, with Varroa Mite being prevalent in the UK, etc. But the notion of not having to clear the kitchen et all and not having to store a whole bundle of harvesting equipment. Well it makes me smile.

[Chipperclown]

I have kept bees for a number of years, like the look of the hive though I do wonder how reliable it would be longterm. As for keeping up with the husbandry like TGB said this will still have to occur regardless of the hive. I think I would like to try one, did look on the Thrones Bess website a few days ago to see if they were on the market, I can't find them yet?

[chrisj]

I'm not sure I get the value of it either. You've still got to go through the hive for swarm control, disease management etc.

How are you going to know if the honey is ripe and the comb capped with out going into the hive? If you don't check you could be extracting unripe nectar, so you'd have to open the hive to see if it's ready. And by the time you've done that you might just as well pop a clearer board on and do it the conventional way.

Once the bees have capped the comb they will think it's full. So if you drain it off they may not fill it again unless you go in and break the cappings.

You'd have to drain it off at night too, not in the middle of a sunny day like they do in the vid. With a open jar with honey running into it the bees would find it in no time. A stack of honey supers in a room with an open window is found smartish let alone at the hive. (I actually know someone that dropped some honey jars which smashed over the carpet. He left the window open and went out for the weekend, and by the time he came back the bees had found it and cleaned it all up. The carpet wasn't even sticky.)

[chrisj]

The other thing is how long before the bees gum it all up with propolis and stop it working? When that happens can you put it in an extractor and spin the honey out, or are you stuffed? Because lets face it some bees love sticking things up with propolis.

[TGB]

...

Once the bees have capped the comb they will think it's full. So if you drain it off they may not fill it again unless you go in and break the cappings.

 

 

I think it works by sliding one half of the hex past the other. If you can imagine it. Place your forefingers together and your thumbs together, so you've formed an 'O'. Where your left hand has formed a 'C' and your right hand has formed a reverse 'C'.

 

Now keeping your finger-thumb configuration stable. Slide them past each other, so the thumb of one hand now faces the space between the opposing finger-thumb configuration; and now the other finger, faces the space between the first finger-thumb.

 

Now imagine that in 3D repeated many times over and you have the answer. So this would break the cap. Mind after a number of honey draws, you'd still have to remove the wax or some of it. But you wouldn't have to open the hive so many times.

 

After each drawing of the honey is complete. The hexes get re-aligned via the lever moving in the opposite direction and the bees go back to filling up and capping off.