Absolutely. I like the way you think ABB. You are now on my good books!
That’s why I said made from recycled materials. Wood captures carbon, until it is burned.
Both the Lyson and the Paradise hives can be recycled and being compressed polystyrene and they seem to be the only manufactures with agents in Australia, it seems they last well and have great insulation unlike the plastic hives made from oil. Actually the plastic hives I suspect because they are so thin in section wouldn’t be suitable in my climate because of a lack of insulation. They may not last as long as a treated pine hive but they should at least last longer than me.
@JeffH Correct Jeff, I’m going for the Paradise polystyrene hives for the insulation qualities and I figure with 4 of them over a year or so I will have a good idea if they are as good as they (the makers) claim. As you know I’m all about functionality.
Cheers
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Hi Stefan, my thoughts have evolved during this thread. My current thinking is: If someone was able to build their own hives & 50 or 60mm WRC boards were available to purchase, building hives out of that material would be a good way to go. The hive would be bulkier, however reasonably light. Surely the cost of the material wouldn’t be all that prohibitive.
I still think they’ll be heavy made of cedar especially a 10F full depth, full of honey. Maybe balsa wood is the answer. I know it is considered as a hardwood, but I’m sure its insulating properties are excellent. I think Bunnings sell it in 50mm. Make one Jeff.
I had a brief look at timber prices one day while at Bunnings. It doesn’t look cheap.
I don’t try to lift a 10 frame full depth super full of honey. I carry them with only 6 frames max. If I have to walk any distance, I’ll only put 4 in. I’m sure that 50mil WRC would still be lighter than 22mil hoop pine.
Even if it weighed the same, you’d have more superior insulation, which might be perfect in your climate.
PS something just occurred to me about a slatted rack. Most bee hives don’t have very thick floors. In a lot of cases screened bottom boards. Therefore the addition of a slatted rack would greatly increase the insulation of the floor which could make a dramatic difference as far as the bees are concerned.
I’ve just checked the weights/prices out of curiosity Jeff. WRC @ 50mm will be heavier than 22mm pine. Balsa wood at 50mm would be a lot lighter than pine and cedar but will
cost a few 100 bucks!
I think hives are made the way they are, and have been so for so many years for a reason - they are a sweet compromise between insulation, cost and portability.
Have you ever made a top bar hive Jeff? You can over engineer a top bar hive as much as you like and make it as heavy and insulted as needs be, as you won’t have to move it.
Once I gain some more knowledge and experience with bees, a TBH is something I’d like to have a closer look at.
Well, today I’m going to crack open those two hives I have and see what those sheilas have been up to in the past two weeks.
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Well done Stefan, I hope it’s all good.
No I haven’t made a TBH. I don’t like the concept all that much. There’s no comparison to a traditional Langstroth hive. A long Lang, that’s different to a TBH. I’d be ok with a long Lang but not a TBH.
A TBH would be ok if you had frames all round to follow the shape of the taper, leaving a normal bee space. If you’re going to do that, you might as well just build a long Lang. That way traditional frames fit.
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Yes but both are same concept around a horizontal hive aren’t they? This is not something I will do in the next couple of years for sure, but will think more about the pros and cons when time comes.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I’m in it for the interest of bees rather than the production and selling of honey.
Fair enough Stefan, when I first saw the TBH concept, I straight away thought about a long Lang because I couldn’t see the point of trying to manage frames that hang off a single bar. I sold a colony to a lady with a TBH & helped her out a bit. What a nightmare trying to manage frames that don’t have side & bottom bars. Anyway she sold her TBH before getting 3 normal Langstroth hives.
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Thanks Jeff that’s something I’ll keep in mind. I know some go foundation-less in standard hives and read about the issues they create. I guess no side and bottom bars will multiply the problems then.
I had such a romantic view of the TBH and you ruined it for me Jeff. Haha!
No problems Stefan 
Sorry to bust that bubble. However I think she got as much money for the one top bar hive as she needed to buy 3 double deck Langstroth hives. It was well built, her husband is a builder. He figured while I’m building one for my wife, I’ll build 6 more to sell at the same time. He had no trouble selling them.
It was funny because as they didn’t live far away, she kept buying honey from me instead of harvesting honey from her TBH. They moved away shortly after purchasing the 3 colonies for their Langs.
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This discussion made me to recall one of the books and I decided to check what wall thickness they recommended in time when every saved millimeter of wood did not mean much but production of honey and other bee products did.
This book was printed in USSR in 1948 and gives instruction about making hives with hand tools only. The reason for that is explained in preface. It says: “To restore beekeeping in pre-war volumes, taking into account replacement of old degraded hives, we need to produce 2 million hives per year for the next 4 years. Existing factories cannot keep up with such volumes and knowledge about how to build and repair own hives is important for beekeepers now more than ever”.
Insulation requirements for hives: must keep 35 degrees C when brood is produced and 14 degrees in the winter. Last number is quite interesting, provided winter temperatures on the territory of USSR could be below zero and quite a lot. In Australia situation is opposite but insulation works both ways.
Recommended timber (mainly because of availability): fir, pine (non-gummy), lime tree, poplar, etc.
And here are some drawings:
Single-wall 12 frames Dadant-Blatt:
Single-wall 10 frames Root:
Double-wall 12 frames Dadant-Blatt:
Single wall hives: wall thicknes - 40mm
Double wall: 80mm, including insulation material.
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Thanks for sharing that. Very interesting and relevant to what we were theorising on.
Maybe we need to take some notes from those that experience freezing conditions:
I like the photos of those hives covered in snow.
The interesting thing is that snow is itself a good insulator. It has an R-value of 1 per inch, similar to pine. Maybe Jeff should build a hive out of very thick snow…
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Thanks fffffred got the link to my setup. Where I am is not likely to ever freeze and it’s my stand that is a slatted frame. I’m looking into a shade for it now as we are starting to experience those 35+ temps now summer is here.
Hi Stefan, my ideas of heavy insulation was to put ideas into your head seeing as you experience more extreme heat than what I do. I’m probably in a Goldilocks climate, not too hot, not too cold. The 22 mil pine supers work good for me in my climate which is void of extremes. However added insulation could be warranted for you in your climate. I’d assume you get very cold at times during the winter, a lot colder than what I experience.
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I know Jeff I was joking. Snow is not a great building material here in Perth anyway.
You lot need to take me less seriously.
Winters here are actually not too extreme. I can’t grow anything that needs a chill factor. In a bad winter I get lows just below 10ºC.
I do get some cold northerly wind though and thinking how I can protect the entrance as it points north.
Your winter sounds similar to ours. We get lots of single digit days. Very few get close to zero. That’s funny that you get cold wind from the north. We get warm wind from the north - north west & cold wind from the west - south during the winter. It gets very cold around Stanthorpe during the winter. The southwesters we get brings cold air from that area & the ranges.
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Perhaps as an interim solution on those stinker days, one could just slide a match stick under the roof. A little bit of a breeze can go a long way in this humidity. (SE QLD)
I have a mixture of timber and plastic (nuplas) boxes and I seem to get more bearding on timber but I have to add that the hives are in different corners of my yard so it might not be a fair comparison.
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