Is the Langstroth outdated and impractical for Australian conditions?

perhaps there were not suitable trees around. We all make concessions occassionally…

I’m not trying to debate which is better, LS or other, simply addressing the topic of the thread as well as replying to your concerns. The topic is: as stated above. I don’t agree, I believe the Langstroth hive in its many forms will still be with us in Australia for many years to come.

Like it or not, your top bar hive is a variant of a Langstroth hive. It’s just that you don’t like side or bottom bars.

Foundationless frames are not specific to tbh’s. You’ll find lots of flow hive owners use foundationless frames as well as traditional beekeepers. However I as well as a few others on the forum try to encourage new beekeepers to use foundation.

I have nothing against tbh’s, it’s just that some of the arguments tbh owners use against Lang hives are pretty pathetic. I’ve heard them all before.

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You’re allowed to disagree with the question (it’s not a statement). I’m not against LS and I’m not sure I’m a fan of top TBH’s. I use a number of other designs from French and German communities also. I’m testing the differences over a period of years. I have given up the traditional pine LS however due to insulation concerns and because I prefer to work with horizontal hives.

Well done Rus, however I dare say that the French or German design hives use removable frames. We have to do that in Australia by law. Our hives have to be setup in such a way that frames can be inspected.

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Thank you @Doug1.

My general opinion on new hives is yes, humans need better hives. Higher productivity and lower waste are always welcomed. Bees… After seeing a range of climate conditions and places they choose to live in, it seems they are able to cope with almost anything we throw at them.

Perhaps.
But look at your example about compost bin. Or once I had to remove a swarm that started to build combs inside of mobility scooter. Neighbours reported that they saw this swarm moving around for couple of days. It was plenty of various structures around more suitable for that in my opinion, including swarm traps. Poor choice, no doubt. But it looks like bees don’t see anything wrong with plastic even when they have a choice.

Thanks Jeff. All my hives have removable frames although in Victoria I have to comply with the Apiary Code of Practice which doesn’t require inspection by frame removal. The Bio-security Code of Practice specifies this procedure but the content is not all legislative and not legislative in all states. I agree with the requirement for inspection for bio-security reasons but I’d estimate that in the future there will be new methods which achieve the requirement that don’t involve removing frames.

Too funny! :joy: But it sums things up quite well.

Actually honeybees are so adaptable…and it totally astounds me.

Each spring we bring in 10 New Zealand 1kg packages (can’t rely on consistent wintering results). This is the process the packages endure:

  1. Bulk bees are shook out of hives in New Zealand…caged queen that has been produced beforehand and stored in a queen bank is placed in with the 1 kg of worker bees. A synthetic miticide strip required by law is also inserted in with the package for direct miticide-bee contact during the trip.

  2. After enough pallets of packages are ready, the packages are hauled to the NZ airport and loaded on a jetliner and off they go for a long trans-hemispherical trip.

  3. Plane stops at Hawaii for fuel…bees are watered and fed. They now are in new hemisphere where the sun (an important orientation marker) now is to the south at mid-day.

  4. Lift-off and another 5-6 hours to Vancouver…then loaded on a transport truck for the 12 hour trip to inland Canada. This trip goes over several mountain passes which at that time of year are prone to snow storms and -20C is not uncommon.

  5. Finally arrive in Edmonton, Alberta at the BeeMaid Honey Producers Coop where I pick them up.

  6. Another 4-5 hour trip in my vehicle to get to their new home…but I wait until evening to shake them into the pre-prepared broodboxes.

The whole process from making new packages in New Zealand to me shaking them in my equipment can take 5 days…the next day the workers are making orientation flights, and bringing in water and pollen. The pollen source is from a totally new biome! A foreign species of willow to work , a new hemisphere, they were in a wind-down end of season mode in New Zealand…now wind-up mode, length of days has greatly increased…and they are bringing in pollen within 24 hours! What masters of adaption they are…I think they have been on this earth for a long, long time…and are able to adapt to so many conditions that I think hive design is rather elementary for them.

Here’s a photo of the packages before we shake them:

Oh and I forgot to mention perhaps the biggest challenge…a new beekeeper to put up with! :thinking:

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Well I’m glad we cleared all that up. Now Rus, tell us the real reason you’re on this forum, you’re seriously thinking of purchasing a flow hive?

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I’ve had problems with moisture/condensation inside my hive which caused mould. The problem appeared to be low bee numbers. I underestimated the optimum number of bees and the bee reproductive rate (laying to adult worker) at my place/apairy. I have insulated my hive against the extremes, but honestly if i were a bee looking for a site I wouldn’t pick my apairy ( as nice as I think it is) There are better sites 50-100m away and at a slightly high elevation .

Busso - hello again, i haven’t posted for a while - were you speaking to general bee numbers & husbandary.

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Wow. That’s a loooooong trip for the bees. Amazing. I wish i could squeeze into a cardboard roll & travel the world!

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As to the flow hive honey harvest system - so good so far. No probs with crystalisation The inspection and harvest can happen quite seperately. It’s neat. If both sides of the comb are fully capped before you harvest then there is no risk of catching a bee leg in the harvest! If you choose, you could remove the frame to harvest.

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I have been wondering that myself Jeff. I wonder how a self confessed newbie could want to totally redesign bee hives before he has personnel experienced many years with them.
Sure I have modified my hives in some ways for my climate but I still regard them as Langstroth hives. For the Langstroth hive to be so widely accepted after 170 years around the world and all the variable climates I give the man credit for a good design.

From Russell’s reply to you he is also reluctant to accept the code of practice and the bio security act. A worry is that he hasn’t offered an alternative to that.
Cheers Jeff

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You got me there. Not sure which post.

Peter I’ve read both the codes and I know how they apply to the states of our country and I said that I practice the bio code even through it’s not legislated in Vic because I agree with the requirement. Not sure what point you’re trying to make here.

Also if one is new to beekeeping and can afford to test several hive designs in parallel what better time to do this than before investing in one type.

Interesting read. Until you’re last comment. You may be the reason why new beekeepers avoid the beekeeping fraternity. Youtube can be a more friendly mentor.

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She’s a third generation beekeeper

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As a bee keeper in Queensland I only need to comply with the code that applies to Queensland. What applies in other states is irrelevant in Queensland. You say you have read both codes, is there two in Victoria?

The way you come across is that you sound reluctant to agree with the Apiary Code of Practice.
Well, 45+ years ago I started out bee keeping and selected to go with 95% of bee keepers and went with Langstroth hives as they are the best option for my type of bee keeping. I have fine tuned in modifying them in small ways. I also have Flow Hives that I have also fine tuned for my conditions and now ordered poly Paradise hives which both are nothing more than a version of a Langstroth. But I stuck with Langstroth hives for about 10 years before I did any modifications so that I had a good understanding of them, till then it was a learning curve and I’m still learning.
I guess there is nothing wrong with your way of doing it except you might have not as much data to work with, but that’s just my opinion of course.

BeeShack This is what happens on your end…varroa in Canada and unpredictable springs have been so devastating to honeybees here and it’s such a relief that your bees are available to us. The local Canadian hardware store Peavy Mart sells these Tasmanian bees…I haven’t tried them. The tubes you saw are from Arataki in NZ.

Yes, and they don’t suffer from jetlag!

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Yeah well Russ shot me down in flames with the line “I got into beekeeping for pollination purposes, not for honey”. How many times have we heard people say “we’re not in it for the honey”?

Then @RustyMac said he knew everything in the video “City of Bees”. He’s better than me because after 15 years as a beekeeper, I learnt a lot from that video. Every time I watched it, I picked up something new that I missed the previous time.

PS, I first heard about tbh’s when someone on youtube asked me what I thought of them. I had to google them. Then I found a lot of videos on them. On each video I asked the question: Do tbh’s have any advantage over Langstroth hives. The answers I did get were all similar “we’re giving the bees what they want, they’re happier in a tbh”. They go on about all the stuff Rus mentioned. I think from memory one reply mentioned you don’t need a smoker with tbh’s, whereas you need a smoker with a “Lang” hive. It’s almost like “Lang” was a swear word to them. “People with Lang hives don’t care about their bees”. etc. etc.

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