Hey guys,
Wondered what your thoughts are on this new invention?
As I am in Australia, with no Varroa yet, I am not sure if this will actually work.
If holding at 40C would work, why wouldnât a top with a heated fan system that blew exactly 40 degrees down through the hive work? I am not sure it needs to be that complicated âifâ this method would work.
It looked like the hive was heated to 47 and allowed to drop to 40 over a couple of hours. If it worked it would be great but it needed them to remove and replace the lid when the temperature spiked to the correct temperature. That would be OK for a backyard beek but not good for the pros with hundreds of hives.
Interesting, and if it could be automated fantastic.
Cheers
Rob.
If it is true that heating the hive to those temperatures and holding it for those periods- is effective in virtually eradicating varroa- and doesnât harm the bees - then I donât see why you couldnât make your own âheat treatment panelâ relatively easily/inexpensively- with a passive solar hot air panel- and possibly a solar powered fan? A few cheap temperature probes in the boxesâŠ
The thermosolar hives look pretty nice to me too if just a little pricey. ⊠Their design incorporates passive solar panels on the boxes- good for colder climates- which can be covered during hot weather. They claim big increase in honey production due to their warmer hives- all this seems quite separate to the verroa heat treatment top partâŠ
Says someone with a flow hive 
i agree! if it could be automated, and done say twice a year that would be best!
the excess power could be wired to the house to run our toasters. imagine that! honey on toast with almost zero carbon emissions!
or even if you had hundreds of hives with solar panels on them, it could be enough to run the house off the grid!
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but seriously, i think these guys would have a lot more success if they had an option to buy just the technology without the entire hive. Like what the flow hive guys did, you had the option of a complete hive, or just the frames.
for what it is worth- I donât think either hive is too pricey (assuming the thermosolar one actually works!). I think we got a good deal with our Flow Hive ultimately. Very happy- worth every cent so far.
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Given that you only need to do two heat treatments every so often- a simple 12 volt solar panel with fan- and a passive solar hot air panel- would probably do the trick perfectly. It would be much easier to do it manually than automaticlly⊠perhaps one of these passive solar air heating panels with solar fan could be adapted into a âtreatment roofâ:
I just saw this and wanted to share it here. http://thermosolarhive.com/en/homepage/
Seems like the heat is a good fighter agains the varroa mites. These guys just launched their Indiegogo campaign for a standard beehive but with solar âwindowsâ that warm up the hives.
What are your thoughts on this? Any ideas if we could implement something like this on our flowhives?
@Pablo_Gonzalez I donât see any reason why this idea cannot be adapted to just about any beehive It looks like the panels on the sides are just âpassive solarâ heat sink/collectors. A panel of glass over a panel of iron would work fine? Even without the glass. I think in an Australian summer though it wouldnât be a good idea to increase the heat in the hive! It seems the thermosolar hive come with âsummerâ panels that can cover the passive collectors in the warmer months. It is interesting what they claim in terms of increased honey production due to the bees having to do less work to keep the hive warmâŠ
Likewise the treatment roof could be replicated in any hive I think? The passive solar air panels I linked above produce warm air and have a fan that is powered by a small solar electric panel. I donât see why it couldnât be adapted to go on top of any hive. If it is true the heat treatments are harmless to the the bees- yet fatal to varroa- I donât see why it wouldnât work on any hive.
Also the LED thermometers they are using are really cheap and could easily be placed in any hive- the probes could be pushed right into the comb- and they are pretty accurate- I use them on my coffee machine so recognised them on the thermosolar hive. Come to think of it they could be a good way of monitoring a hive over winter with minimal interference?
Having said that- I think the Thermosolar hives look pretty great- and are priced fairly. Others on here seem more skeptical?
Luckily we donât have those blasted mites in Australia (touching wood).
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Their FAQ had cited that the embedded equipment in each box made incorporating the tech into existing (read âFlowâ) hives problematic.