# Bee-shed idea ...



## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

In the last few days a guy posted some info about the cavities which exist in older American timber-built houses - which I found intriguing. This immediately suggested to me that if bees really do find these cavities attractive, and if they go on to live in them successfully - then why not deliberately supply bees with something which approximates to those cavities ?

So my first idea was to simply clamp a few stud-based cavities to the outside of a building, but this was quickly overtaken by the somewhat more practical idea of making a purpose-built bee-shed - using those stud-based cavities to support the roof.

This in turn gave way to the idea of enlarging the cavity from 3-4" to 9" ... which brings us nicely into 5-Frame Nuc Box territory. And that's the basis of the current 'plan' - to build a small bee-shed with the walls made - essentially - from the equivalent of 7-foot stacks of nuc boxes with a horizontal section (external) of 18" x 9".

Now although bees love nuc-stacks, I've never built one more than 4 boxes high - this limit having always been due to the lack of stability which grows with height - but in the case of this wacky bee-shed, these 7-foot stacks would be inherently supported by the shed structure itself. 4 deep boxes have a height of 3 feet, and equate to 20 frames - a reasonable enough sized colony by British standards - so that two such colonies could always be housed in one cavity by means of a mid-height horizontal divider.

With the cavities forming the walls of the bee-shed, there's also the prospect of creating 'cupboard doors' on both inner and outer skins, such that colonies could be inspected either from the outside in good weather, or from the inside if conditions should warrant this.

As to numbers - a 14ft x 6ft shed would house 21 colonies (on British National frames), or 42 if the cavities were half-height. And that's a helluva lot of weight for such a small shed !

I'm sure there are many issues to be considered - one of these being lighting, which could be achieved by keeping the cavity height to (say) 6 feet, and having a one foot high 'ribbon' of windows running around the shed between the top of the cavities and the roof structure.

The only significant 'negative' I can immediately see is that the frames (which could be of any height of course) will need to be placed 'face-on' within the cavities, so that all five will need to be removed in order to inspect each one - just as with the Alberti Hive (the fore-runner to the classic A-Z Hive). Is that going to be a major issue ?

The reason I've posted in this sub-forum and not Hardware/Equipment, is that from an individual colony's point-of-view they are very much living in a compact vertical stack - it's just that there will be lots of them, all 'bolted together' under a common roof. 

Thoughts, criticisms etc - welcomed and encouraged.
LJ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> In the last few days a guy posted some info about the cavities which exist in older American timber-built houses - which I found intriguing. ............
> 
> Thoughts, criticisms etc - welcomed and encouraged.
> LJ


LJ, 

Look up the "bee wall" proposed by GG.
I love the "minimally managed bee wall" idea.
If I had an old building/shed/barn, I would implement the "bee-wall" in a heart beat.
The stud-wall design is perfect as is, immediately.

No frames even, none of that non-sense - we are talking slightly modified primitive bee trees battery integrated directly into the wall and proactively built-in doors for occasional access.
What I would do.
Completely wild.
Completely primitive management (or mis-management, if up to the so-called "authorities").

Somewhere here we discuss it, in case you missed:
https://www.beesource.com/forums/sh...ay-to-keep-(have-)-bees&p=1750111#post1750111


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Thanks for the link Greg - not only did I miss 'the bee wall', I still had great difficulty finding it even though I was searching for it ! But I did find GG's 'alleged' shed. 
Huh - shed ? More like a bl##dy work of art ! I couldn't build anything that good if I was being paid BIG bucks to do it ... Brings a whole new meaning to the word "shed". Absolutely superb. 100%. (page 12 of that thread for anyone reading this who also missed it)

BTW - I also missed the Oil Seed Rape/ Canola stuff - yes, OSR is intended to be a self-pollinating crop, but insect pollinators can add significantly to the yield. I keep being pestered by local farmers to place my hives in their OSR fields - but it makes dreadful honey (and the hives are then at risk from the 2-legged foxes we sometimes get around here).
LJ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> ........ But I did find GG's 'alleged' shed.
> Huh - shed ? More like a bl##dy work of art ! .....
> LJ


Right.
That's the "shed"!

Anyway, so GG is going to build-in some "bee-walls" into the "shed".
I am pretty sure he will.
Stay tuned.


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## judyv47954 (Jun 5, 2011)

There's a fellow in Canada using poly hive sheds for his bees. You might enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7g-zcvDuAU&t=39s


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

judyv47954 said:


> There's a fellow in Canada using poly hive sheds for his bees. You might enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7g-zcvDuAU&t=39s


This is just an AZ hive variation, in the Canada case.
As soon you start playing with the frames and such - might as well just recycle some of the AZ hive designs.

Though the entire thing is over-engineered, IMO.
The beauty of the "shed bee-wall" - it can truly be primitive and near-zero investment and maintenance.

I would not call this Canadian hive shed "the future of the beekeeping" as claimed on the video.
The same old over-centralization problem with the inherent issues arising from it.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

judyv47954 said:


> There's a fellow in Canada using poly hive sheds for his bees. You might enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7g-zcvDuAU&t=39s


Thanks for posting that link - appreciated - it's a little different from what I had in mind myself, but it's always good to see what other people are up to. 
LJ


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

FWIW - that guy has produced more videos related to his system, and I suspect he may have lost at least part of the basic plot along the way. In the first video (link as above) he mentions that these units are to be used for pollination, and will be easy to load on and off a trailer for that purpose.

Well - he's since made a much larger unit, and I'd say that these are quite unsuitable for migratory beekeeping - imo it would have been better to have built them on a trailer and have incorporated corner stands to accommodate the weight, which will be substantial even before a honey crop is on-board.

In the later videos there are shots of his conventional apiary, which appears to run to around 50 hives or so, and he's looking at another 50 in the Mk.2 unit, plus those already housed in the Mk.I - so he must have some really good forage in his locality to support those numbers in what appears to be a static set-up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmWpUD9X17o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UzDKx5xo9E

He's also into Warre Hives - here's his playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCraGqc73DPYFPsxrzMLNSmg

LJ


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## NorthMaine (Oct 27, 2016)

Not an AZ style, it uses standard Lang frames. There are a lot of people using that system but most of the videos you see will be in Russian and it's advantages are that you don't have to pull off the top boxes to get to the lower ones and you CAN take whole layers out and swap em if you want, whereas an AZ hive is just frame by frame.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

NorthMaine said:


> Not an AZ style, it uses standard Lang frames. .....whereas an AZ hive is just frame by frame.


The frame size is not principal at all. 
Few millimeters do not matter - in general it is the same size and proportion.

Working the sets is just a normal evolution of frame by a frame.
You don't even know what is better at times and it depends.


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## NorthMaine (Oct 27, 2016)

Size of frame is irrelevant. DESIGN of frame is different. AZ frames don't have tabs to hold them up and rest on rails with a radius cut on the top and bottom bars to disuade the bees from propolizing it down. Langstroth frames are what most of us know and use every day, size irrelevant, they have tabs on the end to suspend the frames that would prevent closing the AZ hives and a violation of bee space in that style of hive. 

BIG difference in having the option to go in and remove the equivalent of an entire box of honey frames for extraction compared to being forced to go frame by frame which the AZ style hives will require as there is no method in being able to grab a level off an AZ hive. The 'polyhive' as he calls it or Cassette hive as the Russians call it (through translation anyways) work very similarly to our standard hives except there is no requirement to disassemble the entire hive like a lang is going to require to get to the broodnest. Want to find the queen, just pull out that drawer below the queen excluder and no strain on your back. 

You might want to take a closer look at those hives, they are not as close as you presume. Once again, frame SIZE is irrelevant and is more just a convenience for obtaining foundation or extractors, etc. AZ style hives the frame sizes are all over the place, in my opinion to force you to buy the 'hive' from the same guy. The poly hive as that guy in Canada calls it is more like a filing cabinet with removable drawers compared to a stack of bankers boxes. Much easier to deal with a filing cabinet to find something than a stack of bankers boxes.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> FWIW - that guy has produced more videos related to his system........
> 
> LJ


I watches some.

Pluses and minuses - nothing new.

One minus - I prefer all my work to be happening somewhere between my waist and my chest height.
In his case, there are many units you need to be working by actually standing your knees OR bent down to the floor.
Eventually - this will get old.
The same - some units you need to be reaching up and up and up; eventually that gets very old.

Another thing - what happens if your bees are manageable by smoke.
Imagine that enclosure full of smoke; no forced ventilation that I noticed and even that....
This setup is highly dependent upon zero-defensive bee (which I don't want be dependent upon).

Yes - you can work them in the rain and keep lots of bees on a small foot-print.

As for me - many claimed positives are largely killed off by the actual negatives.
As for me - the beekeeping by and large is an out doors activity, not a pseudo-indoors activity.

Pluses and minuses - nothing new.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

NorthMaine said:


> .... The 'polyhive' as he calls it or *Cassette hive as the Russians call it* ....


Funny but the owner of the Vladimirski hive business (a very large long hive) and a Youtube personality used to run the "Cassette hives".
He dumped them and never looked back.
He has *not much good* to say about them.

Let me look and find his exact video where he compares his current system (the long hives) to the Dadants and the "Cassette hives".
Even though, it is in Russian, I just want to demo - the Cassette hives are old news and some of those who actually ran them - dumped them by now (as over-engineered) and simplified away from them.

Here, the original video about the Vladimirski long hives side by side with Cassette hive (feel free to click along and see how he demonstrates manipulating the cassettes, closer to the end):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlPUWoZUuMk

Short-resume, the author got tired of the Cassette hives - they are too much work and over-engineered and the ergonomy is not great (an example he said - try to slide out a cassette full of honey frames - that will get old soon, meanwhile the bees get very irritated since the sliding in and out squashes lots of bees).
He kept those Cassette hives for about 15 years and gave up on them (he stated on the video).

Added: since he did keep them for about 15 years, keeping the bees in the shed in bad climate obviously had some positives to it; 
somehow, he put up with the hives and the bees for that long - there could be something good in that - to tolerate for that long;

PS: granted, there are good use-cases for the Cassette hives I am sure; say - small nuc production and management may be a good case; this is not black and white.

PPS: the Vladimirski hive fellow also double-stated - the Cassette hives absolutely depend on mild bees; 
keeping the defensive Russian/AMM bees in them is highly undesirable - hard to manage (just as I stated above)..
he ran the Cassette hives exactly as discussed here - in a shed walls;
later he moved to a different place and left behind his shed and his Cassette hives behind too, to never use them again (except for 3-4 units, like the one in the video);

now days he runs pretty defensive local, treatment-free mutts in his large and long hives and advocates his current ways


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

NorthMaine said:


> Size of frame is irrelevant. DESIGN of frame is different. AZ frames don't have tabs .......


You know, as soon I see the discussion turn into the tabs and bars and the millimeters - I get less and less excited.
The more these details involved screams one thing - over-engineered.
The fewer critically important details, the larger tolerances of the equipment - the better for everyone envolved.
My bees don't care either.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

GregV said:


> I watches some.
> 
> Pluses and minuses - nothing new.


BTW - I found his video "Warre Hive going strong ..." very interesting. I'd made the assumption from his accent that the guy was Indian (as in 'from India', not a North American Indian), but in that Warre video at 3:48 there's a shot of the guy's face - so I'm now guessing Russian, or maybe Eastern European - but wherever the guy comes from, I reckon there's a lot more to him than at first appears. I'd say he's a very competent beekeeper and I intend keeping a watching brief on his video channel - more for the Warre Hive stuff than his multi-units - but thanks again to judyv47954 for posting the earlier link. 
LJ


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> BTW - I found his video "Warre Hive going strong ..." very interesting. I'd made the assumption from his accent that the guy was Indian (as in 'from India', not a North American Indian), but in that Warre video at 3:48 there's a shot of the guy's face - *so I'm now guessing Russian, or maybe Eastern European* - but wherever the guy comes from, I reckon there's a lot more to him than at first appears. I'd say he's a very competent beekeeper and I intend keeping a watching brief on his video channel - more for the Warre Hive stuff than his multi-units - but thanks again to judyv47954 for posting the earlier link.
> LJ


Eastern Euro, pretty sure.
But not Russian.
More like Southern East-Euro - former Yugoslavia and such.
Folks down there like the shed-beekeeping a lot traditionally and have mild bees too - a good fit.
Notice how much emphasis he puts onto his mild bees - made a point to repeat this few times.
Only makes sense how he took the prevailing N. American equipment and created something of his traditional style.


Good find, LJ.
I do review much Warre-formatted system materials myself so to avoid the pitfalls when reinventing the bicycle for own use.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

GregV said:


> ...
> 
> Good find, LJ.
> I do review much Warre-formatted system materials myself so to avoid the pitfalls when reinventing the bicycle for own use.


This is a good darn find, LJ.
I now got into watching more of his Warre hive episodes.
This fits really well with the Russian-style UDAV hives I also watch.
I really like the simple, non-flashy boxes slapped together and standing as they may, and yet all the bees!


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Update: I've recently scrounged a caravan (camper ?) similar to this:



"Free" being my favourite word. 

'Tis the same model (internally 15ft long, 7ft wide, 6ft 2in high) only without windows, door or internal fittings - ideal for making a proto-bee-shed-van, as I can now test-out the keeping of a few hives inside and see how things pan out within a structure of this size, and then take it from there - or not, as the case may be. Even if this project should hit the buffers, the chassis's good for a ton and a half, and there's enough usable ally to make a dozen hive roofs.

Right now I'm stripping-out the interior completely, and making the bare shell as weather-tight as possible. The current plan is to use this facility for bee-box storage until Spring, and then install a handful of test hives - tall(ish) with a small footprint - variations on the Warre theme etc., and see how well they perform when housed under cover. 

Looking forward to next season with renewed enthusiasm ...
LJ


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## judyv47954 (Jun 5, 2011)

little_john said:


> Update: I've recently scrounged a caravan (camper ?) similar to this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Little_John,

Good score! Keep us informed on progress of your trailer. i would be most interested in ventilation and heat in your bee shed. Mine has been postponed in favor for a new greenhouse this fall, so my girls will have to handle unbridled winter one more year. The most help they will get will be insulation under the lids, wrapping, and windbreaks on all sides.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> Update: I've recently scrounged a caravan (camper ?) similar to this:
> ........
> Looking forward to next season with renewed enthusiasm ...
> LJ


Very cool; a good scrounge.
I imagine, windows can be open if need to smoke the bees.
Lots of light - very good.
Next thing - would make a bed there so you can sleep on top of the bees.
People pay good money to sleep on bees - I am dead serious.
Consider.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Thanks - it's good to hear that this stuff is of interest to somebody else ... 

An explanation of what I'm up to ...

I have zero experience of bee-sheds - my hives having always been spread out far apart in the open air. And, although sites like https://www.honeyshop.co.uk/Bee.html are enthusiastic about the advantages of keeping bees in sheds, I still have a few concerns (in no particular order of importance):

a) just how convenient is accessing frames from the back of a hive, compared with opening boxes at their tops ?

b) airborn bees during inspections - just how much of a problem will this be ?

c) will the use of smoke during inspections cause problems (for me) ?

d) will the close proximity of so many colonies cause drifting of foragers ?

And so I'm hoping that experimenting with the Caravan/Camper will provide answers to at least some of these questions.

Judyv - thanks for flagging-up the ventilation & heat concerns. Although these had crossed my mind, I'd only been thinking in terms of Winter conditions rather than Summer, and so clearly need to give these a lot more thought - so thanks for the nudge - appreciated.

Even though the honeyshop article is somewhat limited regarding disadvantages, it does contain a graphic which I found very useful:


This being a picture of a Dutch open-fronted bee-house which, although more substantially built, uses the same basic principle as the wooden open stands which were used by Emile Warre in some of his apiaries:


But - although I've known of Warre's stands for some time, they've never really appealed to me - whereas that Dutch Bee-Shed (which likewise eliminates the airborn bee problem, the smoke problem AND removes the need to change from using standard 'top-access' boxes *has* (dunno why) ...

... and the following 'doodles' have duly resulted. (Continued in the next post)


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

... and the following 'doodles' have duly resulted:


If the 'cavity hives' (as I'm now calling them) mentioned at the start of this thread should work out, then the diagram on the Left could work - if not, then the diagram on the Right would be more suitable. Although I've shown 'Warre' hives installed, any suitable vertical stacks could be used (8-framers would maximise the numbers of hives). The Nucs above them would be supported on removable shelves so that housing tall stacks would still be possible. (Even I can still dream of honey harvests one day ... !)

Although most bee-shed designs feature windows which are hinged at the bottom, opening outwards at the top to let bees escape, I'm assuming that having closures of approx. 1/3rd the wall height which can be opened out to the horizontal (or near-horizontal) will do the same job, and allow in sufficient light for inspections. Indeed, having closures on opposing walls would then allow a through-draught with even the slightest breeze - so that looks to be very feasible (that is 'theoretically' ...).

Each hive entrance would be protected from the weather by a coloured cowling, and guarded by an anti-robbing screen. Having a second upper entrance would certainly help with ventilation, and could be closed during the winter period.

Another common practice appears to be to use the same shed for both equipment storage AND for housing working beehives - which surprises me, as the insulation/ventilation requirements are quite different for those two purposes - and - if the bee-shed were to be well insulated, then the hives inside could be made from the thinnest practical material. Anything from cardboard (suitably protected) upwards.

So - if a working bee-shed were to be restricted to housing (say) 20 hives and 20 nucs, these could be housed in a shed 12-14 ft long, and around 6ft wide - the small size of which has surprised me. And, if mounted upon skids, such a bee-shed could very easily be loaded onto on a small trailer, and used to 'follow the crops'.

However, there are still some issues to be addressed - for example, is Vapourising Oxalic Acid inside a bee-shed practicable from a Health and Safety point-of-view ? That's the kind of issue I'm hoping can be resolved during experiments with the caravan, as there's a helluva lot of stuff there that needs testing.

Enough. 

Would appreciate hearing the views of others - positive or negative.
'best
LJ

Greg - I like the idea of installing a bed  - not sure if it's really me, but maybe I'll give that a go ...


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

little_john said:


> Greg - I like the idea of installing a bed  - not sure if it's really me, but maybe I'll give that a go ...


Many East Euro bloggers have them built and brag so to outdo each other, I guess.
With your caravan it will be a little different but something maybe possible.
You could do both - a bed and a wall somehow too.

Give it a watch for the bed ideas (main criteria - a person lays down directly on the bee hives and feels the vibration, sounds, and the hive smells - supposedly high therapeutic effect)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyDTxX5Pw08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RMz0pUOsLg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BErlMws9Xb0

Here is an English video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMWf4nuayWs


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

There is an update on the Warre's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiKiFmKIjHI


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## Robert Holcombe (Oct 10, 2019)

Lighting LJ, I believe Seeley uses infrared lights in his studies to avoid disturbing the bees. I am running a crude, warmed closet test with a weak nuc ( helps generate questions). A short transparent hose is the exit to the outside sun-lite day but it is not connected to the nuc but close by. I have infrared light for observations and an open hive exit to the closet. Currently it is 40-45 F (4.5 C) in the closet and 22F (-5.5 C) outside and sunny. All bees remain clustered in their polystyrene box - for now. I also noted a curious, pleasant sweet smelling oder. Prime purpose is to see if I can save a small cluster by external temperature control and develop a sustainable observational colony-hive approach.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Robert Holcombe said:


> I am running a crude, warmed closet test with a weak nuc ( helps generate questions). [...] Prime purpose is to see if I can save a small cluster by external temperature control


FWIW, this certainly *can* be done - assuming there's a good-enough reason for doing it. My own motivation for doing just this was that my all-time favourite queen was over-wintering in one half of a Deep Dual-Colony Long Hive, when I noticed during one of those warm sunny days in mid-Winter we sometimes get, that her colony wasn't putting any bees into the air for a clearance flight, which all the other colonies were doing. So I took a peek inside (lack of flyers being the only reason I would ever look inside a hive during Winter) and found only around 100-200 bees there. On a hunch I checked the adjoining half of the hive, which I found to be bursting at the seams - so it appeared that my venerable old queen's bees had deserted her for a much younger monarch. I can't fault their logic from a survival point-of-view, but I badly wanted to take a few more daughters from that 'venerable old lady'.

To make matters worse, not only was there then only an eggcup-full of bees in a 16-frame box 12" deep, but the Met Office were warning of a serious weather front moving in from the East - coming pretty-much directly from Siberia - and I'm located on Britain's East Coast which is as flat as a pancake, so there's nothing much to protect Yours Truly between here and Siberia.

So I cobbled together an emergency rig: dummied down the box space with a thermal curtain, installed a 20W heater-frame, and a good cupful of fondant was knifed onto the top-bars. A snow board was placed against the hive entrance (which just *had* to be facing East, didn't it !) mainly to deflect the expected high winds, and the Open Mesh Floor was duly sealed-up. 

The weather system which eventually hit us was so severe that somebody has considered it worthy of a Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Great_Britain_and_Ireland_cold_wave

It consisted of 3 parts: firstly the 'beast' itself arrived which caused the temperature to drop through the floor with a severe (by our standards) snowfall; this was immediately followed by a storm front with hurricane strength winds which caused massive drifting of snow (and in my area, scouring of soil from the frozen earth, such that the snow turned a ruddy-brown colour); then finally, just as we thought it was all over, a second 'mini-beast from the east' arrived, but fortunately this one was far less severe and much shorter lived. And - during all of this time - I had a valuable queen and miniature colony in an exposed apiary on 'life-support' !

But - it worked - and by late April I'd taken another half dozen daughters from her, and a month or so later she finally joined that great Apiary up there in the sky.

In essence, all I'd done was significantly reduce the cavity size, supply a good surplus of fondant, and maintain the temperature at around 25-26 deg C for around 3 months to avoid clustering. During the worst days of 'the Beast', the temperature did drop to 15-16 deg C for a few days (as that hive was never designed to be artificially heated), but it was impractical at the time to increase the heater wattage under such dire weather conditions.

So - good luck - my guess your own project will work out ok. Hope so.
LJ


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## Robert Holcombe (Oct 10, 2019)

Thanks LJ, Nice to hear of a good experience and a "just do it" attitutde. I am very interested in the temperature you defined as "around 25 -26 C" . Where and how did you measure that value? Did the little colony resume significant brood rearing by "avoiding" the typical commercial bee storage clustering temperatures of 4.5C) for the winter winter? Right now they are quietly clustered and I am about to perform an inspection inside the closet  . 

I misjudged the queen's characteristics but had removed her in a medium with brood and nurse bees in early Sept. The dearth started about a week later and attendant robbing. She was attacked and heavily robbed by one or more strong hives. ( Curious my nuc was untouched.) I saved her by moving her inside for a three days they back out to a new. solitary location. It worked but the colony is small, about 500 - 1000 bees. I decided to shrink her environment by putting her in a poly nuc and feeding syrup. Currently I have controlled the nucs external environmental temperature in the "strorage" range.


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

Robert Holcombe said:


> Thanks LJ, Nice to hear of a good experience and a "just do it" attitutde. I am very interested in the temperature you defined as "around 25 -26 C" . Where and how did you measure that value? Did the little colony resume significant brood rearing by "avoiding" the typical commercial bee storage clustering temperatures of 4.5C) for the winter winter?


The situation I found myself in was one in which I could see no way such a micro-colony would survive in the sub-zero temperatures which were being forecast, and that they would simply have huddled together on one area of stores until that became depleted, and then either starve or freeze to death. So, I had to prevent them from clustering and keep them mobile whilst at the same time supplying them with plenty of low-residue food in the form of fondant.

Because of the short time available to rig something up, and the crude equipment which was employed, I had no way of establishing what the temperature gradient would be within the reduced cavity which was then created - so I settled for maintaining 'high 70's' (F) when measured at the top, with an assumption that 60's would probably exist 3 or 4 inches lower down. 100% guesswork, of course.

I doubt that they would have raised any brood, as these were Carnies who's brood-raising tends to be influenced by pollen and nectar flow coming into the hive (or not) - but that colony was never checked again once the hive had been put back together - my only concern being whether the queen herself would survive, and I didn't finally discover that until some time in March, if memory serves.
'best,
LJ


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