# Feedback on first attempt at building an observation hive



## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

Anywhere your dimensions violate been space they will propolize and build burr comb. I don't use plexiglass because it's harder to clean and isn't as stable as glass. As for a cover, I use the thinnest plywood I can find and hold it on with 4 little aluminum screen holding tabs. How mUchiha experience do you have keeping bees?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>To mount the plexiglass, I drilled holes in the plexiglass and then mounted screws into hive frame. I can use a nut to hold the plexiglass in place. 

I would use these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WNZ1OK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

or something like them. The problem with drilling and screwing is that if you tighten the screw even a little too much the plexiglass breaks.


>Mistake #1 -- I didn't leave any room between the frames!. Not sure how my math got off, I was planning on 3/4" between each frame but ended up with like 1/8". Not enough for a bee to cross to the other side. I was thinking of just cutting holes in the foundation so the bees can move to each side. 

The goal should be between 1/4" and 3/8". So the target should be 5/16" unless there are mitigating circumstances.

>Question - Will the bees propolis the frames together if they are only 1/8" apart?

Yes.

> I would have to take the whole thing if I want to add the space. ugh. Or I could use medium frames and let them build natural comb off the bottom of those. 

The problem with this in an observation hive is there is no telling what they will do. They may build some angled comb from glass to glass rather than build on the bottom of your frame.

>Mistake #2. Im now thinking I should have used a single piece of plexiglass instead of splitting it. It's hard to see in the picture where it's split. (just above the bottom of the 2nd frame from top). 
My thinking was that it would be easier to service the hive by splitting the plexiglass half way so I could work on the top half or bottom half as needed. It turns out that 1/8" plexigass is too flexible and bows in or out just a little bit leaving a 1/4" gap.. Maybe large enough for a bee to get out.. 
>Question - Can bees get through 1/4 gap? 

Indubitably. A bee only needs 1/6". 1/4" is way too big to keep bees in. 1/7" is the maximum size that they can't get out.

>Question - if I did use a single piece of plexiglass, what happens when I remove it? suddenly I would have the face of 5 frames open to the sky. Will this be a mess or not a big deal? 

Here's how I work my observation hives (and all of them open completely when you open them). I get three pieces of cloth about 4" square. I get three or four hair ties (like you make a ponytail with but rubber bands can work. hair ties are just easier to work with). I unhook the tube and quickly rubber band a piece of cloth over the two ends (the hive and the tube). Then I quickly go outside and put one on the outside of the tube. Then I haul it outside and work it. Whatever bees fly out fly back to the outside of the tube and hang or hover there. When I'm done I close up and brush all the bees off of the outside. Run ten yards, and repeat brushing bees. Run ten yards and hopefully there aren't any more but I'll brush them if there are, and then take the hive in the house. Remove the cloth on the two ends and put them back together. Go outside and remove the cloth outside. All the displaced bees that were waiting go back in the hive.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesobservationhives.htm


>I have a final design quandary --what to use as a cover? I assume the primary reason for the cover is to provide thermal regulation. I imagine leaving plexiglass open outside could heat things up a lot inside the hive on sunny days. 

If it's outside, you do have a quandary. I keep mine in the living room. If you leave it open you will have a solar wax melter and the bees will die if they get sun. I keep them inside and put a curtain (a doubled up piece of black broadcloth) over them.

>I was thinking about hanging either using a thin piece of plywood or a cheap moving blanket that I could move away manually when I want to observe the hive. In Texas, we have mild winters so i'm not too worried about the cold.

A blanket might work. I have not attempted to keep one outside.


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## intothewind (Jul 17, 2016)

Their is a nice design where each frame goes in its own section and these stack ontop of it...ideal since you can remove individual frames outside to work with minimal chance of bee escape. 

I built a 3x2 hive...quite heavy to move even w 4 frames filled atm and it is shorter than yours. It is not as big of a disaster as you think it might be to open the hive indoors....esp. later in the day w less activity. Most bees stay in. Those that fly out and collect at a window could be vacuumed up and released at the entrance(or disposed of)... or ideally itd be a window you can open up! 

Just be sure it is beetight, including anywhere around the outside entrance. Otherwise you could end up with heaps of bees in the room. Done that and its no fun. Lots of bees in the window track...need to invest in a vacuum.


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## shaneTX (Jun 7, 2016)

Appreciate all the feedback. I think I'm down to my final design quandary. managing hive temperature. Being that the hive is only a single frame wide, the hive will be very susceptible to temperature changes. This hive will be located outside in mostly shade but will get about 2 hours of sun. Any maybe this is a fools errand all around to try to keep this outside..

How much can the bees manage their hive temperature? What is a max temp that the bees can handle for a few hours? Can the bees lower the temp 10F with fanning and water?

I was doing some temp testing with a wireless thermometer and in the sun and only the plexiglass, the temp gets up to about 122F when it was 95F ambient which will be close to the melting point of the wax. Obviously this is too hot.. But that is likely the max.

I did some testing covering with canvas sheets and I can lower the temp to about 105F just by keeping the sun off. I wonder if that is enough?

I can probably get it down to about 100F by adding some foam insulation. 

Still pretty dang hot but maybe good enough?




View attachment 26908


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

shaneTX said:


> Still pretty dang hot but maybe good enough?


Nope. OB hives are really meant to be inside. Especially don't have them outside in Houston even in the shade. You'll have the honey laden wax collapse on a hot day and they're done. This is simply a bad idea.


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## shaneTX (Jun 7, 2016)

@ D Coates -- Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad I asked here rather than have a sad experience to relate on what not to do. I see I need to rethink some things.

I am a new beek and mostly likely have a borderline disorder where my curiosity drives me to take my interests and get as competent as fast as possible.  And since I find the bees beyond interesting, well.. the rest is history. 

I really wanted to create an Obs hive so I could watch every day and really know what the heck was going on inside the hive without taking my existing hives apart every few days. My wife generally shakes her head and mutters under her breath about my hobbies unless it gets too crazy.. Bringing the bees in the house will probably rate as too crazy for a while longer.. But, I have been working on her.

Anyways.. I want to believe I can engineer a observation hive that can stay outside. Somehow my other 2 hives survive Houston's heat with only an inch of pine board between them and the elements. I was going to run my wireless BBQ thermometer inside their hive to figure out what temp they are able to keep the hive at but figured someone on the forum would know the answer. I figure the worst case, I can just build a big plywood box around it to create the airspace/insulation. 

Im sure the veterans are all shaking their heads at me.. that's ok.


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## D Coates (Jan 6, 2006)

shaneTX said:


> @ D Coates -- Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad I asked here rather than have a sad experience to relate on what not to do. I see I need to rethink some things.
> 
> I am a new beek and mostly likely have a borderline disorder where my curiosity drives me to take my interests and get as competent as fast as possible.  And since I find the bees beyond interesting, well.. the rest is history.


 I'm familiar with this as I've got 7 times the hives I thought I would when I started as well as an observation hive.



shaneTX said:


> I really wanted to create an Obs hive so I could watch every day and really know what the heck was going on inside the hive without taking my existing hives apart every few days. My wife generally shakes her head and mutters under her breath about my hobbies unless it gets too crazy.. Bringing the bees in the house will probably rate as too crazy for a while longer.. But, I have been working on her.
> 
> Anyways.. I want to believe I can engineer a observation hive that can stay outside. Somehow my other 2 hives survive Houston's heat with only an inch of pine board between them and the elements. I was going to run my wireless BBQ thermometer inside their hive to figure out what temp they are able to keep the hive at but figured someone on the forum would know the answer. I figure the worst case, I can just build a big plywood box around it to create the airspace/insulation.
> 
> Im sure the veterans are all shaking their heads at me.. that's ok.


Yeah, I'm shaking my head. But, so what? If you've got the time and you're enjoying learning go for it. I don't have the time for something that experience tells me will require soooo much effort to design and maintain if successful. To me the possible positive yield for resources invested isn't even close to there in my mind. But, that's me. I had 3-4 years experience before I got into OB hives. I'm VERY certain some of the things I've done/am doing have had veterans much more seasoned than me shaking their heads.


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## intothewind (Jul 17, 2016)

I think it would be best to do 2 frame width for an outside hive. has anyone done cutouts on a feral hive with only one comb? One frames main benefit is being able to see every bee. 2 frame width will still give a great idea of what is going on. I marked foragers in a 2 frame and it was still great fun (instagram #afewbees) 

Bonterra bees has a garden hive design. It has an outer case that goes around the hive case with door. I would try to put such a hive under a patio. You could also buikd it right up against a patio window so the bees would be outside but you could still watch .5 to .25 of what is going on.


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## shaneTX (Jun 7, 2016)

I appreciate all the feedback on this. This has been a fun project. To fix the heat issue, I created covers by gluing canvas to reflective reflectix solar insulation (think car solar shades). According to my thermometers, this performed slightly better than what the plywood side provides for a empty nuc that I set up to compare against.

Today it was a blazing 96F and sunny outside and the observation hive was 105F inside while the empty nuc was hotter at 107F. I assume the bees can use convection to cool the hive down to 95F or whatever their desired temp is. It has to be easier with a tall vertical hive anyways.

Saturday, I noticed that one of my hives has decided to create a handful of queencells (different topic. not sure what is going on there). I think I will harvest one of those frames and see what happens. 

I will provide and update in a few weeks.


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## intothewind (Jul 17, 2016)

That sounds promising. The one thing is that if you are viewing this the glass will heat up in a matter of minutes.(I would do some experiments). Mayhaps you will not want to be outside looking at bees when the weather is that hot however.


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## shaneTX (Jun 7, 2016)

Yes. I found that it will heat up to 125F in about 15 minutes exposed to the sun. No watching bees during the middle of the day from the sunny side. 
Last night , I added a frame of capped brood and a queen cell and then a frame that I call the "big ugly frame" because it's extra wide and has all sorts of crevices etched in the comb. 

A couple of learnings:

1. My obs hive is too narrow for my big ugly frame . Parts of it were squished into the plexiglass. It looks the bees were working hard to chew away the squished areas to create beespace between the big ugly frame and the plexiglass. Cool. Maybe they will thin it down and make it pretty in a few weeks. 


2. Adding the frames with bees on the vertically hung hive is utter chaos when the plxiglass is removed. Probably 10% of the bees chose to fly rather than go in the hive.. Also the single wide configuration made it hard to dump the leftover bees into the hive. I eventually held the bottom open and put my nuc carrying box next to it, and 99% chose to be in the hive in the evening. I don't see myself opening up the hive anytime soon. 

3. Kudos to Michael Bush. Those bees exploit every crack to get out rather than use the main entrance I provided which is a tube attached to the top of the hive. They managed to squeeze past a few places where the plexiglass meets the wood frame. It must be 3/16" of an inch gap and they are slowly squeezing out.. Cant see any squeezing back in. Michael bush warned they would find all cracks. I didn't take that seriously enough. I ended up using silicone around the edges which seemed to work.


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## intothewind (Jul 17, 2016)

1. They will trim that frame down neatly....often will leave some burr comb.

2. I find holding the box by the entrance works....put fanning bees in the tube. any future opening and bees that come off will quickly go back into hive.

Yes...bees will crawl out...then fan and lead more bees astray. I duid not have a tight seal around my entrance tube shim and ended up with a few cups of bees in my room.


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