# Beehives in a shed



## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

I would recommend you not put the hive in the shed.

1. Pretty hard to do an inspection as there is not enough light. And when you do add a light bees are attracted to the light. 

2. Once the shed cools down and hive cools correspondingly, interior of the shed and hive don't warm up much on a warm and sunny day. If the hive is in full sun and has a wind break and ambient temp is sufficiently warm, bees loosen the cluster and can bring reserves back to the cluster and the cluster can move to fresh stores in the hive.


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## beefarmer (May 2, 2010)

I have been putting nucs in a shed to overwinter for 3 winters now. I have nuc boxes with a 1" hole drilled in the front, and i set them in the shed approx. 6" from the wall and have a 1" clear plastic tube sticking out a hole thru the sheds sides. i leave a qt. jar of syrup in a cut out in the lid, and a have a small [milk house ] heater on a thermostat set at 40 deg. this has been working for me, only problem so far is knowing when to get them out come spring, before they try to swarm. i do not open the lid inside the shed.


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## MariahK (Dec 28, 2014)

I watched a movie called more then honey and the people in other countries had their hives in a shed like thing. You can find the movie on Netflix.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

I have an elaborate detachable outside entrance and tube setup on two nucs, kept in an unheated workshop. I overwintered one this way last winter and it worked great.

You do need to haul them outside to inspect. For a large hive, that's a non-trivial exercise. Give it some thought.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

For a permanent, year-round solution I think it would be a bad and inconvenient plan.

For wintering, perhaps not so much because you won't be opening the hives then, anyway.

Why not use the shed as the windbreak and keep the hives outside with insulation panels around them?

Enj.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

A shed, garage, cellar or bee house are all great ideas, and have been used successfully for hundreds of years. The goal is to reduce extreme temperatures, while not letting them get too hot, too wet, no air circulation or navigation problems. Bee can't navigate well in a structure so they will need to be screened, completely dark or unobstructed entrance to the outside.

Stores last longer in a 20-60deg temp range. Plus you can often feed at these warmer temps. 

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?247860-Energy-Consumption-Chart

I have garaged bees with great success for several years, many were too small to survive on their own, they come out of winter as a power house;

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?295359-Over-Wintering-in-the-Garage-Update


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

There's a big difference between the temperature in an insulated building with option of a heater or a cellar and an uninsulated metal shed. It also depends on the climate.

When it's 30F below outside, the interior of the metal shed will be darn close to -30F and the interior will not warm very fast.

A cellar will have a near constant temp of earth which is around 40F.

An uninsulated shed would be okay in a coastal climate or mid European climate.

Ideal temp is around 40F and best way to do that is with an insulated building and use ventilation, temp controlled heaters and coolers to keep temp around 40F.

A windbreak with hives in the sun and insulation on hive works pretty well too!


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

mgolden said:


> I would recommend you not put the hive in the shed.
> 
> 1. Pretty hard to do an inspection as there is not enough light. And when you do add a light bees are attracted to the light.
> 
> 2. Once the shed cools down and hive cools correspondingly, interior of the shed and hive don't warm up much on a warm and sunny day. If the hive is in full sun and has a wind break and ambient temp is sufficiently warm, bees loosen the cluster and can bring reserves back to the cluster and the cluster can move to fresh stores in the hive.


Seems you're not speaking from experience, but rather stating your opinion. 

I think OP has no intention to keep the hives there year round, just for the winter. This is what I'm doing as well. Unless the shed is painted white, which would reflect sunlight, darker colors would help absorb the heat and radiate it inward, serving as almost a greenhouse, and the wind block would reduce convection of the gained heat through wind. 

My two hives have been inside a shed for only 2 weeks so far, and already I see they've been doing some house cleaning as I noticed dead bees and bee parts scattered on the landing board and floor of the shed, so they have been active on warmer days. 

I didn't drill any holes or put any pipes to connect the voids. I just left small entrances open in the hives, and there's one huge crack in the top of the shed near the roof that lets the light through, and so that's where the bees will be drawn to fly to naturally anyway.

It's true that people in colder climates have been overwintering bees in similar setups for decades if not centuries.

Disclaimer: This method is probably not approved by Mike Palmer.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

ABK said:


> Unless the shed is painted white, which would reflect sunlight, darker colors would help absorb the heat and radiate it inward, serving as almost a greenhouse ...


Objects with a white color do not absorb as much solar radiation during the "daylight" hours as the same object with black color, true. But white objects radiate LESS energy at _night_ than do black objects.

Smaller daily temperature swings (with a _white_ surface) in an outdoor shed would likely be a better choice for bees than a _black_ shed with larger daily temperature swings. A _steady_ winter temp of approximately 40 degrees F is likely to result in the least bee stress and lowest stores/feed consumption, but a stable temperature in a shed is not too likely without actively controlled ventilation or heating/cooling (depending on ambient outdoor temperature).

See this thread for more on the night time radiation issue with white/black objects:
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?320386-Roofing-felt-wrapped-vs-unwrapped
You can find an explanatory link in my post in that thread, too.

UPDATE: Oops, in my original version of this post, I inadvertently switched "white" and black" in part of the post. That has not been corrected.


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

The OP talks about removing the top to check on sugar bricks and do inspections. Been there and done inspections of a hive in a building. Lack of light is problematic. In Op case, bees may or may not find there way back to the outside entrance.

If you did a bit of research, wintering sheds are insulated and temps are controlled by using cold ambient air and chillers and heaters, as required.

A black exterior works real well as night to ensure interior temp of building is ambient.

Do as you wish, however, I would never consider putting an uninsulated hive inside an uninsulated metal garden shed!


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Objects with a white color do not absorb as much solar radiation during the "daylight" hours as the same object with black color, true. But white objects radiate MORE energy at _night_ than do black objects.


Graham and I usually are in close agreement, but we differ here. Normally, black is the best color for _*both*_ absorption and emission of heat. A black box would get hotter in the sun but radiate better at night. I know of no common paint there white would emit more IR than black.

The peculiarity with common paints is that organic materials (the bases of paints) almost all have an emissivity of close to 1, i.e they act almost as blackbodies when radiating in the infrared. Black paint is usually slightly better, but just slightly. Wood and painted wood cools off about the same at night regardless of the color. Metal sheds cool faster than wood because the metal has essentially no value as an insulator. Paints of metal sheds will differ from wood paints in that they are shiny, which tends to lower both absorption and emissivity.

The two strategies for indoor overwintering differ greatly. Some cold-climate beekeepers put the hives in totally dark, temperature-controlled sheds held just above freezing, with humidity control and ventillation. The bees don't come out for the entire time they're in the shed, and you don't inspect them. Those of us in more modest conditions don't need this and would have difficulty holding temperature down because we'll routinely have some warm winter days.

My strategy uses the building as a windbreak. I even leave the windows open all winter so the temperature does not go up significantly. My temperature extremes are a little less than outdoors, but vary considerably. To do this type of indoor beekeeping, the bees need an outside entrance so they can come and go at will. I take them outside to inspect or if the hive must be opened to feed. I limit this to nucs. My main reason for doing this is to eventually have an indoor obs hive to allow some photography and videography. The bees do fine with this setup, so far, but I'm not doing it because they need it at our mid-latitude location.


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## ABK (May 9, 2016)

mgolden said:


> The OP talks about removing the top to check on sugar bricks and do inspections. Been there and done inspections of a hive in a building. Lack of light is problematic. In Op case, bees may or may not find there way back to the outside entrance.
> 
> If you did a bit of research, wintering sheds are insulated and temps are controlled by using cold ambient air and chillers and heaters, as required.
> 
> ...


Lol I think we all did "a bit of research" and the problem is research results are seldom conclusive in this trade. Go back to Langstroth's book, whose design we're all using today. He had the most success just keeping them in a cellar that had a steady temp of around 50. I doubt there were any chillers or heaters involved. And he reported that experiment to have gone extremely well, with the least amount of bees dying and least amount of honey consumed. 


Why do you say you would never consider putting an uninsulated hive inside an uninsulated metal shed? May I ask what you do for the winter?


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Phoebee said:


> Graham and I usually are in close agreement, but we differ here. Normally, black is the best color for _*both*_ absorption and emission of heat. A black box would get hotter in the sun but radiate better at night.


Oops, I reversed white/black in the post you referenced. Thanks for pointing out my error, and I have revised post #10.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Hmmm, it seems we _DO_ agree!
> 
> If the effect is present, even "slightly", then my comments would seem to be correct.


Black paint is a slightly better _*emitter*_, meaning it cools faster. You said, "white objects radiate MORE energy at night than do black objects." For painted objects, white radiates slightly less energy at night.

White *absorbs* considerably less energy in the day, because its albiedo in sunlight is typically about .6 (for typical white paint), versus .9 or greater for black surfaces. In infrared, organic paint emissivities are typically 0.9 to 0.97, regardless of color. Flat black stove paint is around 0.97. For other paints, unless metallic, it depends more on the base composition.

Mgolden says black surfaces will go to ambient quicker at night. Amazingly, on a clear night, surfaces can get _*colder*_ than ambient. If you take a reading on a clear night sky, under low humidity, the sky may read arctic-cold temperatures. Clear night sky usually pegs my thermal imager at -40. This is why your mom told you to wear a hat. The surface of your shed may get considerably colder than ambient, by as much as -7 F.


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

The garden shed is nothing more than a wind break and is a detriment to warming the hive from to solar gain and lack of light is a detriment to opening the hive/inspections.

2 inches of Styrofoam, small bottom entrance and small top entrance, quilt box, and a feed rim. And a black wrap.

Hive is on a pallet with fence boards on three sides and a metal roof. Open side faces south. Two foot high stucco gate on front to keep skunks out.

I know full well this is not practical in a commercial setting. Hey Enj, there is no illegals residing in my winter setup. lol









Use two 10 frame deeps. I also don't understand the three deeps. Makes no sense to me, if you want the honey. Commercials use two max and some use a single 10 frame deep.

Treat for mites in fall and spring and fall feed sugar syrup. Sugar blocks result in left over honey that bees use to raise early brood. Make some Bee Pro available in the spring but syrup was not required due to left over honey. I am also not convinced that bees do not liquefy the sugar blocks and store some. 

Only losses in six years were mites in one hive one year, a swarm that starved as not knowing better, sugar was on top side of inner cover with a 3 1/2 inch round hole and occasional queen issues(think I may have rolled one putting in Apivar strip and one quit laying).


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Speaking of two inches of Styrofoam, just this morning my panel saw arrived. The first project for it is cutting foam insulation, both styrofoam and poly-isocyanurate, for a science project I got myself into. Foam is notoriously hard to cut with any precision. You can cut it with a knife, but for building boxes and getting clean joints and square panels, some sort of saw is needed. I've tried several. Circular saw blades tend to bind in it when rip cutting. Cross-cutting on a radial arm works but mine is too small for the cuts I need.

A few test cuts on the panel saw have worked brilliantly. Eat your hearts out, foam users!


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## Opman711 (Jul 23, 2016)

Wow! Thank you everyone for your responses. Brighton,CO is a very bee friendly city that allows hives no matter the size of your yard. My yard isn't the biggest and I've been wanting a shed for some time and thought that getting a larger shed I could place it where my 2 hives are now and place the hives inside.

That said, I very much understand the concern over temperature as I don't plan on heating the shed. And even with the door open during inspections, I feel the bees would be ever more temperaments flying around inside the shed trying to find their way home again. Work smarter, not harder.

I think I will hold off on the shed idea. If I do experiment with it in the future I'll definitely share my findings. Thanks again everyone for your input!


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## Fivej (Apr 4, 2016)

Being new, I can't speak from my experience but I am beginning to think that it is not the cold that causes losses (assuming a healthy, dry hive with good stores) but rather wild fluctuations in temperature like we have been having in New England and elsewhere. One winter day 70 degrees and the next 15 degrees. Do they break their cluster, fly, try to forage and then eat the stores up too quickly because of the excessive expenditure of energy? Obviously, I don't know but I have been thinking along these lines. Perhaps it is best to try to keep the temperature cold, but stable?


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Overwintering inside a small shed is quite possible. Though you have to
pay attention to a few factors. The inside temp. must be stable enough not too cold and
not too hot with adequate ventilation. Insulation came to mind. Think of a greenhouse with vents and the fabric grow
house for the marijuana plants set up. Then you have to think about the bee entrance either a
big one to the outside world or the small tubes going into the individual bee hives. For lights you can use a small LED
miner's light with bright and red lens. The red lens are for the bee inspection while inside the shed.
I have a beekeeper here that use the red lens working the bees at night. It is quite doable when you have the right
set up. One beekeeper in Japan set his hives inside a commercial greenhouse. All hives are vented to the outside
world using a special hive entrance contraption. They stay warm inside all winter long while it was snowing outside. If you
have seen a mushroom grow house operation then you'll know what my idea is about. It can be done when you plan for it and build it just right for the bee environment. Ian did it up North!


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