At last...its published

doi:10.1007/s00484-015-1057-z
Int J Biometeorol. 2015 Sep 3. [Epub ahead of print]
Ratios of colony mass to thermal conductance of tree and man-made nest enclosures of Apis mellifera: implications for survival, clustering, humidity regulation and Varroa destructor.
Mitchell D

Abstract

In the absence of human intervention, the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) usually constructs its nest in a tree within a tall, narrow, thick-walled cavity high above the ground (the enclosure); however, most research and apiculture is conducted in the thin-walled, squat wooden enclosures we know as hives. This experimental research, using various hives and thermal models of trees, has found that the heat transfer rate is approximately four to seven times greater in the hives in common use, compared to a typical tree enclosure in winter configuration. This gives a ratio of colony mass to lumped enclosure thermal conductance (MCR) of less than 0.8 kgW-1 K for wooden hives and greater than 5 kgW-1 K for tree enclosures. This result for tree enclosures implies higher levels of humidity in the nest, increased survival of smaller colonies and lower Varroa destructor breeding success. Many honeybee behaviours previously thought to be intrinsic may only be a coping mechanism for human intervention; for example, at an MCR of above 2 kgW-1 K, clustering in a tree enclosure may be an optional, rare, heat conservation behaviour for established colonies, rather than the compulsory, frequent, life-saving behaviour that is in the hives in common use. The implied improved survival in hives with thermal properties of tree nests may help to solve some of the problems honeybees are currently facing in apiculture

Well done Derek .... Can you let me know when there is a Ladybird edition please ... ?

Do you have any conclusions you can share without jeopardising your paper too much ?

pargyle said:

Well done Derek .... Can you let me know when there is a Ladybird edition please ... ?

Do you have any conclusions you can share without jeopardising your paper too much ?

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there is a need for a ladybird book of heat transfer and humidity and it should
be required reading for biologists

There are large chunks of bee behaviour we may have misunderstood especially clustering, honey ripening and humidy regulation because we only study bees in an environment an order of magnitude different from native.

The lowest temperatures on the planet are survivable by a modestly sized colony of bees, if they have a tree and good forage the previous summer.

Does your paper also look at poly hives?

KiwiLad said:

Does your paper also look at poly hives?

Click to expand...

It covers those available in UK in 2012

Well done!

I always wondered why there was an insistence in the "Basic" that modern beekeepers should keep bees in a wine crate?

Yeghes da

derekm said:

there is a need for a ladybird book of heat transfer and humidity and it should
be required reading for biologists

There are large chunks of bee behaviour we may have misunderstood especially clustering, honey ripening and humidy regulation because we only study bees in an environment an order of magnitude different from native.

The lowest temperatures on the planet are survivable by a modestly sized colony of bees, if they have a tree and good forage the previous summer.

Click to expand...

I don't have the science behind it but personal observations of my bees certainly confirm that providing them with a highly insulated environment in which they can control both the temperature and humidity has numerous benefits. There is so much that we really don't understand about bees and of course the money for research is not going to come for researching issues that don't have a perceived commercial value at the end.

Credit to you for doing the science on insulated hives ... and the bottom line is you can make it much better for your bees if you go skip diving for a few bits of Celotex or Kingspan ... not much money to be made from that idea !

Again, well done .. Bill Bielby will be looking down on you saying about time !!

pargyle said:

There is so much that we really don't understand about bees and of course the money for research is not going to come for researching issues that don't have a perceived commercial value at the end.

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Thats because "pure" research can't be written off against tax but research into a commercially viable project can.

Thanks Derek. I have been looking forward to this. I hope we all learn lots.

Hi derek are you still interested in trees with bees in? there is one directly behind my parents house near emsworth which with a small stepladder you could easily be able to put a camera in mind you the entrance is about 3bees round.

totally wild colony been there years.

Congratulations Derek.

Well done, Derek - I bet you'd almost given up on getting it published.

Is the only way for us to read the full text to spend the £29.95 with the academic publishers or will you be selling pirated copies whilst on your various lecture tours, in which case I'll see you at Totnes on 17th October with my 2/6d.

CVB

charlievictorbravo said:

Well done, Derek - I bet you'd almost given up on getting it published.

Is the only way for us to read the full text to spend the £29.95 with the academic publishers or will you be selling pirated copies whilst on your various lecture tours, in which case I'll see you at Totnes on 17th October with my 2/6d.

CVB

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I imagine Derek has freely shared the relevant conclusions on the forum previously.
Congratulations on getting it published Derek

charlievictorbravo said:

Well done, Derek - I bet you'd almost given up on getting it published.

Is the only way for us to read the full text to spend the £29.95 with the academic publishers or will you be selling pirated copies whilst on your various lecture tours, in which case I'll see you at Totnes on 17th October with my 2/6d.

CVB

Click to expand...

I'm hoping that this bit of the copyright agreement

"Authors may self-archive the Author’s accepted manuscript of their articles on their
own websites. Authors may also deposit this version of the article in any repository,
provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later.
He/she may not use the publisher‘s version (the final article), which is posted on
SpringerLink
and other Springer websites, for the purpose of self-archiving or deposit.
Furthermore, the Author may only post his/her version provided acknowledgement is
given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article
on Springer‘s website. The link must be provided by inserting the DOI number of the
article in the following sentence: “The final publication is available at Springer via
http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOI]
”"
means i can put up a version that is fundamentally the same apart from small wording and formatting changes done by Springer on my website.

Well done Derek, all that hard work has been worthwhile.

What do you plan to do next?

I am wondering if live and dead trees have been addressed. There are considerable differences in cooling during the active growing season. In summer the nest will be effectively cooled by the vast amount of water passing up the xylem. Clearly bees don't bother too much, but there is a considerable difference between transpiring tree homes and others, even hard and soft woods (deciduous and evergreen).

One might hope that a published scientific paper would finally debunk the dinosaurs that advocate keeping bees with no insulation whatsoever. But somehow I doubt it. At least we can direct new beeks to a published paper - I doubt there is anything scientifically addressed to demonstrate that minimal insulation is a better alternative.

I might scrutinise the content, but doubt it as I already realise that insulation is a no-brainer and have insulated my bees to practicable levels for umpteen years.

oliver90owner said:

One might hope that a published scientific paper would finally debunk the dinosaurs that advocate keeping bees with no insulation whatsoever. But somehow I doubt it. At least we can direct new beeks to a published paper - I doubt there is anything scientifically addressed to demonstrate that minimal insulation is a better alternative.

I might scrutinise the content, but doubt it as I already realise that insulation is a no-brainer and have insulated my bees to practicable levels for umpteen years.

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Yes RAB ... but the message is very slow to get through .. a straw poll of beekeepers I know in my association identified that I was very much in the minority in insulating my hives ... indeed, a large number are still operating and advocating holes in crown boards the size of saucers and some (God forbid) still shove matchsticks under the crown board to 'help' with ventilation.

No amount of argument or discussion will change these dinosaurs .. the reply I always get is the 'I've been doing this for XX years and my bees survive - why should I change if it's working'. If everyone was like this we would be stuck in the stone age ... some beekeepers still are !

BeeJayBee said:

Well done Derek, all that hard work has been worthwhile.

What do you plan to do next?

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The next subjects will be addressed using Computational Fluid Dynamics...
e.g.
Tree nest top shape
Hive floors
top vents

Etc...
There are so many crimes of Fluid mechanics, commited in the name of Bee keeping that need to be brought to scientific justice

Well done, keep up the good work.

So pleased Derek. I was at the Scottish Beekeepers Day in Oatridge last month and I thought your talk was very interesting. I felt quite a few members of the audience were hostile to your talk but not everyone can approach things in a scientific way. I scribbled notes as copiously as I could but missed lots of your facts. Is there any way you would share the slides from your presentation with me ( absolutely not to use publicly) so that I could understand the data better. I'm thinking of writing an article (or it could be a book) about the use of polystyrene hives, there's not much out there apart from sales literature. I did look up the paper online but it's £35ish. I am retired and don't have an academic email. It seemed rather too technical from my view even though I have a soft engineering MSc! (Quality Management!). Do see my minutes of you presentation in the Scottish Beekeepers group on Facebook.