Rose Hive Method Ep 4

A comparison of the Rose Hive Method with the performance of hives managed as traditional Nationals.

As we reach the end of the season, this will be the last post in the series for this year, although we will report back in spring as to how the bees have over wintered in Rose vs Nationals. We may also try to get a better idea of whether there is a difference in productivity next year if it’s a slightly more normal year than this awful summer (whatever normal means nowadays).

We’ve collated all of our findings from the year and split them into 2 sections; those relating to using a single sized box of whatever dimensions, and those relating to using Rose (AKA Thorne’s OSB) boxes and following Tim Rowe’s specific methods. So to summarise:

The Rose Hive Method

Advantages

• No need for Queen Excluders saves some money and space.

• With brood in multiple boxes it's actually easier to get a decent idea if the colony is thinking of swarming. This is done by cracking the boxes like opening a suitcase, and looking at the bottom of the frames where a good percentage of the QCs will be found (however, see below).

• One of the reasons to use this intermediate sized box in a one size box system is that a Brood box full of honey is very heavy, whereas using a stack of supers means buying and constructing a lot more boxes and frames, meaning a lot more time and money. The Rose box sits as a happy medium to both of these factors (again, see below for the flip side).

• Using two of these rather than a Brood and a Super as ‘brood and a half’ (which is most of our colonies) helps with management of brood frames.

• Simplicity of construction means the Rose boxes are significantly cheaper than National boxes.

Disadvantages

• Weight – The Rose boxes are bigger than a super, so contain more honey when full and are obviously heavier. Unfortunately a lot of the weight advantage vs a Brood box full of honey is lost due to the construction of the boxes. The sides of the Rose box are one solid, thick piece of wood with a handhold routed out, rather than two bars and a thin wall in a National box, which adds a lot of weight. If I buy more I plan to ask Thorne's to cut a bigger hand hold to reduce the weight of wood in that piece.

• We did a small extraction of Spring honey in June. I had checked the previous week and the box was full of honey, but when I came to harvest it the queen had laid on several frames, so you just need to double check. The flip side is that it's easy to take a frame of honey from anywhere else in the hive to make up a full frame of honey.

• Having no queen excluder is not too much of a problem 95% of the time, but when you really need to find the queen in a busy hive it can be. In this system the queen MUST be marked. Once I had to go through a hive of 4 busy boxes three times to find the queen, which took a very long time (as she wasn't marked - lesson learned).

• If you really want/need to avoid swarms it's obviously a lot harder to find absolutely every last QC with brood in multiple boxes. We accept losing the occasional swarm, so it doesn't bother us too much.

• In the UK, Rose boxes are only available from Thorne’s, and only available assembled (unkess bought in bulk) although as they only comprise 4 parts, they are far cheaper than assembled National boxes.

• Not available in Western Red Cedar in the UK, so must be painted.

• Less convenient if obtaining bees in nucs from elsewhere (as they are most likely on Brood frames).

Single Sized Boxes

Advantages

• The simplicity of moving frames from hive to hive or box to box has continued to be really useful. When it's been necessary to move a frame of brood to another hive, and all being the same size has been great. This is also very helpful for removing manky old comb by gradually moving frames/boxes up the stack.

• If you want to increase your number of hives, the one size boxes are great. The ability to do walkaway splits by simply putting more or less any box with QCs or eggs/young brood onto a new floor is great, as is the ability to move frames with brood/QCs/pollen from and to any box.

• You only need to keep one size of boxes, frames and wax, so no chance of running out of Brood boxes, or Super frames etc. This should save money and space.

• Similarly, the contrast with messing around looking for the right size boxes and corresponding frames is stark.

• You only need to take one size of everything when visiting out apiaries, which is so much easier.

Disadvantages

• None we can find, just pick the size that you’re comfortable lifting.

Performance

Given the crazy weather in Cornwall this year, hives have performed really randomly, and weaker hives and nucs have been much harder to get up to strength. During June and July we have also had a number of queens hatch then fail to mate due to the unbroken bad weather. As a result we think it’s meaningless to try to make a worthwhile comparison of any differences in performance, so we’ll try that again next year.

Varroa

We’ve hardly had any varroa this year in any hives, so again it’s not been possible to suggest any benefit from either type of hive. Our bees don’t seem to exhibit much of what has been characterised as Varroa Sensitive Hygiene, so I’m not sure if we’ve just been lucky. To promote true varroa resistance we don't treat with chemicals and we are mainly making increase from our own queens, in order to try to let natural selection take its effect. We only ever buy queens from one local beekeeper who has the same approach to beekeeping we do, and then only in order to ensure our gene pool doesn’t get too narrow.

Conclusions

Single Sized Boxes

There are definitely big advantages to using only one size of box. Depending on your strength this could be all Rose boxes, but equally could be all Supers. You’d have to be stronger than me to consider using all Brood boxes!

We’re sold on this approach, but as mentioned, we’re going to see if we can get them made a bit lighter. If the Rose box was actually mid-way between the others in weight it would be perfect for us.

The Rose Method

The main practical considerations of the Rose Method are the absence of Queen Excluders and the positioning of empty boxes, although the former is hardly unique to this method.

Absence of QE

This is hard to judge. The QE prevents the bees from making the brood nest tall and thin as they would in nature, compressing it into a cuboid shape, which may be sub-optimal for lots of reasons. Also, from the beekeeper’s perspective, if you have prolific bees no QE would seem to give the possibility of much bigger colonies and therefore more honey. Our bees are not that prolific and for most hives three Rose boxes is enough for them to form the brood nest without hitting the QE. There are numerous advantages and disadvantages, and everyone would have to judge for themselves.

Position of Empty Boxes

Tim advocates putting empty boxes in the middle of the brood nest until mid-summer and on top of the brood nest thereafter. Our bees are not so prolific, so I think next year we’ll try putting one box in middle of the brood, then the remainder on top of the brood nest (below any full ‘supers’) regardless of the time of year. We'll see.....

More Drones

Tim contends that modern beekeepers regard drones as largely a waste of space in a hive, and so create conditions to minimise drone numbers, such as using all worker foundation, which he believes is detrimental to colony health, mood etc. His response is to give a lot of starter strips allowing the bees to choose which cell type they make; we occasionally do this, but more often we add at least one frame of drone comb per box. This has definitely increased drone numbers significantly compared to hives where we didn’t (the bees don't seem to use it if they don't need more drones, so we think it gives a more 'natural' number). It’s not really possible for us to judge whether this has been beneficial, but working on the basis that the bees know their own needs best, we would say it should be, and so we’ll continue doing it. We also hope that it increases the number of our drones in the area, increasing the chance of better mating for new queens.

Leave The Bees Enough Honey for the Winter

The final one of Tim’s points that we’ll cover here is the idea that bees make honey because that’s what they need, and therefore we shouldn’t be greedy and should leave the bees plenty to get them through winter. Many beekeepers obviously don’t do this, and compensate with syrup and fondant.

We will always feed when needed to stop colonies starving, as we have even had to do this summer. However, similar to the drones point, we must assume bees are happier and healthier on the complex concoction that is honey, than they are on sucrose only, so we will continue to leave the bees a good quantity of honey for winter. This also has the side effect of reducing the amount of time spent over the winter checking the bees aren’t starving, and then feeding them. Any excess can always be taken off in spring when honey supplies are short (ensuring the bees are OK through the June gap).

Overall, this has been a fascinating year, with a lot of new things learned. It has been great to do some less conventional things, and with the caveats mentioned this is how we’ll continue next year. We’d be really interested to hear your thoughts, especially if this is something you’ve tried yourself.