Chapters 5
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1 01 - Section 1 16:17
Commercial beekeeping has for its object the production of the maximum quantity of well-ripened honey at a minimum of cost. Swarming adds greatly to the cost of producing honey. Most methods of swarm prevention have in them the element of destructiveness. Ventilating, removing the queen, shaking the bees, removing the brood, exchanging brood bodies, loosening the cover, all destroying something that the bees have done, or adding to the work to be done in the hive. Let me state here that you are not going to be told that absolute swarm prevention is a possibility, nor will you be told that honey can be produced by absent treatment. What you will get from a good understanding of the following pages is that the beekeeper who takes advantage of the laws relating to condensation of vapor and follows where the bees have been leading will have advanced one step nearer the swarmless bee.
Instead of going to the hive and telling the bees, by manipulations, don't do this, say to them, keep all your brood, keep your queen, keep the cold damp air out of the hive, and I will make your hive so perfect a condenser of water vapor Constructive beekeeping helps by getting the honey ripened quickly each night and stored out of the way of the queen. The hive will be maintained in such a condition that the bees will have the greatest amount of comfort in relation to the results produced. Efficiency Familiarity with the bees makes a person wonder where the mule got his reputation for stubbornness. We must, when we work with bees, follow where they lead if we want satisfactory results. They generally know what they want and fight to do it in their own way.
The bee is an economical fellow. Efficiency is his last name. For ages before our time, he has been working at the same task that he has brought to such perfection. The bees that have excited the amazement and wonder of the world As builders of geometric comb, with all its economy and strength, the bees that make from the nectar of the flowers the honey, that is the superlative of all things sweet and good, have not stopped with these two achievements, but have maintained a marvel within their home which, when understood, will amaze us more than ever. The bees collect propolis, despised by the beekeeper, and with infinite work and knowledge of the laws of condensation, moisture, Have varnished the inside, sealed all openings that would give upper ventilation, making out of their home a perfect condenser for the water vapor that has filled the hive air by evaporation from the nectar.
This moisture they collect from the inside surface of the hive works right with their idea of economy, saving the carrying of water from the stream or spring. Cooperation One great discovery in beekeeping was the bee space. When this space was within the limits that conformed to what instinct told them was best, peace between the beekeeper and his bees was established along this line. A similar misunderstanding is on at the present time about the best way to get rid of the moisture in the hive. The bees, from the habits and customs, carried down for ages, contending that condensation is the system best adapted to their mode of life, while the beekeeper is trying to force them to use the ventilating system.
I think that the beekeeper, being a most sensible person, will see the error of his way and eventually follow where the bee leads. The bees but show their contempt for ventilation when it is at its best. Urge. Swarming is the breaking into two of a populous colony of bees for the reproduction of the colony. Other swarming need not be considered here. The confusion of conceptions which arise in the mind when the term swarm prevention is mentioned has to a great extent been a hindrance to logical reasoning on this subject. At mention of the word swarm, there is conjured up from the background of our minds the exciting and spectacular scenes we have seen enacted around the apiary. What we want to prevent not the birth, but the conception.
We must go even prior to this and prevent the primal urge. To avoid confusion and give reason and logic an opportunity to work, unhampered by visions conjured up at the mention of the word swarm, the word urge will be used here To refer to the initial starting point of the swarming impulse, the urge is the direct result of actual or apparent failure of the queen. With the exception of a young queen in the hive, all other methods of urge prevention have to do with room for the queen to lay. Give the queen plenty of room to lay and swarms are reduced. Give the colony plenty of ventilation and you have fewer swarms. Young queen and shade in the afternoons reduce swarming. Room, ventilation, shade in the afternoon, and young queen have given the best results so far obtained.
Conditions. What has puzzled the beekeeper is that results obtained by the same treatment year after year have not been the same, nor have the same results been obtained by similar treatments in different localities. Bees always respond to similar treatment under like conditions by giving uniform results. The beekeeper's trouble is that he makes his treatments uniform. But not his conditions. Conditions include all of the following things. 1. Temperature. 2. Direction and velocity of the wind. 3. Moisture in the air. 4. Depth of evaporation. 5. Sunshine. 6. Altitude. 7. Number of bees. 8. Fertility and vigor of the queen. 9. Number of worker cells in the hive. 10. Size of the entrance. 11. Construction of hive.
12. Fit of hive parts and cover. 13. Radiating surfaces on inside walls of the hive. 14. Number of honey and pollen-producing plants. 15. The amount of water in the nectar. To show how much harder bees would have to fan at the entrance to ripen honey in some localities than in others, if they ripen it all together by ventilation, The depth of evaporation in inches taken from a map of the Weather Bureau is here now given. Twenty-five inches, Ontario, Canada. Thirty-five inches, Massachusetts. Thirty inches, Ohio, 50 inches, Texas, Central Part. 60 to 100 inches, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and most of California. From this will readily be seen the different conditions under which the bees do their work in different localities due to only one of the conditions previously mentioned.
It is apparent that similar treatments, as regards ventilation, cannot give uniform results in all of these places. To make the treatments as near uniform as possible and get like results under these different atmospheric conditions, we must follow the way of the bees and make the hive a condenser instead of a ventilator. Room. To look at the question of room and apply constructive treatment is our aim. If the hive room is large, good results do not always follow. So much thought has been put into the experiments carried out with different sizes of hives that the majority of beekeepers have settled on a standard size which is best under most conditions. Some advocate one a little larger, some a little smaller, but neither deviate much from the recognized standard.
So he must conclude that the bees and their keepers do not disagree greatly on the size of the hive. During the urge period, the attention of the beekeeper has mostly been given to brood rearing. To get best results, he must have the hive filled with bees at the beginning of the honey flow. He knows that swarming results when the hive is full of brood, nectar, honey, and bees, so he increases the size of the hive. As the lack of room is not the result of one condition, but of many, The added room may be more than the bees can heat. Our aim, then, must be to determine that nice balance between too much and too little room, ventilation, and shade. On the correct determination of this balance, our success depends.
To have in our minds a conception of brood conditions in the hive prior to and at the time of the urge will give us a clearer understanding of the principal cause of the urge. By a study of the following hypothetical tabulation, the conditions of a hive can be seen. A 10-frame hive of Langstroth dimensions has, when the frames are filled with worker cells, about 66,000 of these cells. Deduct 12,000 for the ones occupied by pollen and capped honey, and there is left 54,000 cells for brood and nectar. This is about the condition of brood in a strong colony at Fargo, North Dakota on the dates given. On July 23rd, there would be in this colony 25,000 bees under 10 days old and 44,440 bees over 10 days old.
April 1st, 100 eggs. April 2nd, 100 eggs. April 3rd, 110 eggs. April 4th, 110 eggs. April 5th, 115 eggs. April 6th, 115 eggs. April 7th, 120 eggs.
April 19th.
April 20th, April 21st, 300 eggs, 3,375 brood. April 22nd, 300 eggs, 3,575 brood. April 23rd, 400 eggs, 3,875 brood. April 24th, 500 eggs, 4,265 brood. April 25th, 550 eggs, April 29th, 900 eggs, 7,285 brewed. April 30th, 1,000 eggs, 8,165 brood. May 1st. May 2nd, 1,100 eggs, 10,185 brewed.
May 3rd, 12,000 eggs, 11,245 brewed. May 4, 1300 eggs, 12,365 brood. May 5, 1400 eggs, 13,585 brood. May 6, May 7, 1,500 eggs, 16,085 brewed. May 8th, 15,000 eggs, 17,375 brewed. May 9th, 15,000 eggs, 18,660 brewed. May 10th, 1,600 eggs, 20,040 brewed.
May 11th, 1,700 eggs, May 16th, 1,600 eggs, 26,450 brood.
May 17th. 1,600 eggs. May 18th.
May 19th, 1,500 eggs, 29,200 brewed. May 20th, 1,600 eggs, 29,900 brewed. May 21st, 1,800 eggs, 30,700 brewed. May 22nd, 2,200 eggs, 31,800 brewed. May 23rd.
May 24th, 300 eggs, 34,800 brood. May 25th, 2,800 eggs, 36,300 brood. May 26th, 2,400 eggs, 37,300 brood. May 27th, 2600 eggs, 38,500 brood. May 28th, 3000 eggs, 40,000 brood. May 29th, 2500 eggs, 41,000 brewed. May 30th, 2400 eggs, 41,900 brewed. May 31st, 2000 eggs, 42,300 brewed. June 1st, 2400 eggs, 34,000 brewed. June 2nd, 3000 eggs, 44,300 brewed. June 3rd, 3400 eggs.
June 4th, 3,000 eggs, 48,000 brood. June 5th, 3,200 eggs, 50,200 brood. June 6th, 3,100 eggs, 51,700 brood. June 7th, 3,000 eggs, 53,100 brood. June 8th, 2,400 eggs, 53,700 brood. June 9th, 3,000 eggs, June 10th. June 12, 2500 eggs, 58,300 brewed. June 13, 2400 eggs, 58,300 brewed. June 14, 3000 eggs, 58,300 brewed. June 15, June 21st.
It can be readily seen that, when the hive is filled with brood honey and pollen, when sunshine and flowers are tempting, the bees to work almost to madness, the honey coming in deposited in cells and interfering with the laying of the queen, their system of housekeeping is disorganized. Their instinct tells them now is the time to get things in shape for swarming. Another condition of hive that gives like results is when the cells are filled with nectar, and the conditions of atmosphere in hive, such that little or no evaporation takes place.
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2 02 - Section 2 16:59
Wax. Also, when from whatever cause, the bees have a lot of sealed honey around the brood nest, And because the empty outside combs are too cold for work, they will not remove the honey to these to enable the queen to lay. This is the condition of the colony, where spreading the brood makes more room. Also, that makes a colony in a 16-frame hive take on the urge. To understand this condition, a knowledge of the relation of temperature to wax working is necessary. To work and build with wax requires a temperature nearly as high as that maintained in the brood nest, and when any part of the hive is colder than it is consistent for easy work with wax, the bees, if they work on wax at all, do it in the warmer part of the hive.
It must be borne in mind that the bees, like all other creatures, do things mostly in the line of least resistance. It is easier to work wax where it is warm than where it is cold. Hence, we find the bees starting on the center combs in the second super, before finishing the outside ones in the first. The beekeeper who puts boards with slits on either side for the bees to enter the super from the brood chamber produces a condition that sends the warm air from the brood chamber up through the slits, thereby giving the bees a good temperature to work on outside combs. Beekeepers who produce healthier honey in England, because of the cold nights, Put a covering over and around the supers to keep them warm.
Otherwise, poor results follow. It has been demonstrated that combs can be built down to the bottom bar in a super better than in a brood chamber with an opening at the bottom front. And here again, temperature plays its part. Knowing the relation of temperature to working in wax, it can readily be seen how a colony with plenty of hive room may be crowded for brood room and acquire the urge. Caging the queen gives more room, but brings on the urge and may result in swarming. Removal of the brood and substituting foundation or draw comb gives laying room to the queen. These are good examples of destructive beekeeping. How much better the colony could get ahead had they hives so constructed and protected from outside weather conditions that they could evaporate the water from their honey and store it away from the brood nest.
Shaking the bees gives ample room, but that's artificial swarming. Removing the water from the nectar and giving the bees an opportunity to store this ripened nectar in fewer cells makes more room, and when this can be accomplished soon after the bees last trip to the field, it shortens their hours of work, adds to their comfort, and perhaps lengthening their lives. It is just as necessary for the economy of their domestic arrangement that they have room sufficient and warm enough to ripen the honey as for storage of ripened honey and brood. Brood frames cannot be ignored in constructive beekeeping because they have so close a relation to the room in the hive. The nearer and the number of worker cells in all of the frames approach the maximum the more room the hive contains.
Frames not filled to the bottom bar and frames containing drone comb will, together with other conditions, make just enough difference in the hive room to bring on the urge. A 10-frame hive under these conditions has but little more room than eight full frames. The size of a hive, no matter what its dimensions, is expressed in the number of worker cells it contains. A hive with but from 40 to 50,000 worker cells must not be thought of as a standard hive, even though it has 10 standard frames. Empty spaces inside the frames make an extra expense to the beekeeper and an added burden on the bees. They have fully one-fourth more space to keep warm in a hive with bee space and frames than they have in a box hive of the same dimensions.
Another way a constructive principle can be applied to the frame is to reduce the top bar to the same thickness as the bottom bar. Beekeepers are convinced that ten frames are not enough for a good laying queen. Therefore, some advocate giving more room above by adding another hive body, others giving more room on the side, using a wider hive body, while some make the hive higher, wider, and longer. The longer hive body, it is claimed, gives better results when used in producing extracted honey, but it can never become a standard hive because a great number of beekeepers produce honeycomb. The tin frame or standard hive being the best for most purposes, it remains for the beekeeper, when he gives more room, to give the bees a brood nest with as little space between comb and comb where the brood bodies meet as possible.
Considering that all the combs in the hive body given above are built down to the bottom bar, we have at the junction of the two hive bodies a space between comb and comb of top bar, bee space and bottom bar, or about 1 1⁄2 inches. From experiments, it has been observed that a thick top bar is a fairly good queen excluder. Hence, it is apparent that more or less of an effort is required to pass over this space. When this is reduced by a thin top bar, an easier passage for the queen and bees is made, and better results will follow. In smoothing out little difficulties like these, we are always amply repaid. For the same reason, all comb should be built down to the bottom bar, with the cells overlapping top and bottom bars of the respective hive bodies.
The bee space is all that separates comb from comb. The thin top bar adds more cells to the hive, so adding its might to the economy of the hive and giving the bees nearly continuous comb from top to bottom of the hive. Ventilation. One of the axioms of beekeeping is ventilation. No matter what other manipulations the beekeeper recommends to prevent swarming, he always adds, ventilate. Why do the bees require so much fresh air in May and June when they have double the capacity of airspace within the hive that they have in October and November? The air in the hive serves a twofold purpose. It supplies the bees with oxygen and influences the amount of water vapor the hive can contain. This water vapor is given off in the ripening of honey and the breathing of the bees.
It is either removed from the hive by ventilation It is The beekeepers are destructive when the nights are cold and the atmosphere nearly saturated with moisture. Only the best beekeepers can, by ventilation, maintain that nice balance that accords with temperature and strength of the colony. During the season, when the bees are most likely to acquire the urge, the nights are colder and the humidity of the air greater than later in the season. At such times, a cold current of air throughout the hive interferes with the rearing of brood and does not help much in the ripening of honey. Each day of good honey gathering, bringing the colony nearer to a crowded condition. No beekeeper finds it practicable to change the ventilation as the temperature changes.
But must rely on his judgment of the amount that gives best results. The manipulations of divisible brood chambers can be considered under the head of ventilation. When the two sections of brood chamber have been broken apart or exchanged, the percentage of colonies that acquire the urge has been reduced. This can readily be explained by showing how it makes for ventilation. If it is done prior to the urge, it will have a tendency to reduce swarming. All tearing apart from hive bodies, from each other, and from other forms, or bottom boards, leaves a rough surface to the adjoining parts, the result of dirt, grass, or bees adhering to the propelis. When the hive is again put together, the adjoining surfaces are not tight, and ventilation is the result.
The result of ventilation is room. Because ventilation has given more room, we have all believed in it. Room can be given by ventilation, but at the expense of a warm hive. The velocity of the wind and shape and size of the entrance must be studied in their relations to one another when considering ventilation. The ill effects from winds, even with reducing entrances, is sometimes apparent. A bunch of grass or a shrub, sometimes two or three feet away from the entrance, may deflect and send a current of air right into the hive, or it may produce a calm at the entrance. The only possible way to have uniform ventilation is to have a good windbreak. If the hives are so situated as to be in a calm at all times, then what ventilation there is is regular, but hives so situated are troubled with excessive swarming.
With any wind at all blowing, no two hives in a row, nor in different rows, even those that have the same size openings, will have the same ventilation. To anyone who has tried to follow the course of air moving along the surface and a few feet above the earth, winding in and out among obstructions, sometimes flying off at a tangent, sometimes circling all around, sometimes upward or downward, bounding and rebounding from such obstructions, it is apparent that air currents among the hives in an apiary are so complex as to be past our understanding. But this shows, with what little certainty ventilation can be made Anyway, uniform. Hence the different results at different times from apparently similar treatments.
Shade in the afternoon has been proven to be somewhat of a preventative of the urge. This is clearly explained by the laws governing condensation of water vapor, and will be treated in the chapter under that head. Ventilation and shade each make more room in the hive. Which leads me to remark that ventilation is constructive at the proper time and under the right atmospheric conditions, but it is destructive in spring and early summer because of the low temperature and moisture-laden atmosphere. Air that is already full of moisture will be of little use in drying the air of the hive. To demonstrate this, a wet cloth can be hung by the hive on a night of high relative humidity, and in the morning it will be far from dry.
It will require no great reasoning on the part of anyone to see that the water vapor of the hive is not carried away by ventilation. Swarming During a heavy flow of honey, the queen will gradually, and sometimes sharply, reduce the number of eggs laid per day. We know that had the same thing happened during the spring, building up of the colony, it would have brought on the urge. Someone will point to the above statement as a contradiction of one that the urge is the direct result of the actual or apparent failure of the queen. We know from observation that they are almost sure to swarm in spring or early summer when this condition exists. In summer, with an abundant honey flow and plenty of room, they rarely swarm.
In the fall, they quietly supersede the queen. It's obvious that the aim or object for which they strive in each of the three periods mentioned is not the same, and that the aim or object attained as the collective results of these three periods is that for which all bees are striving, the survival of the colony. During the spring period, the one purpose for which they strive is numbers. Every atom of concerted energy of the colony is working to increase the unit strength of the colony. When we consider the advantage that numbers give for offense and defense and general welfare, we know that they are urged on by the law of the survival of the fittest. After the Carnival of Brood-Rearing, when weather and field conditions prompt their instinct to a realization that winter is ahead and only the colonies that are fittest survive, we have the energy of the colony directed as a unit to gathering stores.
The brood-rearing this period is a secondary consideration. and about keeps pace with the bees that fall from the ranks. The next period has brood rearing and general preparation for the winter on its schedule. This brood rearing does not take on the riotous nature of the spring period. There is no definite line or date dividing these periods. They dovetail into one another, and only, by close observation and much bee wisdom, is a person able to detect the change of colony procedure as the bees pass from the spring to the summer period. Because of the inability of the ordinary beekeeper to sense this, he has not been uniformly successful in the production of comb honey. In passing from one period to the other, the colony work fades from rearing brood to gathering honey, then back again to rearing brood.
This change depends as much or more on strength and good condition of the colony as on weather and field conditions. The beekeeper, not being able to tell the exact time that each particular colony is prepared to take on the work of the next period, assumes that they take on the urge in the summer period when contraction of the brood takes place. The rearing of queens by the colony cannot be considered an acquired habit. We have to admit that it is both for the reproduction of the colony and the species, and goes back to the very origin of life. The strongest desire or urge in all life is to reproduce its kind. If this desire is destroyed in a species, that species becomes extinct. It is an impossibility to breed a swarmless bee.
If it could be done, all ambition, vim, and energy would disappear, and as much could be accomplished with so many inanimate units. The main thing in life is reproduction. All other things are done for the better bringing it about. Increase and multiply is the urge of all things living, so that each generation is greater in numbers and wisdom than the preceding. As generation after generation succeeds one another, the acquirements of one when they are advantageous to the next puts that next generation astride forward in the battle for existence. The colonies in which this acquired habit took hold succeeded best, and we realize that this development has been going on for countless years. By slow evolution, we can believe that the bees have acquired habits that are of advantage to them in their mode of life.
Swarming is one of these habits, and should we be able to breed it out, they would be thrown back to their way of life or social development that existed in the colony before they acquired this habit. A colony of bees cannot be considered in the scheme of reproduction as the same as individuals. Individuals are being born regularly in the colony. But through an acquired habit, the colony carries on what may be called limited birth control by preventing the perfect development of the female. Conditions that induce the colony to start queen cells or allow perfect development is what we must control to prevent the urge. The bees in their wild states seldom had a home that did not at some time become filled to its capacity.
They developed a habit, as we know, of putting off reproduction of the colony while conditions in the home were such that the strength of the colony could be increased, but letting it take place normally when the home conditions were getting crowded. Sometimes the home The home was of such size that this did not occur for several seasons, but eventually the home became crowded from accumulated honey and swarming resulted. The smaller the hive, the sooner the urge. The smaller colonies that came from smaller homes did not survive as often as the stronger ones that had more time and room to prepare. Hence, we have bees with the habit of putting off swarming as long as hive conditions permit. The act of swarming must be considered a protest against a condition in the hive.
Could we keep a colony of bees with a good queen and plenty of necessary room, we would have no swarms. It has been done, so it's not impossible.
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3 03 - Section 3 15:06
One of the by-products given off by the bees in ripening honey is water-vapor. Sometimes more than one pound of water is expelled from the honey in part of a night. This much water vapor at average hive temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit would fill to saturation over 600 standard hive bodies. Then, if the air entering the hive was absolutely dry, and that emerging from it at saturation, and the hive air completely changed in one minute, this amount of water vapor would pass out in about 10 hours. But we never have absolutely dry air. Nor do we have all the air in the hive even near saturation, nor can the bees change all the air in the hive through an opening in the lower front in one minute.
The bees could not get rid of a pound of water in this way in twenty-four hours. One pound of water evaporated during the night, from the nectar brought in during the day, would empty over sixteen hundred cells. These, and ones vacated by hatching bees, would keep well ahead of the queen. In handling bees, we are bound to give recognition and allowance for the storing and ripening of nectar between the stores of ripened honey and the brood. If the hive be so protected that a good working temperature can easily be maintained, the honey close around the brood nest is either moved to some outside comb or consumed by the bees and brood, leaving empty cells to store the nectar. Removal of the water from the nectar is something to which the beekeeper has given little attention.
Because it could not be seen, but nevertheless we have the water vapor given off when the bees ripen a drop of honey in its mouth. We are as certain of it as we are of the wax scales that the bees secrete. We see the wax, but the water vapor not being visible has claimed little of our attention. The beekeeper, striving for good results, cannot afford to overlook the great part that water vapor plays in the hive. When the beekeeper opens the hive for inspection, does he ever observe the room available for the storage of a generous amount of nectar? He looks for queen cells, the amount of brood and sealed honey, and in this way he is conscious of what he calls plenty of room. While there is yet space between brood and honey, he concludes that the bees swarm before they are crowded for room.
Did they ever have room to carry on all the work of the hive? Consider a farmer. Who has ample granary room to store his wheat, and who tried to put it in the granary before it was thrashed. It can be readily seen that the granary would not hold it. The bees must have temporary storage cells, just as the farmer must have sufficient room to stack his grain before it is thrashed. This is the room that the beekeeper has sensed, rather than to have observed it as room necessary for the domestic work of the bees. As the farmer must put aside the straw, So must the bees evaporate the water to get the finished honey that can be stored economically. How do the bees dispose of that great amount of water carried into the hive in the nectar?
You say, they evaporate it, and it is carried off by the air. But is it? Try drying the family wash in a room of dimensions as regards to the water to be evaporated. Temperature and opening at the floor, proportionate to the beehive, and see how fast your wash dries. Be sure you have no windows in the room to condensate the water vapor. Try it when the temperature outside is 60 degrees Fahrenheit and the atmosphere one-half saturated. One-half saturated in the evening is about as dry as we find the air in May and June, where there is ample rainfall. Then try it when the atmosphere is nine-tenths saturated. And after this experience, you will be more amazed than ever at the bees' efficiency. Still, you're skeptical, and remember that you should have put an electric fan at the opening, because the bees are seen to fan at the entrance.
Let us not delude ourselves about the bees moving all the water vapor, given off in ripening honey, out of the hive by fanning. Records of temperature and humidity taken from the U.S. weather station at Moorhead, Minnesota, for three days at 7 p.m., are as follows. 1916. On May 13th, temperatures 45.5 degrees, humidity 93%. May 14th, 42.5 degrees, 100% humidity. May 15th, 37.5 degrees, 96% humidity. To remove from the hive one grain of water vapor by fanning on May 13th, the volume of air that would have had to have been moved Would be five or six times the air capacity of the hive. To remove one pound of water would require the removal of a volume of air equal to the capacity of from 30,000 to 40,000 hive bodies.
On May 14th, the outside air being saturated, no water vapor could be removed by a change of air, and on May 15th, the result would be about the same. From this it can be readily seen that little water evaporation from the nectar could take place by ventilation, and we are led to believe that on such days as these the urge takes hold, giving swarms the last week of May. No contention will be raised when the statement is made that the water is evaporated from the honey before we have ripened honey. It has been taken for granted that as soon as the water passes off by evaporation, the bees were done with it. They would be if this evaporation took place the same as from the family wash hung on a line in open air.
But if instead of having the great volume of moving outside air, we have in a standard hive body a little less than one cubic foot of air, where is all this water vapor going to go? But if instead of having the great volume of moving outside air, we have in a standard hive body a little less than one cubic foot of air, Where is all this water vapor going to go? Saturate this small volume of air at hive temperature, and the water vapor in it would be from one six hundredth to one five thousandth of what the bees evaporate in a night during a good honey flow. If they saturate this air in the hive, and then force it out at the entrance, they would cause rain in the hive near the entrance. When hive conditions are as they should be, we must conclude that all the air in the hive is never near saturation.
There is no known way of accurately measuring the humidity of the air inside the hive, but we can safely estimate that, except for a thin layer under the cover, it is never more than three-quarters saturated. We have, then, air entering the hive at a temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and one-half saturation, which would When heated to hive temperature, be about quarter saturated. This air, then, when heated to hive temperature, being quarter saturated, is capable of taking up moisture until it is three quarters saturated. The amount of moisture taken up by this air is three quarters minus a quarter or half of its capacity at saturation. This amount of water vapor would be less than one one thousandth of a pound for a cubic foot of air.
Now follow the course of this ninety-degree air in passing from the hive by way of the entrance. As it approaches the entrance, the air temperature is reduced, and it would give up some of its water at the entrance. Could they force all the air out of the hive at the temperature of ninety degrees, and fully saturated? Each time the air in the hive is changed, one-six-hundredth of a pound of water would be removed. A pound of water could be expelled from the hive in ten hours, If the bees could change all of the air of the hive once a minute. When an analysis evaporation inside the hive is undertaken, we are confronted with many conditions that increase or retard it. Water vapor and warm air being lighter than air at the entrance, pass naturally to the top of the hive, and remain there unless a mechanical force compels them to move toward the entrance.
This force is noticeable when the hive contains smoke. Under normal conditions, we do not find this fanning going on all through the hive. So far, only the evaporation which takes place when air and water are at the same temperature has been considered. Water can readily be turned into steam by boiling. This steam begins to rise from the surface of the water long before the water comes to the boiling point. The surface of any watery liquid, whose temperature is 20 degrees warmer than any superincumbent air, rapidly gives off true steam. Well's natural philosophy. This applies to the evaporation in the hive. We know the temperature of the bee's body, and it naturally follows that the temperature of the nectar in the bee's stomach is the same.
Observation tells us that the bees ripen the honey drop by drop, bringing it from the stomach and pulsating each drop in the mouth for about 10 minutes. The drop during this process is exposed to the air at a particular temperature, of that part of the hive where the bee is doing this work. When this temperature is 20 degrees colder than the drop of nectar, true steam is given off. This evaporation takes place, no matter how much water vapor is in the air, and varies with the difference of the temperature of the air surrounding the drop of nectar. This is forced evaporation. We find conditions favorable to forced evaporation in cool night temperatures and to hive with a generous around of room.
To clearly comprehend the great amount of water that must be evaporated to get a pound of ripened honey, let us assume that 12 pounds is the weight of one gallon of honey, and 48 pounds the weight of six gallons of water. Six gallons of water mixed with one gallon of honey gives 60 pounds of water and honey. 20% of ripened honey is water. 20% of 12 pounds, or one gallon of honey, is 2.4 pounds. 48 pounds plus 2.4 pounds is 50.4 pounds, which is the weight of water in this mixture. 50.4 pounds is 84% of 60 pounds. 84% is a conservative estimate of the amount of water in nectar. To get one gallon of honey, 48 pounds of water must be separated from the nectar. To get one pound, 1 twelfth of 48 pounds of water must be separated, or four pounds.
Let us grant that two pounds of this water is disposed of before the bees enter the hive. They will still have two pounds of water to evaporate before they produce one pound of ripened honey. When the honey increase of a hive is four pounds a day, eight pounds of water must be evaporated. The nectar carried into the hive that day would require about three frames for temporary storage. When conditions are such as to hamper evaporation, For two or three days of successful honey gathering, it can readily be seen that a crowded condition could exist. Nectar in flowers. Another way that evaporation influences the work of the bees is that which takes place from the surface of the nectar while it is yet in flower.
Very little is known of the exact percentage of water in nectar. It has been weighed and found range from 60% to 93%. Scientists can never give us much information on this, unless they take into account the evaporation which takes place from the surface of the nectar in the open flowers. Nectar in the same blossom may contain 90% of water at 9 a.m. and 60% at 2 p.m. because of the movement of air, sunshine, and low relative humidity. Because of this variation of the volume of water in nectar, we can understand what a difference there would be in hive conditions, as the nectar is gathered at a time when there is little or much evaporation taking place in the field. Consider the gathering of nectar from buckwheat.
There are districts where the bees work wholly on buckwheat during its blooming season, and peculiarities of the flow of this nectar have been commented on by many bee-keepers. Some have noted that the nectar has all disappeared about two p.m. They have not gone so far as to prove this by examination of the flowers, but have assumed it to be so, Because the bees did not work on the flowers after this hour. This reasoning is right as to the absence of nectar after this hour. Other things commented on are that the bees gather honey from buckwheat only during sunshine periods, and that they gather more on a still day than a windy one. Let us now assume that all the blossoms that receive the direct rays of the sun secrete nectar suitable for the bees.
We have no reason to doubt that flowers on the same plant, surrounded by light conditions, viz., Sunshine and air secrete nectar that the bees can gather. The bees cannot gather all the nectar from every flower which contains it before 2 p.m. It is not reasonable to believe that the flower absorbs what the bees don't gather by this time, and yet we know that it has disappeared. The only way to explain this absence of the nectar after this hour is that it has evaporated. Note the statement that the wind reduces the amount of honey gathered. Wind increases evaporation. Unless some close observer along this line can prove otherwise, we must reason that the flower containing nectar in the morning, and if this nectar has not been removed by any insect, it would still contain nectar in the afternoon, so that the bees could gather it, if evaporation had not reduced it to such a consistency as to be useless to the bees.
Absorption of Water by Honey It would be impossible for the bees, except under the most favorable conditions, as regards humidity of the air, to produce well-ripened honey wholly by evaporation, and depending on, ventilation alone to carry off the water vapor. Honey put up in barrels that are not dry absorb water from the wood, shrinking it enough to cause leakage. One of the causes of watery cappings is that the honey has absorbed water from the moisture-laden air. Even if the bees ripened all the honey by some process within themselves, as some have suggested, this would have to allow for only worker-bees doing the ripening and throwing off the water in flight from the hive. The moisture-laden air would soon undo the work of the bees.
Hence, to produce well-ripened honey, we have to let the bees condense the moisture of the hive on the inside walls and ceilings. An exception of this would be in localities having a very dry atmosphere, but these were very scarce during the urge period.
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4 04 - Section 4 19:20
Condensation.
A good understanding of the condensating properties of a hive will make clear a great deal that puzzles us about bees, And such knowledge constructively applied to honey production cannot fail to give results, the magnitude of which the beekeeper with his present knowledge would hardly dare to hope for. We have seen that ventilation by moving the warm air out of the hive reduces the heat of the hive. When better results can be obtained in a way that conserves the heat of the hive, a step forward has been taken. This will result if we let the bees, as they are striving to do, Use their hive as a condenser. To understand how water vapor is condensed in a hive, the dew point should be understood.
Saturated air is at the dew point. The amount of moisture that the air will hold varies as the temperature changes. The amount of moisture in the air is spoken of as absolute humidity. Air at zero degrees Fahrenheit is saturated with half grain. At 60 degrees Fahrenheit, five grains. and at 80 degrees Fahrenheit with 11 grains of water vapor. Air at 60 degrees, which contains but 2.5 grains of water vapor, would be at half or 50% of saturation. Air at 78 degrees, which contains the same amount of water vapor, 2.5 grains, but would be a quarter or 25% saturated. This percent of saturation is called relative humidity. If the amount of water vapor in the air remains constant, as the temperature changes, the relative humidity changes with the temperature.
Air that is saturated at 78 degrees would have to give up 50% of its water vapor when its temperature is reduced to 60 degrees, leaving this 60 degree air also saturated. The dew point is the temperature of the air at which it would be at saturation if the amount of moisture is neither increased nor diminished. To illustrate the principle of the air giving up part of its water vapor when its temperature is reduced to the dew point, saturate a sponge with water, then press on it lightly, and it loses part of its water. The pressure of the hands acts on the sponge the same as reduced temperature on saturated air. The most obvious illustration of this formation of dew, or condensation of moisture on a cool surface, is when a pitcher of ice water is placed in a warm room.
This everybody is familiar with. Condensed vapor on the windows when the outside temperature is cool is another. Place a pan, bottom up on the ground, and dew will be found on the inside surface of the pan in the morning. The beehive, when we allow the bees to arrange their own ventilation, condenses vapor this way when there is enough difference between outside and inside temperature to give a dew point on the inside surface of the hive. We do not observe any great amount of moisture on the inside walls of the hive during the urge period because the bees, needing a good supply of water to mix with the food they prepare, gather it as soon as it's deposited, leaving the surface in better condition for more condensation.
This gives the bees nice distilled water for their use. Records of weights taking in morning and evening during the honey flow show but a slight loss in weight of the hive each morning. This has puzzled many beekeepers, and some have suggested that the bees got rid of the water of the nectar before entering the hive. Let us look at this and apply this condensation theory. The bees evaporate the water from the nectar, condense it on the inside walls of the hive, then gather it as distilled water and mix it with food for the brood. The water has been evaporated, but the hive still retains it, and the hive weights have decreased but little during the night. We have all had some experience with dew, and have observed that all objects will not have dew on their surface in the morning, after a night favorable for the deposit of dew.
The grass will be very wet, but the road is dry. A painted board is wetter than an unpainted one. The grass and the road are in contact with the air containing the same amount of water vapor. Any natural philosophy will explain this by the laws governing the radiation of heat. The surfaces of objects on which the dew has been deposited radiate more heat into space, and consequently cool more than the ones that radiate less heat, and have no dew on them. The air which comes in contact with a colder surface, and whose temperature is reduced to the dew-point, is compelled to give up some of its moisture. The law of the dew-point operates in the hive the same as the outside. Air in the hive at a temperature of 90 degrees, which contains eight grains of water vapor, must, when it comes in contact with cooler walls of the hive whose temperature is 60 degrees, give up three grains of its water vapor.
This condensation will go on as long as the temperature of the hive walls, temperature of air in the hive, and humidity of hive air hold such relations to each other that the dew point obtains at the inside surface of the hive. All objects do not radiate heat equally well. Some part with their heat, or become cold faster than others. A smooth stone, exposed the same as grass surrounding it, does not part with its heat as readily as the grass. Propolis. Blackened tin has a high radiating power, and is taken as a standard for expressing the radiating power of other substances. Give the radiating power of blackened tin as one hundred. Rosin is 96, and wood is very low. Propolis being a rosin, its radiating power is almost perfect.
But few substances approach this high standard. It is obvious that more condensation takes place on a hive lined with propolis than one where the wood is without a varnish. More condensation makes more evaporation, more expiration makes more room. A substance like propolis, that is a good radiator and absorber, is a poor transmitter of heat. Propolis used as a varnish keeps the hive heat from warming the wooden walls, and they, being cooler at night, give a temperature to the inside surface that condenses the water vapor fast or slow, as the difference of inside air temperature and wall temperature is great or small. The bees finding it necessary to separate a great deal of water from the nectar, dispose of it by evaporation.
But instinct tells them that the air holds very little on cool nights in May and June. So to remove this moisture from the air, they varnish the inside walls and make a condenser out of the hive. The process is, in principle, the same as that used in distillation. The makers of refrigerators take advantage of condensation to maintain dry air in the food chamber. A refrigerator car After years of experimenting, has been finished off with several coats of varnish. It has been proven, by tests, that products that are inclined to sweat or absorb moisture keep drier in a highly varnished car than in one not varnished. The water vapor in the air condenses on the inner surface of the car, making the air drier, consequently preventing the absorption of water from the air by the product stored in the car.
Shade. Shade in the afternoon has been observed to have a tendency to prevent swarming. There can be no condensation if the temperature of the hive walls is nearly equal to, or higher than the hive air. This is the condition that exists most of the day and evening when the weather is warm and the sun is shining, providing the hives are not shaded. When a hive is so situated that the shade covers it about noon or soon after, the conditions for condensation are good cool walls. Bees situated in dense shade have been observed to swarm more than those having more open surroundings. In dense shade, the humidity is high and no movement of air takes place. The hive may be well ventilated as the beekeeper has had best results from well ventilated hives, but the air, being almost saturated when it enters the hive, does not carry off the water vapor from the hive.
The good ventilation keeps the inside and outside walls of the hive at nearly the same temperature, and if the hives are not well lined with propolis, not much condensation takes place. With nectar not ripening into honey, they soon feel their crowded conditions.
Clustering Out. When the bees are clustering out, it is not the heat of the hive that bothers them, but the high dew-point in the hive. Man can stand a temperature in dry air much above 100 degrees without much discomfiture, But let the air become so saturated with moisture that the dew point approaches the temperature of his body, then he feels more or less suffocating effects. We have all noticed this condition of atmosphere on a day that we call close and stuffy. The bees that are clustering out have this close stuffy air in the hive and cluster out for relief. Cover the outside of the hive with a wet cloth, and soon the bees will be back in the hive about their work. The hive walls are cooled by the evaporation of the water from the cloth, bringing on condensation of hive moisture, consequently lowering the dew point.
Absconding swarms. Many beekeepers report swarms leaving a short time after being hived. When they have mentioned anything about conditions, a high temperature and a new hive are noted. These make just the right combination to give a high dew point in the hive. The parts of a new hive naturally would fit close, and wood being a very poor radiator of heat, no condensation takes place. The swarm objecting to the close stuffy air and having no home ties leave for a more suitable place. The remedy for bees that will not stay hived is a few days in the cellar. The cellar temperature is enough colder than the hive air to condense the hive moisture on the wood. Wild Bees Bees, in selecting a home for themselves in a tree, consider two things upon which their future welfare depends, and in doing this we can believe that their instinct led them right.
First, a small entrance so they could easily protect themselves from their enemies. Second, a cavity in the tree of sufficient capacity to carry on the work of the hive and small enough to keep themselves and their broods from being harmed by outside weather conditions. Never do we find them, in the selection of a home, paying the least attention to ventilation. Natural ventilation is a thing that bees ignore. Every beekeeper has visible evidence of this truth in his apiary, and it cannot be made more clear by further discussion. Latent Heat Evaporating by the aid of condensation has the advantage that it retains the latent heat in the hive. This might be considered too small a thing to claim our attention.
Most things pertaining to a colony of bees are small, but the result of many small things working in a single direction and having the same ultimate goal is great efficiency. But this is not as small as it appears to be. During the urge period, it conserves great quantities of heat for the colony. The bees' instinct leads them to give great consideration to things that make for economy. If one pound of water is evaporated in a hive, The water vapor into which this volume of water has been converted contains latent heat, enough to raise one thousand pounds, or about four barrels, one degree. In changing this back from a gaseous to a liquid state, the same amount of heat is given off in the hive.
By ventilation, it is lost. Hive wall temperature. If a hive of bees is covered with a heating manure to keep it warm in spring, the colony will dwindle and become very weak. Hive walls are warmer than hive air, and no condensation takes place. For the same reason, bees in a greenhouse dwindle. They should be set where the hive walls can cool during the night. In some localities in spring occurs a succession of days during which the bees do not fly. They have young brood in the hive, and when they do not get condensed water from the walls, the increase is very slow. A colony of bees, small in proportion to the hive, does not build up as fast as one that is strong for the size of the hive. When bees are not able to heat the hive air above the temperature of the walls, no condensation takes place, and when the bees cannot fly, no water is available for domestic purposes.
How many beekeepers have stopped to consider where the bees got the water to rear brood before the first flight? Distillation tells the story. Condensation tells many a story to explain bee behavior. Can you wonder at the awe and amazement with which I approached this phase of bee economy? When brought to a realization of the wonderful instinct that led the bee into the realms of physics to select propolis, one of the best substances nature has, to bring their work up to a high state of efficiency. This instinct tells them that freer evaporation obtains when the water vapor is being freely condensed on the inner walls of the hive, It tells them that water can be evaporated in any air with a temperature twenty degrees lower than that liquid.
It tells them that this water can be condensed readily on the propolis-covered walls of the hive. Wonderful is the instinct of the bee. Constructive Hive The hive that condenses the most water vapor and leaves it so that the bees can dispose of it is the hive in which we find the contented bees. This water vapor may be allowed to pass from the top of the hive and be condensed the same as the condensing chamber of a still, but by this process the bees are deprived of the water the same as when the honey is ripened wholly by evaporation. It has been shown in the chapter on evaporation that for every pound of honey ripened in the hive, the bees, when they use the condensing system, have for their domestic use from two to four pounds of water.
This amount of water is from 60 to 80 percent of what the nectar the bees brought in that day. Now, when this water escapes from the hive, and they have to make special trips for water to take the place of this which has escaped, it is obvious that the bees that have to go for water will reduce the number of nectar-gathering bees. This percentage can only be speculated upon, but it runs from 20 to 60 percent of the field force. When all the field force persist in gathering nectar, As I am almost certain they do at times, the brood is restricted. What the bees want is a hive that is a good condenser, and that retains the condensed water on the inner surface of the hive. The nurse-bees can then gather it as they want it.
We will have to give the bees credit for being efficient, and it follows that they do not evaporate the water from the nectar that they mix with the food for the brood, but from the surplus. But there occurs a day or a succession of days during the urge period when no nectar nor water are brought in, and these are the days when condensed water from a humid atmosphere brings contentment to the colony. The hive, that from years of experimenting and close observations of weather and hive conditions, give these results, I will now try to describe. All my hives are factory-made, ten-frame Langstroth dimensions. All flat covers have been set aside and telescope covers substituted. No inner covers or honeyboards are used.
This cover rests on a rabbited cleat that extends all around the hive. This cleat is fastened at a proper distance from the top of the hive body to allow a B space between the upper edge of the hive body and the cover. On the inside top of the cover is fastened a piece of wall board, 13 3 quarters, The cleat on which the cover rests is rabbited so as to leave 3-8 inch space all around between the hive body and the cover, and over the edges of the hive body and above the frames. The cover inside measure for a hive body 16 inches wide is 5-1-8 by 16-3-4 by 20 All joints and cracks are filled with hot resin or pitch, and the inside of the hive body and cover is given three coats of varnish. The cross-section of the construction hive given here shows at a glance the construction of the cover and the way it is supported on the hive.
Note how similar in principle is this cover to the inverted pan that is set in the garden, and which has dew deposited on the inside surface in the morning.
The bees seem to regard this cover as the final word on inside finish, and they are the ones whose approval we must look for. Never have I found one attempt to interfere on their part. The cover in the fall is just as free from papalus as it was the day it was given to them. This cover was built as the result of conclusions arrived at from a study of condensation of moisture. The only object when designing it was to make the hive a condenser that would leave the condensed water where the bees could use it. But its good points do not stop at that one thing, as I have observed after its use for some time. The good points are as follows. 1. A good condenser. 2. Wind does not blow it off. 3. When once on a bump or jar from a person or object does not misplace it.
4. Bees are more gentle to handle. Five. No bees are crushed when putting on the cover. Six. When the cover is removed in cold weather and put on again, the hive is just as comfortable as it was before the cover was taken off. In regard to the bees being more gentle to handle, it must be stated that the bees are so gentle as to make this point very noticeable where seal-tight covers are used. This must be accounted for by the reasoning that the bees are contented, and in are not having to destroy their gluing when removing the cover. They are relieved of all work for the prevention of upward ventilation, and the old gooers who are so belligerent are not there when the cover is taken off.
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5 05 - Section 5 19:03
Wintering.
So much has been written on wintering bees that it is not necessary to try the reader's patience by restating What has already been proven of the conditions that give best results, just in enumeration. Outdoor Wintering. Strong in your bees. Sufficient honey of good quality. No disturbance. Entrance in hive in proportion to the number of bees. Hive. Sufficient insulation. Sealed covers. Absorbent cushions. Inside Wintering. Strong in young bees. Sufficient honey of good quality. No disturbance. Large entrance. Ventilation of good room. Temperature of room, fifty-seven degrees. Poor wintering is due to disturbance. Disturbances can be diagrammed as follows. Jarring. Light. Noise. Poor honey. Temperature of air surrounding the hive.
Humidity of air surrounding the hive. The bee is so constructed that the temperature of its body can be reduced to fifty-seven degrees. This reduction of body temperature the bee does not control, but it is the result of reduced temperature of the air surrounding the bee. The temperature of the body of the bee can be raised in two ways. First, by the temperature of the air surrounding it. Second, by a power inherent in the bee. The bee cannot, of his own volition, lower his temperature below that of the surrounding air. Hence, to attain that condition of the body that gives winter's quiet and contentment, It depends wholly upon the temperature of the air surrounding it. This minimum body temperature has been found to be fifty-seven degrees.
When the temperature of air surrounding the bee is below this point, energy is used by the bee to keep its temperature up to this safe minimum. The instinct of the bee leads it to do things not wholly for its own individual comfort, but for the good of the colony. For this reason, we find the bees clustered when the temperature of the hive air goes below fifty-seven degrees. The temperature of the cluster may be raised at the centre to ninety degrees. The ones at the outside of the cluster are giving their bodies for isolation of the cluster. It is not known if a temperature down to freezing injures these exposed bees. Bees have been revived after exposure for some time to a very low temperature.
If the reader will keep in mind this relation of temperature to the bees, the effective humidity of the air on a colony of bees will be better understood. It is evident to every person wintering bees that humidity plays an important part in success or failure. Temperature and humidity are so related to each other that temperature controls the absolute humidity of the air at saturation, as the following tabulation shows. Temperature versus vapor weight per cubic foot at saturation measured in grains. Zero degrees, point five four grains, 10 degrees, point eight four grains. 20 degrees 1.3 grains. 30 degrees 1.97 grains. 40 degrees 2.86 grains. 50 degrees 4.09 grains. 60 degrees 5.74 grains. 60 degrees 5.75 grains.
70 degrees 7.99 grains. 80 degrees 10.95 grains. 90 degrees 14.81 grains. One hundred degrees, nineteen point seven nine grains. Where we find a colony with diarrhea, we find even the frames and combs damp. This is the condition of most colonies that are dead or very weak in spring. Honey has an absorbing power for water, and in a moisture-laden air will absorb great quantities of it. When honey gets thin and watery, it is not good feed for bees, and with such a diet the system soon clogs, and we're all familiar with the results. We naturally ask, the cause of this moisture-laden air. Most beekeepers give respiration of the bees as the cause. One day in the fall, I took a seal-tight cover from the hive and held it so that the drops of water that were condensed on its inside surface could run down to a corner of the cover.
Then I poured out a little more than two ounces of water. What yet remained on the cover I estimated to be one ounce. Three ounces of water condensed on the cover. No estimate was made of the amount on the hive walls. Did the bees breathe out that much water the previous night? One of the axioms of physics is that something cannot be produced from nothing. If bees are confined in winter quarters one hundred and twenty days, and they consume thirty pounds of honey, of which one-fifth is water, making the consumption of six pounds of water during the winter, or one and a quarter of an ounce for one day. Could they breathe out all the water that they eat? This amount falls way short of the amount that condenses on a seal-tight cover in a single wall hive on a cool night.
Outdoor Wintering The ordinary bee-keeper cannot keep his bees at a uniform temperature, neither can he control the humidity of the air. So his bees have a fluctuating temperature to overcome, and consequently, a changing humidity. This changing humidity is the one great unseen cause of disturbance in bees. A clear understanding of the laws of meteorology that relate to moisture in the air will be necessary to comprehend where this water vapor comes from. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is ascertained by using two tested thermometers. One, called the dry bulb, is exposed in the temperature noted. The other one has a cloth covering the bulb. This cloth is moistened, and the thermometer whirled in the air for a short time, and the temperature noted.
Then, by subtracting the temperature of the wet bulb from that of the dry bulb, we have a basis for computing the dew point, and from this the relative humidity. Knowing the temperature of the dew point, and the amount of water vapor that saturates the air at that temperature, we have the absolute humidity. Divide the absolute humidity of the dew point by the absolute humidity of the dry bulb temperature, And you have the relative humidity. Air can be supersaturated. That is, it can contain water in excess of that which saturates it at its temperature. But this excess water is held in the air in globules of water, and is known as fog or clouds. The excess water has given up all of its gaseous properties, and is not subject to the same laws as the water vapor of the air.
The gaseous vapor of the air is controlled by the same laws in regard to its expansion and contraction as air. It is well known that if a chamber in which the air is rarified is opened, the air rushes in from the outside until the outside and inside air have the same density. Water vapor does not rush into a hive. Where the hive air is relatively dry and a small opening is maintained, But is slowly forced in until its tension at hive temperature equals the tension of the outside vapor at outside temperature. Because of this slow movement of water vapor, when its tension inside the hive is greater than on the outside, it condenses on the inner walls, or is transformed into fog, which then loses the expansive power of gas and is retained in the hive.
Disturbance inside the hive which causes the bees to raise the temperature of the hive air with its then greater capacity for moisture. or a fall of temperature, or rays of relative humidity outside, give an unequal vapor tension and cause vapor to pass from the outside into the hive. When the hive air is cooling, it loses some of its moisture, which is condensed in the hive. To illustrate, assume a hive temperature of 57 degrees and an absolute humidity of four grains, which temperature is raised to 70 degrees and still four grains of moisture. To equalize the tension of the vapor inside and outside, some moisture is slowly forced through the opening. Let us say until this 70-degree air holds six grains.
When this air is reduced to 57 degrees, and an absolute humidity of four grains, two grains of water is left in the hive after this disturbance. Suppose the hive is not insulated. No thickness of insulation is too much in any locality whose temperature falls below 50 degrees. And the outside temperature drops to 32 degrees. The hive temperature drops from 57 degrees, humidity 4 grains, to 40 degrees. At 40 degrees, air is saturated with 2.86 grains. In this case, about 1.5 grains of water is left in the hive. Let us pass the next cause, the change of humidity of the outside air. Assume a maximum temperature of 40 degrees. A relative humidity of 84 degrees and an absolute humidity of about 2.30 grains.
The hive air at 50 degrees, a relative humidity of 74%, and an absolute humidity of 3 grains. To equalize the tension of the vapor inside and outside the hive, a constant movement of vapor into the hive is taking place, which, when it is equal to the humidity that the condensing surface of the hive can maintain, is being constantly condensed on the inner surface of the hive. Consider the amount of vapor that is constantly passing into the hive on days when the relative humidity is 96%. There are many days in the more southerly states where a 100% relative humidity obtains. Because of the small amount of moisture with which a zero atmosphere is saturated, 0.54 grains, bees in the north have less moisture to contend with than in the south, where the temperature ranges from 32 degrees up to 60 and 70 degrees.
In the latter locality, absolute humidity of 32 degree air at saturation is two grains. At 60 degrees, it is 5.76 grains. In the colder localities, with a temperature of zero or lower for weeks at a time, insulation is necessary to protect the bees from the cold, and in the spring and fall to protect them from excess moisture. In localities where the cold is not so severe, But that the bees can beat back what little cold comes in at the entrance, insulation is necessary to keep the hive dry. In the north, we insulate to keep the hive warm and dry. In the south, you should insulate to keep the hive dry. The question naturally arises as to how insulation keeps the hive dry. How it keeps the hive warm is obvious, because atmospheric vapor and temperature are so correlated that they must be considered together.
Heat is communicated in three ways. By conduction, when it travels from particular to particular, in the substance heated. By conviction, when the particulars of the substance heated moved away from the source of heat. By radiation, when the heat travels through space in all directions from the heated substance. Insulation has to do with heat communicated by conduction. A substance that is a poorer conductor is a good insulator. The escape of heat from a substance or space depends on the amount and quality of insulation surrounding the substance or space. The fireless cooker is a good example of what insulation does. The wood of which a hive is made is the insulation that surrounds the hive air.
Add to this insulation a uniform thickness of leaves, sawdust, chaff, or any other insulator, and you make it harder for the heat to pass out of the hive by conduction. Hence, A well-insulated hive has a temperature more nearly uniform than a single-wall one. The temperature of a hive could easily be kept uniform if the bees did not have to have air. An air opening, an opening must be left for ventilation. Because of this, heat is passing out of the hive by convection. Not much heat passes through this opening by radiation or conduction, as air absorbs heat slowly and does not readily part with it. The escape of heat where the opening is not too large is not great, and the radiation and convection of the heat from the bees will balance that, where the outside temperature is not very low.
Where they have both opening and single-walled hives, poor insulation, to contend with, they exert energy, and the consequent consumption of stores to supply the loss. The more insulation, the greater the number of bees in the hive, the more the temperature of the hive air lags behind as the outside air changes. The hive vapor under these conditions moves out slowly and does not saturate the hive air. When a colony of bees cluster, they create for themselves a hive within a hive. The insulation of the cluster hive is the bodies of the bees on the outside of the cluster, and the colder the hive air, the better they make this insulation. Let us now indulge in a little speculation. It is an established fact that the heat of the inside of the cluster increases.
As the hive temperature falls, And vice versa. The honey stores are mostly outside of the cluster and exposed to the vapor of the hive. We know that the bees have ways of controlling the vapor of the hive in summer. May it not be possible that the rise in the temperature of the cluster is for the purpose of increasing the lag in temperature. This may mean a great deal to them by protecting their honey from moisture. Absorbent Cushions As understood by beekeepers, any porous material placed between the cover and frames for insulation is an absorbent cushion. Claim is made that moisture escapes through this cushion. Sometimes the moisture has tried to escape this way, and in the spring the cushion is wet.
Sometimes the cushion does not fit snug against the super, and an opening is left which gives upward ventilation. Moisture here travels in the path of least resistance, and poses off through the largest opening it can find. If a close examination is made in the winter, frost will be found where the moisture is passing out and the cushion found dry. Sometimes the cushions are found dry where the burlap is laid across the top of the hive and the super set on this and filled with packing. If his burlap is examined, a great deal of propolis is found on it, put there by the bees to prevent upward ventilation. Sometimes his cushion is found dry because the inside of the hive is well varnished with propolis.
The insulation is good, which conditions keep the hive air at the proper humidity. The temperature of an insulated wall, which has an unequal temperature on its opposite side, will, at the points with this wall, be influenced by the distance that these points are from the surface. If the outside temperature is 10 below zero, the first quarter of an inch on the outside part of this insulation will be about 10 below zero. The inside surface would be about hive temperature. Unless the laws of nature are bent or broken, water vapor would not travel far in this material under these conditions without being condensed. In winter as well as summer, the big part that a well-varnished hive and the consequent condensation play can be seen.
Most beekeepers winter their bees in hives used a year or more. These hives get good results in proportion to the way that they are varnished with propolis and sealed at the top. When all hives are well varnished inside, a seal-tight cover provided, and other necessary things pertaining to good wintering, such as bees, food, sheltered location, insulation, and a clear entrance, bee conservation will have advanced. Indoor wintering Indoor wintering differs from outdoor wintering in that the repository where the hives are stored is the regulator of the temperature and moisture instead of each individual hive. A good cellar or other repository, where a nearly uniform temperature of 50 to 57 degrees is maintained and well ventilated, is an ideal place to winter bees.
When setting the hives in the cellar, remove the bottom board from each hive. Then forget that the bees are in individual hives, and think of your cellar as one big, complex hive. About the only use there is for a hive in the cellar is that it is a convenient place to hang the frames. If the temperature and ventilation are good, and the cellar dark, the bees will winter as well as if the frames are taken out of the hive and hung on a rack and properly spaced. Small entrances are the primary cause of more dead bees than anything else. Condensation takes place in a hive with a small entrance for the same reason as given an outdoor wintering, a change of hive temperature caused by some disturbance.
The bottom board must be left off to eliminate this moisture trouble. This gives an equal temperature to hive walls and hive air, and makes condensation on the hive walls impossible. If a colony of bees give off much moisture in respiration, and there is no doubt that they give off some, it is easily diffused through the air by means of the large opening at the bottom. Let us remember that what we are trying to prevent is excess of moisture in hive air, and that we control it by our control of the temperature of the repository. Temperature and its relation to moisture is the keystone to successful wintering. Conclusion. When we compare evaporation by the aid of ventilation with that which takes place aided by condensation, and give this an application of the laws of heat, with its three ways of communication, conduction, convection, and radiation, the tension of vapors, and the stillness, dryness, and density of the atmosphere, Our conclusion must be that condensation is so uniform in its results that it eliminates everything ascribed to locality but the number of flowers and the weather conditions that affect the flight of bees and the flow of nectar.
All other conditions, by the aid of condensation, can be controlled by the beekeeper. Ventilation and shade each make more room in the hive, but not with uniformity under all conditions. So we must add to the treatments we give the bees, a well-varnished inner surface to the hive, and a cover that at no time permits upward ventilation. Then the bees will be able to keep the nectar out of the way of the queen, whose egg-laying capacity is increasing daily. Room and the procedure whereby the bees automatically make more room as they need it is the single thing that we have to consider in urge prevention. End of section five. End of constructive beekeeping by Ed Clark.