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Author Topic: Setup the Penthouse  (Read 4315 times)

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #20 on: September 24, 2018, 10:10:29 pm »
No.  The 5 deeps picture is at end of June.  Peaking brood burst and beginning of first flow.  I am standardized on deeps for everything.  In the picture is bottom deep brood box, qe, 4 deep honey supers.


I winter the outdoor hives in 2 deeps.

I winter the indoor hives in single deep.  These are in climate controlled building Oct 20 through to March 20.


For the Penthouse, I will try to describe how it ended up as is right now and pretty much considered done until it gets insulated in about 2 weeks.

Bottom strong hive is in 2 deeps.  Standard bottom board with entrance blocked off all but 2" wide opening.  Standard inner cover on top of the second box, 1/2" wide notch facing down, centre hole (feed hole) in the cover is blocked by a piece of 1/8" ply stapled over it.  The upper hive, the Penthouse, is on top of that inner cover.  The openings of the bottom board and the upper are on same side of the hive.  Call it South facing, for now.

The penthouse is in 1 deep.  The bottom board is an inner cover with the notch facing up and cut out to a bigger notch of 1.5" wide.  The centre hole (feed hole) is blocked by a piece of 1/8" ply stapled over it.  This is placed directly on top of the inverted inner cover of the bottom hive.  The opening is facing opposite of the bottom hive.  Call it North facing, for now.  Then there is the single deep.  On top of the deep is another inner cover, the 1/2" wide notch facing down and also North facing.  The centre hole is blocked by 1/8" ply.  On top of it all is 5" of foam board insulation and finally the lid.  The whole thing, sides but not the bottom, is then covered in panels of 1" foam board insulation and finally is wrapped by building paper.  There will be 2" diameter cutouts in the foam where each of the lower and upper entrances of both hives.

Although the two inner covers back2back are thicker at 5/8" rather than a 1/8" ply divider would be, the fact that the entire hive is going to be quite well insulated the extra thickness should be fine for plenty of the lower heat to emanate through.  I am also well past being fed up and done building more equipment for this year.  Have expanded the number of colonies in this set by 3 and, and well ... I'm done building for 2018!   Actually, secretly, that is one reason why I wanted to do this in the first place.  I did not want to be building any more boards, pallets, lids.  The 3 inner covers are what I had in hand at the time that weather was cooperative to get this done.  Hope it works!

I will try to remember to snap a picture next time I am out there.


Yes, I could have just put the single into the wintering building along with the others.  However, I do want to try this as an experiment and see what happens.  Granted there are many many many other factors that will determine if a hive will survive the winter or not.  I believe those to be mitigated.  The penthouse hive is healthy, disease free, plenty of stores, young prolific queen.  Just low on overall population at the moment on the cusp of winter.  Without a thermal boost from the colony below, they are doomed to contract and die off as the cold hits and they are forced to abandon brood to cluster more tightly.  They do have a brood cycle, some mature capped brood, about to pop which along with some heat from below should get them over the hump.  I will monitor the entrance activity throughout the winter and should be able to tell if going well or if it is a failure within the first month of true cold.

It is a fair amount of work to wrap them properly.  Is why I do only a few that way and the rest go inside.  I find that despite the inside hives having a much easier wintering period, the outdoor hives (if they survive) tend to be more "hardened" to the large spring temperature fluctuations we can have here.  The outdoor wintered seem to be more robust and suffer fewer setbacks when the overnight temperatures drop substantially.  I haven't taken specific notes and data on this, so call it conjecture - which alot of good beekeeping is anyways isn't it?
« Last Edit: September 25, 2018, 01:11:14 am by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline blackforest beekeeper

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Re: Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #21 on: September 25, 2018, 02:30:39 am »
Hey honeypump,
You are the first I hear of from the AngloSaxon beekeeping world having only one deep during honeyseason. I do it a similar way.

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #22 on: September 25, 2018, 04:35:21 am »
One deep, singles, is common practice.  Some run the brood box as single deep year round.  I also prefer singles but I do allow more room with doubles, yet only for specific periods of the year.


My season in brief: dates vary by a week either way.

*Spring = May 10 - June 5
*Thunder season = June 5 - June 25 calm sunny mornings, wet windy mean thunderstorm-after 3pm, every day
*Summer = June 25 - August 5
*Fall = August 15 - September 10
*The Damper Season = september.  (Cloudy wet rain first snow)
*Winter  = Oct 15 - April 20


Outdoor wintered hives
- 2 deeps for winter, adequate stores and hopeful leftover resources for spring buildup with no feeding or minimal feed.
- Switchover to 1 deep in mid June  at the cusp of the 3rd brood cycle  when I take my full splits, nuc sales, and populate the queen rearing mating nucs
- 1 deep for throughout the rest of honey flows through July and August
- Sampling and treatments for mites mid of August when I take all the honey off.
- back to 2 deeps end of August and fill them up for winter on any late season flow or/and sugar syrup

Indoor wintered hives
- 1 deep for winter
- add 2nd deep and LOTS of syrup feed in spring, May, to build population.
- Switch back to 1 deep in mid July when I take ?late? splits and am adding stacks of supers for honey flow.
- Sampling and treatments for mites mid of August when I take all the honey off.
- stays as 1 deep for fall and winter. fill them up for winter on late season flow or/and sugar syrup
- moved into cool dark wintering building October 15, come out of the building April 15.


Yes, I use queen excluders. To keep the queens in the boxes where I want them to be. 

Hope that helps in some way, or is maybe just interesting.
« Last Edit: September 25, 2018, 05:05:01 am by TheHoneyPump »
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline blackforest beekeeper

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Re: Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #23 on: September 25, 2018, 11:19:10 am »
One deep, singles, is common practice.  Some run the brood box as single deep year round.  I also prefer singles but I do allow more room with doubles, yet only for specific periods of the year.


My season in brief: dates vary by a week either way.

*Spring = May 10 - June 5
*Thunder season = June 5 - June 25 calm sunny mornings, wet windy mean thunderstorm-after 3pm, every day
*Summer = June 25 - August 5
*Fall = August 15 - September 10
*The Damper Season = september.  (Cloudy wet rain first snow)
*Winter  = Oct 15 - April 20


Outdoor wintered hives
- 2 deeps for winter, adequate stores and hopeful leftover resources for spring buildup with no feeding or minimal feed.
- Switchover to 1 deep in mid June  at the cusp of the 3rd brood cycle  when I take my full splits, nuc sales, and populate the queen rearing mating nucs
- 1 deep for throughout the rest of honey flows through July and August
- Sampling and treatments for mites mid of August when I take all the honey off.
- back to 2 deeps end of August and fill them up for winter on any late season flow or/and sugar syrup

Indoor wintered hives
- 1 deep for winter
- add 2nd deep and LOTS of syrup feed in spring, May, to build population.
- Switch back to 1 deep in mid July when I take ?late? splits and am adding stacks of supers for honey flow.
- Sampling and treatments for mites mid of August when I take all the honey off.
- stays as 1 deep for fall and winter. fill them up for winter on late season flow or/and sugar syrup
- moved into cool dark wintering building October 15, come out of the building April 15.


Yes, I use queen excluders. To keep the queens in the boxes where I want them to be. 

Hope that helps in some way, or is maybe just interesting.

Hey HoneyPump!
I am very much interested in "different" ways of bee-keeping in different climates. Always something to learn or a thinking-starter.
4 deeps as supers... wow! I heard there were good flows possible up north. Must be the long days, too? How much average yield for a hive?

I myself run about one deep all season long. In the black forest with its rougher and longer winter, I might go for more in winter.
During honey-season, I have often less than a deep for brood. Starting with about 3 Jumbo-Frames in very early spring. Works just fine. After the flows I usually take the brood out, make a split that way. So - depending on the rest of the warm season - I winter in "half" to "three-quarter" colonies (I don`t go under 5 Jumbo-frames covered with bees). 9 Jumbos are fine for that in all cases. Can`t say I have never fed in early spring, though...mostly 7 frames.
When our bee-thing has grown up to size I might winter in larger colonies. So I`d add a shallow super to the 9-frame Jumbo-Box. For the winter only.
My nucs got a little too strong this year. I mean the brood-nests I took out after the flows together with the queens. I put them about 1 click away and thought, the foragers would return to the original hives. Well, they didn`t and had lots of brood. So I quickly added a honey-super to the 5- and 6- frame nuc-boxes, I even harvested some honey yet. i kind of like this setup and as I started having the nucs on pallets, too, no problem with the forklift. They bearded anyway. But now the first frost is at hands tonight, so ... they will more or less stop breeding. Fine with me. Very few mites, enough feed, enough bees.

By the way: Most bees are kept on an open screen all year long in Germany. Considered healthier. I don`t do that, but the boards that go underneath the screen are not air-tight in my case. Lots of circulation still. Or: Enough. No mould or such. I only open up in mid-summer when they are in bright sun and it`s way above 30 C for days and weeks on end (which usually it isn`t).

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #24 on: September 25, 2018, 07:30:38 pm »
Short season but very intense with long daylight hours yes.   
Average hive average season:  70 kilogram per hive.  Good hive good season, all stars aligned: 100 kilogram per hive, seen as high as 130 kilogram, once.  Average hive poor season: 40 kilogram per hive.

I will PM you some links that you may find interesting. 
When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline Acebird

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Re: Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #25 on: September 26, 2018, 08:02:40 am »
Hey honeypump,
You are the first I hear of from the AngloSaxon beekeeping world having only one deep during honeyseason. I do it a similar way.

BF almost everything is done somewhere in the US.
Brian Cardinal
Just do it

Offline Beepah

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Re: Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #26 on: September 28, 2018, 08:29:27 pm »
So, this one has been bouncing around in my head and I'm puzzled: why would the screen matter?  Whether I have one big colony in the boxes or two smaller ones divided by a screen, moisture will happen and will need to be dissipated.  If a correct moisture control strategy is in place, everything enclosed should be okay.  What am I missing?  Thanks!  (still first-year beekeeper)

Offline TheHoneyPump

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Re: Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #27 on: September 29, 2018, 02:18:40 am »
So, this one has been bouncing around in my head and I'm puzzled: why would the screen matter?  Whether I have one big colony in the boxes or two smaller ones divided by a screen, moisture will happen and will need to be dissipated.  If a correct moisture control strategy is in place, everything enclosed should be okay.  What am I missing?  Thanks!  (still first-year beekeeper)

Because warm air, warm moisture laden air, warm stale moisture laden air; rises.  A screen passes all of such from the lower colony into the upper smaller weaker colony.  Not good, not good at all. 
The upper colony can benefit greatly from the warmth/heat from the colony below.  Yet will be decimated by stale moist air.  A solid board allows the heat to rise, but stops the stale moist air.  Think of same concept of having heated floors in your house, or laying on a electric heated blanket.

Want the heat, do not want the air.

When the lid goes back on, the bees will spend the next 3 days undoing most of what the beekeeper just did to them.

Offline Oldbeavo

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Re: Setup the Penthouse
« Reply #28 on: September 29, 2018, 06:04:26 pm »
We wintered some full depth singles by using a plastic sheet, about 1mm thick between them, there was a frame 20mmx20mm on top of the sheet with a small entrance for the top box to use.
All wintered successfully though our winters are not as severe as Nth USA. No snow but overnites down to minus 1-4 degrees C at times with daytime getting to 10-14C.

 

anything