Sasha wrote:Wow. Fantastic, I just wrote a long post about my experiences with bees in TBHs and the whole post was lost.
The whole thing boils down to the fact that bees are bees wherever you keep them. In a pot, cardboard box, chimney or a beehive. If you prefer a chimney to a skep or a national hive to a dadant beehive, please do so and keep them in the way which fits best to your circumstances and abilities.
Here are some problems I had with TBH
Comb collapse
winter moisture
swarming
complicated for inspection
time consuming to work with
low honey yields
Although with more experience I could avert most problems I had then , when I was just starting and also an TBH fan.
I wanted this topic to be a talk on how to start and enjoy beekeeping. Not fight over preferred beehives.
I don't think there is ONE true way of beekeeping (nor anything else).
Beekeeping is very local specific and person specific.
I am ready to learn more from whom ever possible, be it a tbh, skep or any other variety of beekeeper.
I consider biobee as a friendly community but I feel most of the folks there are newbies. I could be wrong of course.
Cheers
You're right. The style of beekeeping is a personal choice. It's much like keeping chickens - the more people that understand the animals and provide a home for them the better. Just like I think everyone with a garden should keep a few chooks, there's no reason why many more people shouldn't keep bees. As you've already said, they're fascinating animals, and great to watch, they're important for the garden, but, like chooks, they can also provide something for us humans.
To address your concerns:
Comb collapse is largely caused by siting of the hive, not the shape of the box. Comb collapse is common in frames in my climate.
Winter moisture isn't more of an issue as far as I'm aware.
Swarming happens when the colony isn't happy with their home or when they outgrow it. From talking to the maestro who we got our nuc from, it's as much of an issue with Langs as with any other design. Again, it's more about siting the hive than about the hive as such.
The next 3 I can deal with together. TB beekeeping is about leaving the bees to do what they want. It's based on the view that every time you do something to the colony, you're stressing it and making it more prone to disease. It's more akin to just providing a home for a feral swarm than trying to make the bees do what you want. Inspections are less frequent, 'working' on the hive is kept to an absolute minimum, and honey yields are expected to be lower. That's why I said you don't understand TB beekeeping enough to comment on it from an informed perspective.
On the plus side, TBHs provide:
- a very easy entry to beekeeping. Hives are much easier to build than Langs. It is a more self-sufficientish approach.
- Colonies are healthier than those in 'farming'-style hives (Nationals and Langs) without the use of chemicals.
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