Links

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Estimate Wood Movement Calculator

Update: Unfortunately this calculator no longer appears to work.

When constructing your own hives it is useful to remember that wood shrinks and expands in relation to the moisture content of the wood. This means you might want to leave a little extra room for bee space if you expect your wood might become drier during use than it currently is.

According to the site If you are using kiln or air dried lumber you are probably in the area of 7 - 19% moisture. In North America it's typical for the moisture content in unfinished wood to fluctuate between 4 - 14%. So plugging those numbers for dried wood into the calculator, estimating about 1 cm of change in the depth of a hive box seems reasonable.

This is relevant to take into account as frames are made with the grain running parallel to the direction of the wood grain in hive bodies. So hive bodies will shrink and frames won't.

Note: the 'relative humidity' and 'moisture content' labels on the link seem to be reversed at the moment of writting this post. As each option allows different number ranges you can check you have selected the correct option by entering 101 for 'initial Relative Humidity or Moisture Content' and take note of which option the subsequent error message thinks you have selected.

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Dave Cushman's analysis of bee space

The discovery of the bee space is said to be the foundation of modern beekeeping.

For a long time I thought it was a very simple matter and didn't give it much thought, but as I've been attempting to build my own hives I've discovered there's a range given for exactly what the bee space is (6mm - 9mm or 1/4"-3/8").

I've also learned I need to account for wood shrinkage and different parts of the hive need different kinds of space (ex. between boxes or between combs).

In the linked article Dave Cushman's provides a great overview of important space dimensions used in different pieces of hive equipment.

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Zembla - Murder of the Honeybee

This Dutch film implicates pesticides as playing a significant role in the high bee mortality in the Netherlands and questions why the issue hasn't been taken seriously.

The film contrasts interviews with French scientist Prof. Jean-Marc Bonmatin who's research has led to pesticide bans in France against interviews with Dr. T. Blacquiere, the principal adviser to the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture who appears to have strong financial connections to Bayer, a pesticide producer.

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Organically Managed Beekeeping Podcast and Forums

Informative podcast produced by Craig in Southern Maryland with a focus on sustainable practices. To date he has already interviewed a number of notable beekeepers such as the backwards beekeeper, Phil Chandler, Ross Conrad and a bunch of others.

In his last episode of 2012 Craig the host revisited different aspects of his approach, his recommendations for beginners and how his ideas have evolved over the years.

Definitely worth going through the whole episode library.

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Do small cells help bees cope with Varroa? A review

In 2011 David Heaf put together a fairly comprehensive review of different scientific studies on the usefulness of using small cell comb as a varroa control. While a few studies found positive results, particularly when africanized bees were used, the majority of the studies did not find small cell beneficial against varroa. Of course some questions still remain.

Terrible VarroaPhoto by: Shawn Caza / CC: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

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The influence of brood comb cell size on Varroa destructor in Africanized honey bee colonies

Study by Giancarlo A. Piccirillo and D. De Jong of São Paulo's entemology department which found a high correlation between cell size and mite reproduction in africanized honey bee hives.

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Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley

Honeybee Democracy is one of my favourite bee books. The book summarizes Seeley's life long quest to understand the natural behaviour of this marvellous insect. Rather then talking about what we should do to our bees, the book focuses on what and how the bees, when left to their own devices, decide to do some of the things they do.

Seeley goes into the details of his ground breaking experiments which encompass most of what we currently know about feral hives, the communication processes involved during a swarm and the characteristics of a good bait hive. We also get some insight into Seeley's scientific process and the creative approaches used to uncover honeybee mysteries.

While I consider this a valuable read for all beekeepers, the stories describing the honeybee's sophisticated approaches to communication and decision making will also appeal to the non-beekeepers with a healthy sense of curiosity. You can find a copy on Amazon here.

The following video lecture gives a summary of the ideas discussed in the book. Watch with caution if you haven't read yet read the book. You might spoil some of the suspense.

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Dennis vanEnglesdorp October 13th, 2012 - YouTube

Dennis vanEnglesdorp speaks to the New Jersey Beekeepers Association about different diseases and issues facing be health and offers some stats on treatments.

The second part is a question and answer session in which the pesticide question gets a fair bit of attention.