Build a Pallet Beehive

If pheasants weren't shot, there wouldn't be any

I wrote the book in question and thought I would answer some of the questions appearing in this thread because some good questions have been raised:

"I would think the odds against a swarm of bees finding it are about a million to one."

Typically log hive and pallet hives fill within about 2 weeks during swarming season in the UK. The one in the book filled in 8 days from being put up. There are thousands of free living bees in the UK. Many live a long peaceful lives - I have detailed records of some continuously running for over 10 years.

"domesticated honey bees and wild bumble bees are in direct competition."

This might be true for commercially kept bees and even small aipiaries, but a wild colony in a tree consumes 10x less nectar than a typical box hive harvested for honey. Some of the reasons are:

1. No honey removed
2. Typically 5x thermal performance of a tree plus thermal inertia of tree mass.
3. Given the choice a bee chooses a cavity at least 50% smaller than a box hive, and once they have enough honey they turn their focus away from food security to hygenic behaviour.

Any insect consuming nectar (finite resource) will take it away from another when there is a shortage. Unfortunately the main reason for a shortage is humans not bees, and it is sad to see people pit one insect against another with regards to impact when the true cauase of the problem is elsewhere. Also remember that pollinators have very different habits and times of activities. The honey bee is very important for early pollination because they over winter in large numbers and are able to start 'work' early.

"Bees in the wild will get oll sorts of virus diseases, Israeli virus and other types. Varroa will cause wingless bees and they wander around aimlessly."

This is a bit of a myth. If it were true we would be finding hundreds of free living bees with disease - we don't. There have been many studies of this and the threat is to wild pollinators (honey and other) from box hives and not the otherway around. A few of the reasons found in the studies are:

1. The density of hives in an aipiary close togther (unnatural)
2. Horizontal transfer of disease from equipment and box use which does not occur in the wild
3. Many natural mechanism that affect health in the hive interrupted for honey production
4. A box hive does not follow the natural biology of the honey bee in many respects.

"If Alan's idea is so bad, does that mean beekeepers actively make efforts to keep down the population of wild bees?"

In 1930's a law was passed in Michigen requiring the destruction of all wild colonies due to 13% AFB disease in the box hives. Of the 300 tree colonies destroyed not one had any disease.

Honey bees have been free living in the UK since the ice age. I hope that we have not grown so intolerant of nature that we either destroy them or fear them. There is a lot to love about honey bees and all bees.

I understand that we use bees as a food resource and will continue to do so, but we should also allow bees to continue to live freely without interference, and give them support when we take away their habitats and resources. I kept bees as a child, but 50 years later I see them as more than a food resource. There are many good reason to do so ... but this reply is long enough.

Sorry for the late reply on this and it being off topic, but I had to reply.

[moderator please delete if too off topic and issue close]

It's lucky Munkjac deer are completely immune to TB (not,) they seem to be everywhere. Unlike Badgers!

An interesting reply, thanks Jonathan.

Thank you for your post Alan, I found the video both interesting and amusing. Thank you also Jonathan for your comments, you answered many of the queries I had. I would have made one of these if I still lived at my old house with its huge garden but our present green space is very much smaller. Could you build a smaller version and if so would it be of any use to our little friends? I suppose the problem might be birds using it for nesting?!

Good info all round. Thanks to everyone for reasonable presentations from both sides of the argument! Absolutely the sort of discussion I would hope is encouraged without fear of moderation. I don't think you could get this quality of dicsussion on the more modern social media.

At the moment, I'm inclined to build a wild beehive. I suspect I'm quite a way from the nearest domestic hives...

However, I will keep reading with an open mind.

Edited By jaCK Hobson on 08/10/2021 11:44:43

I missed this thread - away in Scotland that week.

I wholeheartedly agree with Jonathon. A thinking beekeeper.

One point he doesn’t make is that a normal swarm does not occupy a site close to its parent colony - bees are clever enough to spread out so that in a natural environment they are not competing as directly as if they set up home close to the parent colony. That also avoids the spread of disease. Only about 25% of new colonies survive more than a year - ‘selection of the fittest’ at work!

Re bees finding a hive. Certainly not one in a million!!

Scout bees go looking for forage crops every suitable day before the rest of the colony are active (conserving energy and pin-pointing forage). A bee colony knows a couple of weeks (or more) ahead of swarming, so again bees will be searching out any and every possibility for a new home and that information will be passed to others in the colony for further inspection of the most promising sites.

A typical strong farmed colony might be 50 thousand bees of which approximately one third would be foragers. Say a wild colony only had half that number, they would not notice a small drop in forager numbers that are directed to home scouting duties. Furthermore, swarming would often be initiated soon after a strong flow has ceased, thus there being many more foragers without any urgent foraging need - so more can go scouting for a new home.

Since my heart bypass, I have much reduced the amount of honey harvested from my reduced number of hives and, yes, the bees varroa problems are reduced - either by what Jonathon says or by the fact that the colonies are not disrupted by as many weekly inspections as intensively farmed colonies.

Only dummies treat for varroa every nine days. Most sensible beekeepers treat as and when necessary. One very effective treatment can be applied three times at 5 day intervals - to kill off nearly all the phoretic mites, initially, and then any emerging mites from capped cells, as the bees emerge from them. Others treat when there is no brood in the hive, when only a single dose of the varroicide is required.  Dummies that treat every nine days do exist, I suppose - but they are not proper beekeepers.🙂

Regarding Roy’s comment re pheasants, there would also be far less coppiced and wooded land if those that shoot did not act as land conservators.

On a similar note - re managed land - why do we get more serious fires on the moors? Simply because the ‘greenies’ have reduced the regular controlled heather moor burning, which would normally limit fires to smaller, more controllable areas. Certainly climate change is a factor, but so is the reduced land management.

Edited By not done it yet on 08/10/2021 12:53:25

One aspect of beekeeping is that where there are several colonies say in a 2 to 3 km. radius there is a Drone congregation sets itself up.The Queens will find this Drone congregation to mate.

This has been confirmed by scientific observations.

Now, no Drone congregation there will be no mating of Queens.

I had a friend who set up a colonie of 3 hives and he had so much trouble with them. Moved to a more colonied area and has'nt looked back.

The idea of leave alone beekeeping is not new, it means that the best working bees and Queens survive and you get a honey harvest.

Manipulated colonies do seem to suffer problems as people dabble at beekeeping and disturb them.