Old Bee-Hives?

I have a question about the old-fashined bee-hives. You know, the sort with which Alma Cogan's hairdo was sometimes compared.

Modern hives are neatly rectangular and populated with frames; how were the interiors of the old-fashioned hives arranged?

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

As far as I am aware there were no frames or fittings inside the old fashioned hives known as Skeps, the bees once inside stayed because their Queen was in there and they would build comb on any surface that they chose. The combs whether in frames in modern hives or freehand will all encompass the same dimensions for the cells built. The combs will always be parallel to each other and the same set distance apart so that the bees can service the comb, the distance is commonly referred to as bee space. Dave W

As an ex bee keeper, Samsaranda is correct. When it came to harvesting, the colony was sacrificed and a lot of bees finished up in the honey. The modern frames are a lot kinder to the inhabitants and once the honey has been spun out of the frames, having cut off the capping, they are returned to the bees who will then clean them up ad fill them with sugar syrup that is fed to them so that they can survive the colder months.

I have somewhat simplified the process, but that is the essence of it.

Brian

And you had to more or less destroy the skeps to get at the honey.

One method with skeps was to give a hole at the top and they then put a bell jar over it and the bees used it as a second story to make comb and store honey. This meant the skep could live on as they only took the bell jar.Killing the bees was done with burning sulpur vapour.

William Boughton Carr (WBC) designed one of the first comb hives, a double wall hive but difficult to work. One time I found Dormice hibernating in the back wall gap. Nice and warm!

Modern hives are single wall mainly made of Cedar wood. 11 or 12 combs to a box. The brood box conbs are larger and deeper than the shallow box combs. A full shallow box can weigh up to 30lb.

Usually the skeps were weighed and only the heavy skeps were destroyed, because they were the ones containing most honey. The lighter ones were allowed to overwinter for the next season.

So instead of the survival of the fittest, you had the survival of the weakest. The result was that the old English bee wasn't very good at producing honey. Hence the mass importation of bees from Italy and other Med countries in the more recent past and indeed they are still imported.

I am not to keen on the newcomers as they tend to be large and aggressive. I prefer the older type which is smaller by comparison. It was thought that the old English bee was more or less extinct until they were found in trees that were part of an old undisturbed wood.

I once kept a skep, but gave up, as swarming was impossible to control.

Andrew.

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