Bees & bee hives

News from bees and bee hives. Especially about propolis, grooming, building physics of magazine hives and tree caves.

A bees diary

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Filmset

The Taglicht Media documentary follows the life of a single bee. The film team gives insights into the life of a single individual in the superorganism with unique shots. Individual shots were taken with my bees. And that gave me a small insight into the work of the film team. It was a great asset … Read more

Bee hive Gruibert

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Gruibert

The Gruibert hive is a double-walled wooden bee hive insulated with hemp insulation wool for hanging in a tree. Some characteristics of these hive correspond to those of natural tree cavities. It represents a compromise between such a natural habitat and usual bee hives. The thermal insulation is comparable to that in a tree cavity … Read more

Tom´s Tree

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Toms Tree

In the fall of 2017, I made Thomas Seeley an offer he couldn’t possibly refuse. I offered him 10 of my just finished Beeloggers to use in the Arnot Forest in the natural tree cavities he knows. I wrote him an e-mail with all the information about the data loggers and offered to climb into the trees with him. Thomas Seeley answered quickly and firmly: Unfortunately no time.

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Straw bee hive with frames

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apiary of the abbey beekeeping

Almost 100 years ago, straw hives with frames were already used for beekeeping. The hive has a wooden bottom, the entrance hole is only a small slit, the side walls are made of straw and the lid is a double-walled wooden construction with straw filling. In these hives there were no problems with mould and … Read more

Orientation of the entrances

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In “The nest of the honeybee” in 1976, Tom Seeley describes a random alignment of the entrances in tree cavities inhabited by bees. Unfortunately, he does not give data on the alignment of uninhabited tree cavities in the region. It is therefore not possible to verify whether the bees prefer a certain direction for the entrances of their tree cavities or not.

Alignment of the cave openings
Orientation of entrances in “The nest of the honeybee”, 1976

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Physical properties of propolis

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Wood with propolis layer

The antiseptic function of propolis is generally known. This property slows down the development and spread of pathogenic germs in hives and tree hollows. However, propolis also fights condensation and mold in a different way, which is probably unknown to beekeepers. It is a simple physical effect: In the propolis layer there is no capillary condensation, propolis is not hygroscopic.

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Grooming bee

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In the following video you can see a bee grooming 4 bees in a row. Obviously, there are bees that have exactly this job. The behaviour is therefore apparently not only triggered by the perception of pollen remnants or parasites on other bees. Well, I guess there are real “Grooming bees”. More Videos here.