Build a Pallet Beehive

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

I have an interest in bees, fascinating and essential creatures.

A recently published book by Jonathan Powell describes how he made a beehive from a couple of scrap wooden pallets. There is an associated YouTube video.

Lockdown Pallet Beehive

This is a non intrusive hive that provides the bees with an attractive cavity to populate and do their own thing. No honey stealing, no white suits needed. Just engineering skills to knock something together.

How many of you have a couple of pallets around the workshop which you keep meaning to chop up and which could be turned into something really useful ?

How many Model Engineering Societies have woodland running tracks with trees where you could hoist one of these before next spring before the swarming period starts.

A small project that could make a huge difference for our little pollinating friends.

(I have created a spreadsheet to calculate the dimensions on my blog).

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

Help our essential little friends

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Very commendable effort, but, how will you keep the bees free from Varroa and Nosema if you cannot access the combs as in a National or other frame hive.?

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.

Now that the Asian hornet is with us it too can attack and destroy the bees. How do you intend to collect honey if you need to.

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

You miss the point. There is no intention to harvest the honey.

Here is an interesting YouTube video that addresses your issues with disease.

Log based hive

[Andrew TinsleyParticipant @andrewtinsley63637]

Hello Alan,

It really isn't a smart idea. Wild bees acquire all sorts of nasty parasites and diseases which spread to beekeepers hives. All you are doing is to increase the "wild" colonies which are the source of these infections. At least with controlled colonies, the Beekeeper can address these issues.

If you kept bees, then you might appreciate where Clive and myself are coming from.

Andrew.

[mark costello 1Participant @markcostello1]

Would those hives make a net gain in the bee population?

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

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

[RainbowsParticipant @rainbows]

I don't think I've heard of beekeepers deliberately going out their way to destroy wild bees but domesticated honey bees and wild bumble bees are in direct competition. Depending on the situation a commercial honey bee business can be pretty awful for the surrounding insect environment.

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

My thoughts based on investigation mostly via scientific papers suggest that it is a cause and effect loop.

The increased global transportation of bees for agricultural industrial level pollination has lead to an accumulated infestation of various pests. These pests inevitably find their way to the wild bees and these in return can infest the domestic strain as Andrew suggests or indeed the industrial bees could well cause this direct.

A wild bee nest unlike a domesticated nest is highly insulated and this causes less stress within the occupants. The bees are content because they see a relatively stable temperature. This contrasts with the much less well insulated domestic hives that often need their insulation levels topped up in winter with over blankets.

The nest needs to breath and this occurs naturally in a tree trunk cavity. There are probably high and low level access holes that allow the bees to regulate any changes of the nest conditions. High level entrances give better access to the brood areas and low level are more for removing waste etc. Again this contrasts with domestic hives which are physically different for the sole purpose of harvesting the honey.

Domestic bees are usually kept in clusters of hives, more for the beekeepers benefit than the bees. Bees living on top of each other in these clusters leads to stress. As we all know a lack of isolation leads to disease spreading easier from one to another. In contrast wild bee nests tend to be well isolated from each other. They don't want turf wars fighting over the same sources of pollen. The choice of where a nest will be is a very democratic process and the scout bees take many factors into consideration before a choice is made on their new home.

An isolated wild nest if infected will either die out or will grow stronger as the natural purification that the bees create fights the problem to improve the health of the nest. The rough insides of a tree nest will receive more remedial work to make it habitable and clean than a domestic nest. They do this with propolis and this in acts as a purification source. (The pallet wood in Jonathan's design is left rough for this very reason).

These are highly intelligent insects. Stress in any life form leads to illness and disease and bees are no different.

I saw putting up the pallet nests as a way of creating more 'homes' for the wild bees to help them flourish. A wild bee nest cavity needs to be around 40 litres in volume. Less than this and there is not enough volume to accommodate enough stored honey to see them through the winter and the nest starves to death. The loss of trees throughout the countryside that have the right dimensions and cavity sizes means there are less and less potential new home sites. New trees do not grow overnight.

Whether they are the disease bringers or they have had the disease imposed on them is debatable but either way we need them to survive. Mankind as ever has a lot to answer for.

I did not intend my post to cause an emotive response about what are incredible creatures. I would kindly ask that people form their own opinions and we close off further correspondence.

If you want a really interesting read then get Thomas Seeley's book 'Honeybee Democracy'.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I have kept bees for almost 50 years, from the time before Varroa was a problem. Regarding the bees used for pollination, they are put on single source nectar and pollen and this termed , 'Mono culture' wheras bees need a broad aspect of pollen and nectar source.

The bees, in groups of hives have a special reason and this is to create, 'Drone congregations'. Lots of bee keepers fail because there is no Drone congregation near their hive. There is no competition of Drones for mating.

The aspect of varroa ia that the treatments have lowered the Queens fertility and thereby the Queens are not as active as they should be. Queens used to last up to 3 years but now they will supercede yearly as the bees notice the Queens pheromone reducing.

Alan, I see you want to close all furthre correspondance, fine. Please bare in minnd that wild bees nests are a source of infection and this is often passed on while foraging and bees are mixing on pollen and nectar sources.

Case closed.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Interesting stuff

A wild animal on a farmers land which competes for food and spreads disease would be shot

I never forgot an Irish chap telling this townie "If a farmer can't make money out of it then he kills it"

Wild Bees and domesticated bees compete over the same fauna so the more wild bees there are the more a commercial bee owner loses money

I've never ever seen this mentioned anywhere or considered it

Wild bees certainly carry diseases, that's darwinism, wild bees also carry the genetic variation essential for long term survival in a darwinist environment

commercial bees I presume. like farm animals, can only really survive with human scientific help

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

And as Ady1 says "If it dont work, kill them" !

[Bob StevensonParticipant @bobstevenson13909]

The farming community actually have a saying for this;…….."Feed the best and kill the rest"

[Phil StevensonParticipant @philstevenson54758]

Posted by Jon Lawes on 26/08/2021 17:03:07:

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

I know nothing about bee keeping (although I have an interest in giving wildlife a bit of a helping hand) but that is the impression I'm getting from some of the posts. Nobody seems willing to answer your very reasonable question. Do nothing to encourage wildlife because it's inconvenient for (presumably amateur) honey bee farmers? Apologies to the OP; I know you wanted this thread euthanised.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Posted by Ady1 on 27/08/2021 06:05:46:

A wild animal on a farmers land which competes for food and spreads disease would be shot

Badgers?

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Posted by duncan webster on 27/08/2021 11:09:15:

Badgers?

Hence the huge current controversy about them

Otters and beavers are also being reintroduced and there was a foreign chap up here in scotchland who wanted wolves, but that was so he could fence his land off and keep the poor out, (permission refused)

We've got fabulous land access rights up here, even the incomers don't bother putting "no trespassers" signs up anymore

Edited By Ady1 on 27/08/2021 19:10:20

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

Up and down the country the Badgers are currently wondering where they can get the number for a certain Alpaca's legal team….

[Robert ButlerParticipant @robertbutler92161]

Along with the thirty odd thousand cattle that are slaughtered every year !!!

Robert Butler

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

Building a pallet beehive is very hopeful, I would think the odds against a swarm of bees finding it are about a million to one.

[Rik ShawParticipant @rikshaw]

"If a farmer can't make money out of it then he kills it"

and in the case of pheasant shoots, he does make money out of it but still kills them

Rik

[Grindstone CowboyParticipant @grindstonecowboy]

…and a lot of the cows, and sheep and chickens too

Rob

[roy entwistleParticipant @royentwistle24699]

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

[Jonathan Powell 1Participant @jonathanpowell1]

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]

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by Jon Lawes on 28/08/2021 21:16:42:

Up and down the country the Badgers are currently wondering where they can get the number for a certain Alpaca's legal team….

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

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

An interesting reply, thanks Jonathan.

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