Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[Dexter's shed]

so, I've got 2 top bar hives, but in all honesty, I've not had much success getting bees through winter with them, so currently have a couple of nationals (don't all groan at me)
now whilst watching you tube, I came across a guy called tim rowe and rose hives, watching his video's, it seemed more aimed at the bees, rather than the honey, which ticked all my boxes.
so I had some commercial hives that I bought last year to put over our woods, I decieded to use supers as rose boxes, all frames have a simple starter strip of wax and there is no queen excluder used, she is free to go where she wants

picked up a swarm yesterday, so grabbed my newly altered hive and drove over to our woods

http://youtu.be/JhXOKrEZURA
the film is a bit longer than you tube allow, so it starts 6 minutes into the film, just click on the start to watch fully

[J Smith]

There is nothing wrong with Nationals (or Langs) as a hive to keep bees in. It is more to do with the way you manage them.
Sounds like you now have that sorted. Good on you for ditching the excluder and foundation sheets. Let the bees decide.

Best of luck with your new colony.

[andy pearce]

I have nationals too, I got them a huge expense before I came to this site and am not going to get rid of them yet!
Seems to me that the Rose hive is pretty similar to the framed Warre or the medium lang system proposed by Michael Bush and others....use the same size box and nadir or super depending on circumstances. It matters not where the brood is and in the last two at least the comb is natural from starter strips. So the difference being between the three types listed above is the dimensions of the box.
Am I right?
A

[J Smith]

Andy, you are dead right.
Hollow log, hTBH, Kenyan, Tanzanian, homemade, store bought, Langstroth, National, Warre, Russian, Perone........ and any others are just houses for bees with differing dimensions and have differing ways of playing with them.
The main difference most aim for here is the way they are worked and managed- natural keeping- versus commercial honey production.

[Dexter's shed]

[biobee]

Tim Rowe's system works for him and (I assume) others because it is designed to work with a particular size and type of hardware. Same with the Warre - but don't expect to be able to just stack up a pile of National supers and expect them to work like a Warre, or you will be setting yourself up for failure.

Decide what style of beekeeping you want to do and get the right equipment for that system: mix-and-match is not generally successful, in my experience.

[Dexter's shed]

[WileyHunter]

Well, I guess my knowledge of this topic will have to stay limited for a spell... As I often do when I want to learn about a new subject, I Googled it... Found out there's a book by Tim Rowe, who seems to claim to be the creator of this method. So now I go to Amazon, armed with this limited info and do a search, with his book coming up "The Rose Hive Method", at a price of $108 for paperback! I can't imagine this is right, yet three sellers were in the same ballpark. Oh well...

[J Smith]

Try looking direct instead of Amazon.
http://www.rosebeehives.com/the-rose-hive-book.html

[Manuel Robert]

Read this book some time ago. One of the main points is to add boxes into the brood nest during late spring , thus expanding it. After late june, depending on local conditions ect. he adds boxes just above it , but under the other supers.
Personally I felt it involved a lot of opening and manipulation, and it seems you have to really be at ease handling boxes ect.
The book is nice to read, and it wasn´t expensive when I bought it.

[rmcpb]

Nothing about the method but they are really quiet bees!

Cheers
Rob.

[Dexter's shed]

[biobee]

I suggest you get in some weight-lifting practice - you will need all the muscles you can muster - especially using Commercial supers!

[Dexter's shed]

[WileyHunter]

[andy pearce]

So unless you have your own workshop and are good at wood work you are going to buy those Rose hive boxes which are a shorter national brood (or taller super). That is going to be expensive.... If you are going for a vertical system from scratch why not the Warre....all the plans are here and do not need the same skill level to produce the boxes. There are many Warre keepers.here as well...frameless or framed with starter strips....I think the box unit size is important too as I am spending more on my back at the moment than getting from my bee keeping!
A

[Barbara]

[Dexter's shed]

[Dexter's shed]

[Swing Swang]

Tim makes some very good points in his book which is essentially about the method and not just about his hives-eg single size box that is small enough to be lifted when full of honey, no queen excluder etc. Therefore much of what he says is applicable to Warre hives, but this does mean departing from Warre's published method of management.

For the last season I've been using the Rose method on one of my Warre's that are fitted with 'half frames' - specifically splitting the brood chamber up until midsummer and supering after midsummer. I'm using foundation 'ladders' to keep things nice and orderly (i.e. that's nice and orderly for me!).

This seems to have helped with swarm control as the bees aren't hitting a false bottom, has resulted in a strong colony, and has circumvented the problem of the bees not building down into the lower box.

It's very, very early days for me in using this method, but I am favourably disposed towards it at the moment and will be continuing with my observations. It will be interesting to see if splitting the brood chamber two or three times before midsummer stresses the bees too much though. I don't thing there is much that I can say that is truly scientific, but it seems to be working for me.

SS

[Dexter's shed]

that sounds great SS, keep us posted

[rmcpb]

Not sure this is really a "new"method but it surely puts into order a lot that is instinctively done by many keepers. Not sure about the eight box high hives though.....

Cheers
Rob.

[zaunreiter]

Doesn't sound great to me. It seems to me that the bee biology is not respected in any way and there is no honey produced. A couple of years ago I saw a pdf with a presentation of the method. I wasn't impressed.

So please expand on the "method" and describe month by month manipulations.

[J Smith]

My personal take, upon watching the video on his website, is that the method is used to increase bee numbers more than any honey production.
Indeed "increasing bee numbers" is mentioned a couple of times.
I have never tried the method, so cannot really say if it works.

[Dexter's shed]

[Dexter's shed]

[biobee]

From Tim Rowe's introduction to his book:

"...I manage my bees in a particular way, for very specific goals, namely, health, increase and honey production."

He runs about 100 hives.

His method uses a single size box carrying 12 frames, intermediate between a BS National brood box and a BS super, based on "the maximum full weight I could comfortably carry". A full box weighs up to 25kg (!)

No queen excluders are used. No top ventilation (although he doesn't seem to be aware of Ed Clarke's book). He does use mesh floors.

Tim Rowe is clearly an experienced, effective and open-minded beekeeper, who has developed a method that works well for him. I have almost no argument with anything in his book, which I would recommend to anyone thinking of taking up beekeeping using conventional equipment while respecting the bees' need to build natural comb and to be left to do their stuff most of the time.

On the other hand, you would need to be fit and strong to be able to handle this type of beekeeping and it is certainly not for everyone.

[Cie]

[zaunreiter]

[Dexter's shed]