Our log hive is hollowed out from a log and put up high which is a bees preference to be safe from predators. Wild bees often used to live in hollowed out trees but this is something that is hard for bees to find these days so it’s wonderful to be able to provide them a home like this. Log hives have been used for thousands of years; the earliest recorded log hive was found in Switzerland and dated to 3,380 BC.
Log hives are the ideal homes for bees.
- They are much more thermally efficient than modern thin-walled hives. Better insulation reduces stress and energy consumption, maintaining warmth during winter and prevents overheating in hot weather.
- They encourage minimal intervention from the keeper which also reduces stress and disease in the bee. Strong, healthy colonies are more capable of coping with varroa, viruses and other pathogens.
- Bee colonies are able to build long uninterrupted combs and to sit under their honey stores during the winter; keeping warm and avoiding isolation and starvation.
- Bees like to be off the ground to be safe fron predators. Ideally in trees 12-15 ft off the ground or mounted on legs which still allows inspection from underneath.
This is not a hive for taking honey, it’s just leaving bees to live unhindered to do their important job of pollinating. We currently keep two beehives on the site (log hive & National hive), reduced from five in previous years. While honeybees are valuable pollinators, they are just one species among the more than 270 species of bee found in the UK. Large numbers of honeybees can compete with wild pollinators such as bumblebees and solitary bees for nectar and pollen, particularly where forage is limited. Reducing the number of hives helps us maintain a better balance and supports a wider diversity of pollinators across the orchard and nature reserve.
Building the log hive
Orchard volunteers, Duwayne Langley, Lawrence Eastwood and Alwyn Jones went to a 2 day course with Bee kind Hives and made a hive each in early spring 2020. It was hosted by Diana Wilson on her beautiful farm on the Lizard. See film below made by Senara Wilson.
The log hives were made from trees blown down in storms or felled when at risk of falling and are aprox 18 inches in diameter and 32 – 36 inches ( 80 – 90cms) long. The cavity is between 10 and 12″ in diameter and is fitted with top cover board and rain cover and there is a removable board at the bottom which allows for inspection of colony growth and removal of any debris.
A month after this hive was installed in our orchard apiary a very lucky swarm of bees moved in. You can also see one of the log hives in Steeple Woods high up in a tree.
A year later, we looked inside the hive early in the morning. Couldn’t see many bees as they are huddled up at the top but the comb is long, about half the length of the hive and you could just hear a deep hum.
See amazing photos of bees inside a tree hive
Treatment free beekeeping
This video below shows the making of a hive and talks more about the benefits of not treating bees for varroa. We don’t treat any of our hives for varroa, we don’t give any of our hives sugar water and when we do check the hives (only a few times a year), we have so far seen very little signs of varroa or other disease.
What is Varroa?
Varroa mites are tiny red-brown external parasites of honey bees. Although Varroa mites can feed and live on adult honey bees, they mainly feed and reproduce on larvae and pupae in the developing brood, causing malformation and weakening of honey bees as well as transmitting numerous viruses.
Colonies with low infestation generally show very few symptoms, however as the mite population increases symptoms become more apparent. Heavy Varroa mite infestations can build up in 3–4 years and cause scattered brood, crippled and crawling honey bees, impaired flight performance, a lower rate of return to the colony after foraging, a reduced lifespan and a significantly reduced weight of worker bees. Colony symptoms, commonly called parasitic mite syndrome, include an abnormal brood pattern, sunken and chewed cappings and larvae slumped in the bottom or side of the cell. This ultimately causes a reduction in the honey bee population, supersedure of queen bees and eventual colony breakdown and death.
Natural Beekeeping = no treatment, no feeding, no stress!
Beekeepers are told that to be a responsible beekeeper you MUST monitor and control varroa in the hive otherwise they will most likely perish. Yet increasing numbers of beekeepers have gone treatment-free and claim that treating varroa with chemicals doesn’t help the bees adapt and is highly likely to weaken the bees immunity and strength. Strong colonies of bees survive and the weak will die, so you end up eventually with strong bees. If bees are given the right living conditions and left unstressed by constant interference, they are able to achieve a state of balance with their pests and diseases. A very interesting article on this here.
Written by Elise Langley, 3rd July 2020