The Beecentric Blog. Beekeeping Naturally

Updates, tips, tricks, and how-to's of apicentric beekeeping. What is the beecentric hive and how best is it used and managed? Beecentric hive is a Warre hive, 8 frame Langstroth hive hybrid handmade and sold in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The apicentric hive is designed to work with the natural behaviours of the honeybee. The result is happier, heather bees, and less work for the beekeeper.

The beecentric hive can be managed like a traditional Langstroth hive (by adding to the top; super) or in the style of a Warre hive (adding from the bottom: nadir). The hive uses 8 frames instead of 10, as the over-wintering cluster of bees is the same width as the hive. Using medium boxes for everything (brood and honey) simplifies your beekeeping operation and increases your options.

The Bee Community (BeeComm)

December 10, 2021 by Dustin Bajer

BeeComm is an online beekeeping community for small-scale and backyard beekeepers. We believe in a kinder, gentler approach to beekeeping and the ability of small-scale beekeepers to adopt and innovate best management practices rooted in honeybee biology and behaviour.

Join The Bee Community for free to connect with link-minded beekeepers and find classes, in-person training opportunities, and networking events. Manage your honeybees using techniques that align with nature.

We offer a variety of beekeeping courses, beekeeping certificates, and networking groups to support your beekeeping practice.

Why You Should Join The Bee Community

Learn about honeybee biology and behaviour.
Learn about keeping bees in your backyard.
Earn a Beekeeping Certificate to keep bees in your community.
Find resources and connect with like-minded beekeepers.
Join a supportive beekeeping community that elevates its members through resource and knowledge sharing.

Our Guiding Values

We understand that beekeeping is an ongoing learning experience and that the amount of (often conflicting) information and advice is overwhelming. That’s why we emphasize honeybees’ biology and natural behaviour – nobody knows how to keep bees better than bees.

Honeybee health over honey production.
Managing colonies using techniques that align with the biology and natural behaviour of honeybees.
Supporting experimentation and innovation within the small-scale beekeeping community.
Adopting an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to disease through monitoring, prevention, and treatment.
Applying cultural controls of pests and diseases over synthetic treatment options whenever possible.
Honouring and building up locally adapted honeybee genetics.
Building a supportive beekeeping community that elevates its members by sharing resources and knowledge.

Who Is The Bee Community?

Dustin Bajer created The Bee Community to bring together conscientious small-scale beekeepers. Dustin is a science educator, master gardener, and urban beekeeper living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

He has been around honeybees for most of his life and started managing his own colonies in 2011. Dustin approaches beekeeping through an ecological and scientific lens – adopting practices and hive designs that align with bees. He has taught beekeeping to hundreds of children and adults through in-person, online, and hands-on beekeeping courses.

Beehive Entrances According to Honeybees

December 12, 2019 by Dustin Bajer

Would Honeybees Choose Smaller or Larger Entrances?

Beehive Entrances are as varied as beekeepers who tend them, and there’s a lot of opinions on how large or small a beehive’s entrance ought to be. While it’s not uncommon for beekeepers to reducers their openings during colder periods, large entrances are common during honey flows.

But has anyone stopped to ask the bees? As it turns out, someone has. That someone, is Dr. Thomas Seeley, a world-renowned bee researcher working out of Cornel University. Seeley asked the bees by releasing swarms on a barren island and offering them the choice between different nest boxes. Their differences; entrances of 15, 30, and 60 cm². Dr. Seeley wrote about his finding, and many others, in his fantastic book, Honeybee Democracy. Here’s an excerpt:

If we gave a swarm of bees a 40-litre nest box with a 15 cm² entrance, they showed great interest in the box…There could be no doubt that the scout bees judged this box to be highly desirable… But after we enlarged the entrance opening to 60 cm²… the number of bees outside the box plummeted… This sudden abandonment of the box suggested that the scout were no longer attracted to it. … These results, confirmed by those obtained from a secoond swarm a few days later, taught us that scout bees judge a nest box with a 30 or 60 cm² entrance opening to be a low-quality, probably even unacceptable, homesite.
– Thomas D Seeley, Honeybee Democracy, Page 107

Beehive Entrance Dimensions

Thus, given a choice and everything else being equal, Dr. Seeley’s research concluded that bees have a strong preference towards small hive entrances. Interestingly, Seedey found no strong preference for the entrance shape.

Modern hives tend to have a short wide entrance that runs the width of the bottom board. This entrance can be made smaller with the addition of an entrance reducer. Fixing the hight of a hive’s entrance at 3/8″ (bee space) and translating Dr. Seeley’s research into rectangular hive openings of 15, 30, and 60cm² we get:

15cm² Beehive Entrance = 2.33 inches² = (3/8″ bee space) high x 6.2″ wide
30cm² Beehive Entrance = 4.65 inches² = (3/8″ bee space) high x 12.4″ wide
60cm² Beehive Entrance = 9.30 inches² = (3/8″ bee space) high x 24.8″ wide

For comparison, the opening of a commercial langstroth hive without an entrance reducer can be as large as 11 square inches. That’s more than four and a half times larger than the entrance preferred by bees!! Why are we keeping bees in hives whose entrances are of “low-quality, probably even unacceptable”?

Why Do Honeybees Prefer Smaller Beehive Entrances?

While this study doesn’t answer all of the questions – do bee prefer entrances of 10 cm² over 15 cm²? At what point does a colony judge an opening to be too small? – it does strongly suggests that bees prefer small entrances over large ones. This preference could be because smaller entrances are more easily defended. Beekeepers know that adding reducers deters robbing. It could also be that smaller openings prevent bees from drifting between nearby colonies. Less drift could mean less disease transfer. Then again, wild colonies tend widely spaced.

Another reason for this preference could be that small entrances make it easier for bees to regulate the internal temperature and humidity of the colony. My hunch is that it’s less work to cool than heat the hive. Colder temperatures cause the bees to cluster around the brood and heat it with their bodies. I hypothesize that hives with smaller entrances might be more active as fewer resources and time would be required to maintain the correct internal temperature and humidity.

Beecentric Beehive Entrances

The Beecentric Hive comes with two entrances and two entrance reducers. Built into the screened IPM bottom board, the bottom entrance has a reducer with an opening of 13 cm² (exact dimensions 3/8″ by 5.5″), which is in alignment with the preference of honeybees. Removing the reducer reveals a 30 cm² opening, but I leave the reducer on year-round; summer and winter. The bees have no problems defending a 13 cm³ entrance, and it’s large enough to accommodate heavy honey flows.

The hive has an upper entrance built into the Warre style top-quilt and a reducer with a 1.8 cm² opening. While bees can use this as an entrance, its primary functions as ventilation. Since the Beecentric Hive has a screened top-quilt, I generally keep my top-entrance closed by tipping the reducer ninety-degrees. I sometimes open it in early spring when bees are making cleaning flights. This top-entrance is probably unnecessary, but easy to close-up and offers more options.

Bee Havers – The Important Role of Small Scale Hobby Beekeepers

December 9, 2019 by Dustin Bajer

Beekeepers vs Bee Havers

With over three hundred thousand commercial honeybee colonies, the province of Alberta is the fifth-largest honey-producing region in the world and by far the largest in the country. With an average of two thousand hives per beekeeper, Alberta is an interesting place to be a small-scale or hobby beekeeper. [Read more…]

Shipped Beecentric Hive Assembly

April 2, 2019 by Dustin Bajer

Beecentric Hive Components, Diagram, and Assembly

Whether you’ve ordered a Beecentric Hive through the mail or your just curious about how it all goes together, we’re a brief overview of the Beecentric Hive components and how to assemble them.

Assembling Beecentric Hive Boxes

To keep shipping costs affordable, Beecentric Hives in shipped with unassembled boxes. Each box consists of four pieces – two long sides and two short faces. All four parts will have handes nearest the top of the box. When assembling, make sure that handles are on the outside.

To assemble your boxes, you will need:

A flat, Level Working Surface
Exterior Wood Glue
Speed Square
Rubber mallet
A Brad Nailer with 1 1/2″ to 2″ Exterior Brad Nails OR Exterior Finishing Nails OR Exterior Screws

Identify two side pieces and two face pieces required to build one box.
Pick up one of the long side pieces and identify the handle. Rotate the piece such that the handle appears to be near the top.
Flip the piece horizontally such that the handle is facing your working surface.
Dab or brush the surface of the finger-joints with wood glue.
One at a time, insert the shorter two pieces into the freshly glued finger joints. The frame rests should be facing each other while the handles should be facing outwards.
Gently tap the boards together with a rubber mallet. If you do not have a rubber mallet, use a block of wood and a hammer.
Use a square to test that both boards are perpendicular to the working surface.
Dab or brush the exposed surfaces of the finger joints.
Use a mallet to insert the remaining piece ensuring that the handle is on the outside and nearest the top of the box.
Rotate your box, using your mallet and square to close any gaps and test for square.
Use a brad-nailer to add a nail to the outermost finger joints. Be careful not to nail into the frame rests. If you do not have a brad-nailer, use thin exterior finishing screws or nails. When using nails or screws, it is advisable to drill a 1/16″ pilot hole which will prevent the wood from splitting.

Painting Your Beecentric Hive

To protect your hive from the elements and increase its longevity paint all of its exterior surfaces. Products such as exterior-grade primers and latex or oil paints work well but should be allowed to dry thoroughly before exposing to honeybees.

Only paint the outside surfaces of the hive and leave any internal surfaces natural as the bees will cover it was a layer or propolis – a sticky resin collected from plants.

Painted Beecentric Hive in an Edmonton Backyard — A Painted Beecentric Hive

For a more natural look like the hives pictured on this website, apply two or three treatments of linseed oil. Linseed oil is pressed from flax and is food safe. Though, admittedly, it is not as durable as paint and will need annual reapplications.

For a more durable natural finish, buy or make a linseed oil and beeswax finish. I’ve have been tempted to try tung oil but have not done so yet.

Overwintering A Beecentric Hive

November 29, 2018 by Dustin Bajer

Check Winter Food Stores

How much honey they need to get through the winter will depend on your specific climate, so it’s worth talking with other local beekeepers. Here in Alberta, beekeepers like their bees to have between 80 and 90 pounds of honey and a few frames of pollen. Pollen is necessary for the queen to raise small batches of brood and for spring build up.

Since the Beecentric Hive uses medium boxes for brood and honey, I generally overwinter in three boxes; two honey filled boxes on top and a bottom box that will have some honey and the clustering bees. I have wintered colonies on two boxes many times.

As Micheal Bush says in Practical Beekeeping “the best time to feed your bees is never.” because they have all the honey that they need. I like to leave the bees with enough honey to get them through the winter. While sugar will work, it’s not the same thing as honey, but if your bees are going into winter without resources, you’ll need to feed them.

Reducing Disease and Stress Load

One of the biggest things you can do it make sure that your hive is going into winter with as little disease and stress as possible. Healthy bees will be able to cluster and manage the internal environment much better than stressed ones. Larger overwintering clusters have a smaller surface area to volume ratio and conserve heat more effectively than smaller clusters.

Insulating The Beecentic Hive Top-Quilt

Unlike most conventional hives with solid inner and outer covers, the Beecentric Hive has a Warre inspired quilt-box. Filling the top-quilt with insulation will keep your hive warm in the winter and cool in the summer while still offering adequate ventilation for the colony. The primary purpose of the quilt is to hold in the warmth and to reduce condensation on the upper surface of the hive.

If that warm moist air meets a thin cold surface or an open bee escape hole, it will condense and dump cold liquid water back onto the cluster. Bees can tolerate extremely low temperatures while dry, but if you wet them in cold temperatures, they will die.
The vertical sides represent about 25% of the total heat loss with the remaining heat [75%] exiting from the top. – Beeculture.com

For best results, fill the top-quilt with dry organic material like straw or woodchips. My current favourite medium is wood shavings available at most pet stores. Make sure to fill the quilt box but to leave the bedding fluffy as it’s the air trapped within the medium that insulates the hive. Since you can pull the vented roof off without opening the hive, you can check the bedding in the middle of winter; it should always be nice and dry.

As a pro-tip, add your bedding to an old pillowcase and place the pillowcase into the quilt-box. Using a pillowcase will allow you to add or remove the bedding with little mess and give you the option on peeking under the pillowcase to peek in on your bees without opening the hive up (not recommended when cold outside).

One More (Optional) Step

There’s a little over 4 inches of room there which is lots of space to add bedding. The key is that you want to fill it up will still be light and fluffy. The bees are going to make a lot of warm, and moist air and it will be able to slowly work its way through the quilt without condensing and raining back down on the bees.

If you’re feeling ambitious, you can staple a layer of reflective wrap under the vented roof that will reflect escaping radiant heat towards the quilt. This reflective layer only works if there’s an air gap between the insulation in the quilt-box and vented roof – which there will be since you won’t overfill the quilt.

Reducing the Entrances for Winter

The Beecentic Hive comes with one small and one large entrance reducer. I generally add the larger opening on the bottom and the smaller one at the top and leave this configuration year-round.

Since the quilt-box acts as ventilation, it’s not necessary to keep the top entrance open, so I like to close it off by tipping it 90 degrees. When the weather warms in the spring, and the bees are in the upper box, I will tip it open to allow access for cleansing flights. This is not necessary but a nice option to have.

Wrapping A Beecentric Hive for Winter

Most commercial hive wraps have an R-value of 8 which is, coincidentally, a little warmer than the walls of a typical hollow tree trunk. You can buy eight frame bee wraps online, or you can make your own with fibreglass, Rockwool, or rigid foam.

Making Your Hive Wrap

To build my hive wraps, I custom cut a panel for each of the hive’s four sites. If I’m using Rockwool or fibreglass batons, I wrap each panel in a black construction grade bag and seal the ends with tuck tape. You can achieve the same thing with rigid foam wrapping each piece in black tarpaper like four presents. In both cases, I use bungee cords to secure the panels to the side of the hive.

Back and Side Panels

Insulate from the bottom of the bottom board to the bottom of the vented roof where it sits over the top quilt.

Front Panel

Insulted from the top of the bottom entrance to the bottom of the top entrance. Having a shorter panel on the front will keep the bottom entrance open (large entrance reducer on) and allow for fresh air to enter the hive from the below. This technique also allows you to access the top entrance and to tip it open in the spring.

Additional Reading

Elise Watson, of ABC Bees in Calgary, put together an excellent overwintering guide for hives in Alberta. The guide is for 10 Frame langstroth hives is still very useful for anyone using a Beecentric Hive. Winterization Guide for Beekeeping

I quoted the Beeculture.com article, “Winter Management” by William Hesbach above. The article is refreshing as it uses honeybee biology and the physics of natural beehives as a template for overwintering honeybee colonies. Winter Managment