Langstroth's Hive

Location, location, location – important for bees too

Article by Jean Clark, www.rawpurehoney.com

John Harding, a British beekeeper with 30 years experience, provides a new theory about beehive management in his book, “An HOLISTIC Way in Saving The Honeybee” available direct from him at “harding@clavies.freeserve.co.uk” or from Northern Bee Books UK.

The crux of the theory is that it does not matter how many beehives you have or how much experience you have had; if you place your beehives in the wrong place, the bees have to work too hard in producing their honey to be able to do their housekeeping and eradicate disease and infestation.

This is a key point for new beekeepers: a hive in your garden may be a fruitless waste of time, effort and bees.

Harding has based his theory on observing wild bees and where they site themselves after swarming. In testing these locations, Harding found that the bees chose spots where the earth’s natural vibrations were about 30 times higher than the earth’s norm.

These high levels of vibration allow the earth’s vibrations to do a lot of the work to develop the honey and colonies, so that the bees have the chance to deal with housekeeping, eradicate varroa mites, and concentrate on honey production.

Tests by Harding himself have shown that a varroa infested hive, when placed in the right location, will rid itself of the pest within 6 weeks. Re-siting that same hive in the wrong location leads to a quick return of the mite.

The extra benefit is that the health of the colony is stronger and Harding claims that he can get 3 times the norm of honey from each of his hives.

Beware of metal

Harding also confirms that another element of his research has been proven: metal causes a local distortion to the earth’s natural vibrations, implying that hives should not be placed on metal structures.

“Metal stands for beehives must not be used as this somehow interferes with the vibration.

A beehive placed on a roof is also impacted in the same way if the building has a metal structure. So it will be no good, as recommended by Natural England, to place hives on a balcony or roof.”

These are important findings that can easily be tested, and without cost, by most beekeepers. What may cost more is removing metal from beehives, such as nails or screws, that some believe also impacts on the health of a hive.

The main concern is that people believe just having a hive will improve the lot of bees and pollination, whereas it could just lead to further death of bees and a further decline in previously-thriving colonies that were happy where they were.

Our desire to help the bees (and ourselves in the process) may be well intentioned, but without serious thought on site location, we could be prolonging and exacerbating colony collapse disorder.

A large number of beekeepers are testing John Harding’s hypothesis for themselves this year. Over the next twelve months, he expects many more positive reviews will start to appear.

www.rawpurehoney.com provides further details and proposals on preventing the decline of bees and beehive siting.

About the Author

www.rawpurehoney.com is a conduit between consumers and beekeepers, bringing the two together to ensure that there is a supply of local and raw honey for the local population to improve health, cure hay fever, and eradicate other issues such as diabetes.