BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
When an analysis of the evaporation inside the hive is undertaken we are confronted with many conditions that increase or retard it. Water vapor and warm air being lighter than air at the entrance, pass naturally to the top of the hive, and remain there unless some mechanical force compels them to move toward the entrance. This force is noticable when the hive contains smoke. Under normal conditions we do not find this fanning going on all through the hive.
So far only the evaporation which takes place when the air and water are at the same temperature has been considered. Water can readily be turned into steam by boiling. This steam begins to rise from the surface of the water long before the water comes to the boiling point. "The surface of any watery liquid, whose temperature is 20 degrees warmer than any superincumbent air, rapidly gives off true steam,"* applies to the evaporation in the hive. We know the temperature of the bee's body,and it naturally follows that the temperature of the nectar in the bee's stomach is the same. Observation tells us that the bees ripen the honey drop by drop, bringing it from the stomach and pulsating each drop in the mouth for about ten minutes.1 The drop during this process is exposed to the air at the particular temperature of that part of the hive where the bee is doing this work. When this temperature is 20 degrees colder than the drop of nectar true steam is given off. This evaporation takes place, no matter how much water vapor is in the air, and varies with the difference of the temperature of the air surrounding the drop of nectar. This is forced evaporation. We find conditions favorable to forced evaporation in cool night temperatures and a hive with a generous around of room.
To clearly comprehend the great amount of water that must be evaporated to get a pound of ripened honey, let us assume that 12 pounds is the weight of one gallon of honey, and 48 pounds the weight of 6 gallons of water. 6 gallons of water mixed with 1 gallon of honey gives 60 pounds of water and. honey. 20 % of ripened honey is water. 20 % of 12 pounds or 1 gallon of honey is 2.4 pounds. 48 pounds plus 2.4 pounds is 50.4 pounds, which is the weight of water in this mixture. 50.4 pounds is 84 % of 60 pounds. 84 % is a conservative estimate of the amount of water in nectar. To get 1 gallon of honey 48 pounds of water must be separated from the nectar. To get 1 pound 1-12 of 48 pounds of water must be separated, or 4 pounds. Let us grant that 2 pounds of this water is disposed of before the bees enter the hive. They will still have 2 pounds of water to evaporate before they produce 1 pound of ripened honey. When the honey increase of a hive is 4 pounds a day, 8 pounds of water must be evaporated. The nectar carried into the hive that day would require about three frames for temporary storage. When conditions are such as to hamper evaporation for two or three days of successful honey gathering, it can readily be seen that a crowed condition could exist.
## 24 Constructive beekeeping
### Nectar in the flowers
Another way that evaporation influences the work of the bees is that which takes place from the surface of the nectar while it is yet in the flower. Very little is known of the exact percentage of water in nectar. It has been weighed and found range from 60 % to 93 %. Scientists can never give us much information on this, unless they take into account the evaporation which takes place from the surface of the nectar in the open flowers. Nectar in the same blossom may contain 90 % of water at 9 A. M. and 60 % at 2 P. M., because of the movements of the air, sunshine and low relative humidity. Because of this variation of the volume of water in nectar, we can understand what a difference there would be in hive conditions, as the nectar is gathered at a time when there is little or much evaporation taking place in the field.
Consider the gathering of nectar from buckwheat. There are districts where the bees work wholly on buckwheat during its blooming season, and peculiarities of the flow of this nectar have been commented on by many beekeepers. Some have noted that the nectar has all disappeared about 2 P. M. They have not gone so far as to prove this by an examination of the flowers, but have assumed it to be so, because the bees did not work on the flowers after this hou. This reasoning is right as to the absence of nectar after this hour.
Other things commented on, are that the bees gather honey from buckwheat only during sunshine periods, and that they gather more on a still day than a windy one.
Let us now assume that all the blossoms that receive the direct rays of the sun secrete nectar suitable for the bees. We have no reason to doubt that flowers on the same plant, surrounded by like conditions viz; sunshine and air, secrete nectar that the bees can gather. The bees can not gather all the nectar from every flower which contains it, before 2 P. M. It is not reasonable to beleive that the flower absorbs what the bees don't gather by this time, and yet we know that it has disappeared. The only way to explain this absence of nectar after this hour is that ithas evaporated. Note the statement that the wind reduces the amount of honey gathered. Wind increases evaporation.
Unless some close observer along this line can prove otherwise, we must reason that the flower containing nectar in the morning, and if this nectar has not been removed by any insect, would still contain nectar in the afternoon, so that the bees could gather it, if evaporation had not reduced it to such consistancy as to be useless to the bees.
## 5 Absorption of water by honey
It would be impossible for the bees, except under the most favorable conditions, as regards humidity of the air, to produce well ripened honey wholly by evaporation and depending on v n-tilation alone to carry off the water vapor. Honey put up in barrels that are not dry, absorb water from the wood, shrinking it enough to cause leakage. One of the causes of watery cappings is that the honey has absorbed water from the moisture-laden air.
Even if the bees ripened all the honey by some process with-in themselves, as some have suggested, (this would have to allow for only worker-bees doing the ripening and throwing off the water in the flight from the hive), the moisture-laden air, would soon undo the work of the bees. Hence to produce well ripened honey we have to let the bees condense the moisture of the hive on the inside walls and ceilings. An exception of this would be in localities having a very dry atmosphere, but these are very scarce during the urge period.
## 6 Condensation
A good understanding of the condensing properties of a hive will make clear a great deal that puzzels us about bees, and such knowledge constructively applied to honey production, cannot fail to give results, the magnitude of which, the beekeeper with his present knowledge, would hardly dare to hope for.
We have seen that ventilation, by moving the warm air out of the hive reduces the heat of the hive. When better results26 constructive beekeeping
can be obtained in a way that conserves the heat of a hive, a step forward has been taken. This will result if we let the bees, as they are striving to do, use their hive as a condenser.
To understand how water vapor is condensed in a hive, the dewpoint should be understood. Saturated air is at the dewpoint. The amount of moisture that the air will hold varies as the temperature changes. The amount of moisture in the air is spoken of as absolute humidity. Air at O degrees F. is saturated with 1-2 grain, at 60 degrees F. 5 grains, and at 80 degrees F. with 11 grains of water vapor. Air at 60 degrees which contains but 2 1-2 grains of gater vapor would be at 1-2 or 50 per cent of saturation. Air at 78 degrees which contains the same amount of water vapor (2 1-2 grains) would be but 1-4 or 25 per cent saturated. This per cent of saturation is called relative humidity. If the amount of water vapor in the air remains constant as the temperature changes, the relative humiddiy changes with the temperature. Air that is saturated at 78 degrees would have to give up 50 per cent of its water vapor when its temperature is reduced to 60 degrees, leaving this 60 degree air also saturated.
The dewpoint is the temperature of the air, at which it would be at saturation, if the amount of moisture is neither increased nor deminished.
To illustrate the principle of the air giving up part of its water vapor when its temperature is reduced to the dewpoint, saturate a sponge with water, then press slightly on it and it looses part of its water. The pressure of the hands acts on the sponge the same as reduced temperature on saturated air.
The most obvious illustration of this formation of dew, or condensation of moisture on a cool surface, is when a pitcher of ice water is placed in a warm room. This everybody is familiar with. Condensed vapor on the windows, when the outside temperature is cool, is another. Place a pan, bottom up on the ground and dew will be found on the inside surface of the pan in the morning.
The beehive, when we allow the bees to arrange their own ventilation, condenses vapor this way, when there is enough difference between outside and inside temperature to give a dewpoint on the inside surface of the hive. We do not observe any great amount of moisture on the inside walls of the hive, during the urge period, because the bees, needing a good supply of water to mix with the food they prepare, gather it as soon as deposited, leaving the surface in better condition for more condensation. This gives the bees nice distilled water for their use.
Records of weights taken morning and evening, during the honey flow, show but a slight loss in weight of the hive each morning. This has puzzled many beekeepers, and some have suggested that the bees got rid of the water of the nectar before entering the hive.
Let us look at this and apply the condensation theory. The bees evaporate the water from the nectar, condense it on the inside walls of the hive, then gather it as distilled water and mix it with food for the brood. The water has been evaporated, but the hive still retains it, and the hive weights have decreased but little during the night.
We have all had some experience with dew and have observed that all objects will not have dew on their surfaces in the morning, after a night favorable to the deposit of dew. The grass will be very wet, but the road is dry. A painted board is wetter than an unpainted one. The grass and the road are in contact with air containing the same amount of water vapor. Any Natural Philosophy will explain this by the laws governing the radiation of heat. The surfaces of objects on which the dew has been deposited radiate more heat into space, and consequently cool more than the ones that radiate less heat and have no dew on them. The air which comes in contact with the colder surface, and whose temperature is reduced to the dewpoint, is compelled to give up some of its moisture.
The law of the dewpoint operates in the hive the same as outside. Air in the hive at a temperature of 90 degrees which contains 8 grains of water vapor must, when it comes in contact with the cool walls of the hive whose temperature is 60 degrees, give up 3 grains of its water vapor. This condensation will go on as long as temperature of the hive walls, temperature of air in the hive, and humidity of hive air, hold such relations to each other that the dewpoint obtains at the inside surface of the hive.
All objects do not radiate heat equally well. Some part with their heat or become cold faster than others. A smooth stone, exposed the same as grass surrounding it, does not part with its heat as readily as the grass.
## 7 PROPOLIS
Blackened tin has a high radiating power and is taken as a standard for expressing the radiating power of other substances. Give the radiating power of blackened tin as 100, rosin's 96 and wood is very low. Propolis, being a rosin its radiating power is almost perfect. But few substances approach this high standard. It is obvious that more condensation takes place on a hive lined with propolis than one where the wood is without a varnish. More condensation makes more evaporation, more evaporation makes more room.
A substance like propolis that is a good radiator and absorber, is a poor transmitter of heat. Propolis used as a varnish keeps the hive heat from warming the wooden walls, and they being cooler at night, give a temperature to the inside surface, that condenses the water vapor fast or slow, as the difference cf inside air temperature and wall temperature is great or small.
The bees finding it necessary to separate a great deal of water from the nectar, dispose of it by evaporation, but instinct tells them that the air holds very little on cool nights in May and June; so to remove this moisture from the air, they varnish the inside walls and make a condenser out of the hive. The process is, in principle, the same as that used in distillation.
The makers of refrigerators take advantage of condensation to maintain dry air in the food chamber. A refrigerator car, after years of experimenting has been finished off with several coats of varnish. It has been proven, by tests, that products that are inclined to sweat or absorb moisture, keep drier in a highly varnished car than in one not varnished. The water vapor in the air condenses on the inner surface of the car, making the air drier, consequently preventing the absorbtion of water from the air by the products stored in the car.
### SHADE'
Shade in the afternoon has been observed to have a tendency to prevent swarming. There can be no condensation if the temperature of the hive walls is nearly equal to or higher than the hive air. This is the condition that exists most of the day and evening when the weather is warm and the sun is shining; providing the hives are not shaded. When a hive is so situated that: the shade covers it about noon or soon thereafter, the conditions for condensation are good, cool walls.
Bees situated in dense shade have been observed to swarm more than those having more open surroundings. In dense shade the humidity is high and no movement of air takes place. The hive may be well ventilated as the beekeeper has had best results from well ventilated hives; but the air, being almost saturated when it enters the hive, does not carry off the water vapor from the hive. The good ventilation keeps the inside and outside walls of the hive at nearly the same temperature and if the hives are not well lined with propolis, not much condensation takes place. With nectar not ripening into honey, they soon feel their crowded condition.
## 4 Clustering out
When the bees are clustering out, it is not the heat of the hive that bothers them, but the high dewpoint in the hive. Man can stand a temperature in dry air much above 100 degrees without much discomforture, but let the air become so saturated with moisture that the dewpoint approaches the temperature of his body, then he feels more or less sufficating effects. We have all noticed this condition of atmosphere on a day that we call close and stuffy. The bees that are clustering out have this close stuffy air in the hive and cluster out for relief.
Cover the outside of the hive with a wet cloth and soon the bees will be back in the hive about their work. The hive walls are cooled by the evaporation of the water from the cloth, bringing on condensation of hive moisture, consequently lowering the dewpoint.
## 6 Abscending Swarms
Many beekeepers report swarms leaving a short time after being hived. When they have mentioned anything about conditions, a high temperature and a new hive are noted. These make just the right combination to give a high dewpoint in the hive. The parts of a new hive naturally would fit close, and wood being a very poor radiator of heat, no condensation takes place. The swarm objecting to the close stuffy air, and having no home ties, leave for a more suitable place. The remedy for bees that will not stay hived is a few days in the cellar. The cellar temperature is enough colder than the hive a'r to condense the hive moisture on the wood.
## 7 Wild Bees
Bees in selecting a home for themselves in a tree, consider two things upon which their future welfare depends, and in doing this we can believe that their instinct led them right. First, a small entrance so that they could easily protect themselves from their enemies. Second, a cavity in the tree of sufficient capacity to carry on the work of the hive, and small enough to keep themselves and their brood from being harmed by outside weather conditions. Never do we find them, in the selection of a home, paying the least attention to ventilation. Natural ventilation is a thing that the bees ignore. Every beekeeper has visible evidence of this truth in his aiapary and it cannot be made more clear by further discussion.
## 8 Latent Heat
Evaporating by the aid of condensation has the advantage that it retains the latent heat in the hive. This might be considered too small a thing to claim our attention. Most things pertaining to a colony of bees are small, but the result of many small things working in a single direction and having the same ultimate goal, is great efficiency. But this is not as small as it appears to be. During the urge period, it conserves great quantities of heat for the colony. The bees' instinct leads them to give consideration to things that make for economy. If one pound of water is evaporated in a hive, the water vapor into which this volume of water has been converted, contains latent heat enough to raise 1,000 pounds (about four barrels) one degree. It changing this back from a gaseous to a liquid state, the same amount of heat is given off in the hive. By ventilation it is lost.
## HIVE Wall Temperature
If a hive of bees be covered with heating-mannure to keep it warm in spring the colony will dwindle and become very weak. Hive walls are warmer than hive air and no condensation takes place. For the same reason bees in a greenhouse dwindle. They should be set where the hive walls can cool during the night.
In some localities in spring, occurs a succession of days during which the bees do not fly. They have young brood in the hive and when they do not get condensed water from the walls the increase is very slow. A colony of bees, small in proportion to the hive, does not build up as fast as one that is strong for the size of the hive. When bees are not able to heat the hive air above the temperature of the walls, no condensation takes place, and when the bees cannot fly no water is available for domestic purposes. How many beekeepers have stopped to consider where the bees got the water to rear brood before the first flight? Distillation tells the story.
Condensation tells many a story to explain bee behavior. Can you wonder at the awe and amazement with which I approached this phase of bee economy, when brought to a realization of the wonderful instinct that led the bee into the realms of physics, to select propolis, one of the best substances nature has, to bring their work up to a high state of efficiency. This instinct tells them that freer evaporation obtains when the water vapor is being freely condensed on the inner walls of the hive. It tells them that water can be evaporated in any air with a tempera ture 20 degrees lower than that liquid. It tells them that this water can be condensed readily on the propolis covered walls of the hive. Wonderful is the instinct of the bee!
## 10.1 Constructive Hive
The hive that condenses the most water vapor and leaves it so that the bees can dispose of it, is the hive in which we find the contented bees. This water vapor may be allowed to pass from the top of the hive and be condensed the same as in the condensing chamber of a still, but by this process the bees are deprived of the water the same as when the honey is ripened wholly by evaporation. It has been shown in the chapter on evaporation that for every pound of honey ripened in the hive the bees, when they use the condensing system, have for their domestic use from two to four pounds of water. This amount of water is from 60 to 80 per cent of what nectar the bees brought in that day. Now when this water escapes from the hive and they have to make special trips for water to take the place of this that has escaped, it is obvious that the bees that have to go for water, will reduce the number of nectar gathering bees. This percentage can only be speculated upon, but it runs from 20 to 60 per cent of the field force. When all the field force persist in gathering nectar, as I am almost certain they do at times, the brood is restricted.
What the bees want is a hive that is a good condenser and that retains the condensed water on the inner surface of the hive. The nurse bees can then gather it as they want it. We will have to give the bees credit for being efficient, and it follows that they do not evaporate the water from the nectar that they mix with the food for the brood, but from the surplus. But there occurs a day or a succession of days, during the urge period, when no nectar nor water are brought in, and these are the days when condensed water from a humid atmosphere brings content to the colony.
The hive, that from years of experimenting and close observations of weather and hive conditions, gives these results,I will now try to describe. All my hives are factory made, ten-frame Langstroth dimensions. All flat covers have been set aside and telescope covers substituted. No inner covers, or honeyboards, are used. This cover rests on a rabited clear that extends all around the hive. This cleat is fastened at a proper distance from the top of the hive-body to allow a beospace between the upper edge of the hive-body and the cover. On the inside top of the cover is fastened a piece of "wall board," 13 3-4 by 17 1-2 inches. This "wall board" is between 1-4 and 3-8 of an inch "thick. The cleat on which the cover rests is rabited so as to leave a 3-8 inch space all raound between the hivebody and cover, and over the edges of the hivebody and above the frames. The cover, inside measure, for a hivebody 16 inches wide is 5 1-8 by 16 3-4 by 20 3-4 inches.
All joints and cracks are filled with hot rosin or pitch and the inside of the hivebody and cover is given three coats of varnish.
The cross section of the Constructive Hive given here shows at a glance the consruction of the cover and the way :it is supported on the hive. Note how similar in principle is this cover to the inverted pan that is set in the garden and which has dew deposited on the inside surface in the morning.
The bees seem to regard this cover as the final word on inside finish, and they are the ones whose approval we must look for. Never have I found one attempt to intrefer on their part. The cover in the fall is just as free from propolisis as it was the day it was given to them.
This cover was built as the result of conclusions arrived at from a study of condensation of moisture. The only object when designing it was to make the hive a condenser that would leave the condensed water where the bees could use it, but its good points do not stop at that one thing, as I have observed after its use for some time. These good points are as follows:
## Chapter 1 Cross Section of the Constructive Hive
### 1.1 Good condenser.
1. What does not blow it off.
2. What does not blow it off.
3. When once on a bump or jar from person or object does not misplace it.
4. Bees are more gentle to handle.
5. No bees are crushed when putting on the cover.
6. When the cover is removed in cold weather and put on again, the hive is just as comfortable as it was before the cover was taken off.
In regard t othe bees being more gentle to handle, it must be stated that the bees are so gentle as to make this point very noticeable, where Seal-Tight covers are used. This must be accounted for by the reasoning that the bees are contented, and in our not having to destroy their gluing when removing the cover. They are relieved of all work for the prevention of upward ventilation, and the old guers, who are so belligerent are not there when the cover is taken off.
CONSTRUCTIVE beekeeping 35
WINTERING