Hi:
 
Some comments concerning recent posts.
 
1. Mobile Extracint
 
Vincent Vazza, a commercial beekeeper based in Hermiston, OR  used
to do all of his extracting in a mobile unit set up in a semi-van.  Last
time I was at his place, he still had everything parked out back of the
honey house.  You can see a picture of Vincent delivering a pallet of
bees into an orchard in the National Geographic article that ran a couple
of years ago.
 
2. Follower boards - pretty much as described.  We most often see them in
nucleus boxes to reduce extra space (for example, putting 3 frames into a
5 frame nucleus box).
 
None of the Commercial Beekeepers in the NW use them - at least none that I
have seen.  Many commercial beekeepers go to 9 frames in the honey supers.
They space the frames evenly, and the frames get pulled out a bit farther by
the bees during good flows.  I would guess that the beekeepers do this to
make it a bit easier to pull frames.  With 10 in a honey super, combined
with heavy nectar flows, the frames tend to be drawn so far that
they almost touch each other.  Getting the first frame out without scoring
the adjacent frames and having lots of honey drip out is tough - things
get real tight in a honey super with 10 frames.
 
3.  Slatted bottom boards - very common among hobbiest beekeepers in the
NW om the coast, such as around Seattle.  Many claim that during wet
weather, the slatted board helps keep condensation down in the hive.  I
have watched water dripping out of the inside of hives in this area
during wet, moist, cool periods.  If nothing else, it keeps the brood box
up off a wet bottom board.
 
4. Cluster boards - not anything we see in this part of the world.
 
 
As per the insulation offered by follower boards - don't know.  There is
(was) a fancy hive sold in on the coast during the mid-80's that had a
spacer board permanently attached to the inside walls of the hives -
presumably to provide better insulation and to avoid the need to wrap
hives in the winter.  Never saw any data to substantiate these claims -
but it could easily be tested.
 
Ed Southwick found that bees apparently use an empty frame near the
outside of a cluster as a form of insulation board during very cold
weather - the bees moved over against the empty comb.  Wax wall on one
side, empty cells, bees pressed against the other - creating a dead air
space.
 
Cheers
 
Jerry J. Bromenshenk
The University of Montana
[log in to unmask]
 
WWW site:  http://grizzly.umt.edu/biology/bees
 
P.S.  Hope to meet lots of new beekeepers this summer.  Looks like we
will be working in Maryland.  Long way from Montana.  And no, I'm not
vacating the state because of the Freeman, Militia, or Unabomber.