Bob Harrison said:  I find Allen's post most interesting . Enough to
experiment on a hive with a glass top. Why not?
>
I have an observation hive for a full sized colony which has an uncoverable
glass side (pointing north) and can have a glass cover , usually covered by
a wooden roof.  Condensation on the roof glass is always a problem. ,
so I will watch this thread with interest.  Using thick (10mm) plastic was
better but not perfect. Even my plastic glasses always mist up when I
breathe on them.

It might be worth chasing up the Russian experiments on hives with one or
two glass walls to the brood chamber, referred to (enthusiastically) by
Wedmore in the first (1932) edition of 'A Manual of Beekeeping', paras 925
to 931.  Avantages claimed were: bees used to light were less disturbed when
the hive was opened; wax moth were discouraged; brood rearing was
accelerated; bees worked for 2 hours longer a day; bees were hardier and
good
queens were raised; light discouraged moulds and fungus (??? should there be
any to discourage??). However, in 1945 the reference is reduced to a few
lines in
para 757 in the second edition, saying 'Experimenters in Great
Britain and elsewhere have been unable to obtain comparable results....a
case has not been made for further development of such hives'.

There are obvious technical problems to year- round use of glass
panels, but the first question is whether or not there really are beneficial
effects on bee behaviour.  In another list, leaving the hive alone for 2
minutes after opening is being said to quieten the bees due to the effect of
light - I would have thought it was really the effect of letting the
excitement die down that was generated by the vibration caused by levering
off the cover.  Effects are not always due to the first assigned cause.  So
glass roofed or glass sided hives may work better due to say increased
ventilation introduced at the same time (to keep the glass clear).

If raising the ambient light level within a hive is indeed beneficial, might
it work if hives were modified so the light enters from below rather than
the top or sides? In my pattern of hive, the body is raised 16 inches off
the ground (on legs) and the floor is stainless steel mesh - for monitoring
varooa.  Obviously light gets in - the amount could be increased with
reflectors.  I once commented to my bee inspector that introducing an
irritable colony seemed to have quitetened it, but he scoffed - as
beekeepers (and other humans) tend to do when confronted with something
outside their experience. But perhaps the bees had seen the light!

Robin Dartington

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