by way of Ross Conrad
Stewart and Cedar Anderson of Byron Bay, Australia have made historical past and are speedy turning into mythical. The daddy and son workforce have invented the Drift™ Hive and introduced a crowd investment marketing campaign on Indiegogo to boost the cash had to start mass manufacturing and distribution in their invention.
As this text was once being written the marketing campaign, whose unique purpose was once to boost $70,000, had raised over six million greenbacks and contributions had been nonetheless rolling in. With many days left of their 45-day fundraising marketing campaign, Stewart and Cedar are disproving the long-held trust that one won’t ever strike it wealthy thru beekeeping. In step with a Drift Hive media unencumber, “the Drift Hive Indiegogo marketing campaign is essentially the most a success crowd investment mission ever introduced out of doors the U.S., with contributions from 116 international locations.” In greenback worth, the U.S. is by way of a ways the most important contributor adopted by way of Australia, Canada, and the U.Ok. Because of this, plans are afoot to determine a Drift Hive production facility within the U.S. with the intention to scale back delivery prices to the Northern hemisphere.
This invention is so new that apart from the inventors and a small choice of beekeepers who over the process the closing 3 years had been excited by product trying out, no person has used this harvesting approach prior to (regardless that by the point you learn this the primary manufacturing fashions shall be in use). Thus what follows is what I’ve been in a position to be told in regards to the Drift Hive and my preliminary ideas at the topic with out the advantage of direct revel in.
The Drift Hive lets in the beekeeper to reap honey with out opening up the hive and with minimum disturbance to the bees. The gadget makes use of a picket honey tremendous that’s the similar dimension and form to a typical Langstroth deep tremendous, with the exception of that it’s changed with openings dealing with the bottom of the hive reverse the hive front. This Drift Hive field holds a number of Drift™ frames that whilst wider, are equivalent in peak and period to the usual Langstroth body. Every Drift body consists of solely drawn plastic comb with deep cells that the bees fill with honey, and cap. A hose is hooked up to the bottom of the Drift Hive body this is uncovered by way of the hole within the facet of the tremendous and a dishonest steel rod is inserted into the highest of the body. When the rod is grew to become (like a faucet), it forces the 2 facets of the Drift body to transport somewhat within the center, permitting the honey within the cells to run down throughout the channels which are created, and out alongside a trough on the backside of the body resulting in the hose. Merely insert the opposite finish of the hose into your container of selection. The power of gravity lets in the honey to drift out of the top of the hose extraordinarily blank, getting rid of the wish to pressure or filter the bits of beeswax, propolis, pollen, bee’s legs, and so forth., this is generally required when generating liquid honey by way of uncapping and extracting. Any tiny quantities of pollen that do occur to search out their approach into the honey are particular person grains of pollen that fall off the our bodies of the bees as they cross about their industry within the hive.
Every Drift body when totally stuffed and capped by way of the bees is reported to carry about seven kilos of honey.
Every Drift body when totally stuffed and capped by way of the bees is reported to carry about seven kilos of honey. Relying at the ambient temperature and the moisture content material of the honey being harvested, draining a whole Drift body is reported to take as low as 20 mins to greater than two hours. The Drift body simplest works when temperatures are heat sufficient for honey to drift.
As soon as the body is tired the steel rod within the higher slot of the Drift body is grew to become again to its unique place, resetting the brush permitting the bees to uncap the empty cells and get to paintings refilling them with extra honey. A viewing window is minimize into the facet of the Drift Hive tremendous that permits the frames inside of to be monitored with out the desire for opening up the hive. Each Drift frames and conventional beeswax frames of comb can also be blended in the similar honey tremendous, with the utmost of six Drift frames becoming in an eight-frame honey tremendous and 7 Drift frames becoming right into a 10-frame honey tremendous. Alternatively, it’s most probably that the bees will be capable of squeeze previous usual wax combs and go out by the use of the cut-out in rear of the Drift Hive tremendous particularly if the top bars don’t seem to be complete rectangles however are milled to permit bees room to move between the top bars of adjoining frames. This “rear front” may make it tricky for a susceptible hive to stay robbers at bay and may result in defensive habits when the Drift frames are being harvested.
This invention is modern in that it has the possible to do away with about 95% of the hard work generally concerned with typical honey harvesting; a procedure that calls for the elimination of honey supers, the elimination of bees from the supers, transporting the supers to an extraction website online, uncapping the brush, and extracting and filtering the honey, then returning the honey supers to the beeyard or garage house. Since there’s little disturbance to the bees within the hive when harvesting honey within the Drift frames, the chance of being stung is very much decreased. That is prone to be very talked-about in South and Central The usa, and Africa the place extremely defensive bees are recurrently controlled.
Drift body with turning deal with in position. When grew to become, the cells are off set
freeing the honey.
After 3 years of box trials, Drift Hive repairs seems to be minimum with the advice to scrape out burr comb from supers the similar as with usual Langstroth apparatus, and to flush out the ground channel with heat water and in all probability use a bottle brush to scrub the channel on the finish of the season. Must beebread be saved in one of the crucial Drift body cells, they don’t appear to hinder the harvesting of honey in any respect.
Some critics of the Drift hive have accused Stuart and Cedar of ripping off previous patents that describe equivalent units for simply harvesting honey from the hive. Once I requested Stuart Anderson if the speculation for the Drift Hive got here from previous patents that some are claiming had been used as the foundation for his or her invention, the solution I gained was once, “No, our design is reasonably other from the ones previous patents and, in our opinion the designs in the ones patents would no longer paintings. Because it came about we didn’t see the ones previous patents prior to we got here up with our personal design.”
As I identified within the article “Beekeeping and Era” (Bee Tradition, February 2015), there are frequently unintentional penalties, every now and then excellent and every now and then no longer such a lot, that include the implementation of recent applied sciences. Two doable problems that the Drift Hive brings to thoughts are the higher reliance on plastic in our bee hives and the kind of philosophy or perspective that this beekeeping invention might foster amongst its customers.
In step with the corporate the Drift body that lies on the center of the Drift Hive, is “constituted of top quality, food-grade, BPA-free plastic.” Environment apart the truth that the bees have a tendency not to like plastic, the cause of this commentary is as a result of estrogenic chemical compounds (reminiscent of BPA) present in traditional plastic merchandise were connected to a litany of issues in people and animals. Scientists have tied BPA to illnesses together with bronchial asthma, most cancers, infertility, low sperm rely, genital deformity, center illness, liver issues, and ADHD. In the meantime the substitute nonsteroidal estrogen drug DES, which may be categorised as an endocrine disruptor, was once as soon as prescribed to stop miscarriages however led to weight problems, uncommon vaginal tumors, infertility, and testicular growths amongst the ones uncovered in utero. Whilst chemical compounds having estrogenic task are obviously a motive for worry, plastic honey packing containers, plastic basis and fully-drawn plastic comb were used for plenty of a long time with none noticeable destructive affects. Critics then again would argue that for the reason that quantity of floor house in a plastic comb, such because the Drift body, is repeatedly more than the plastic in most cases discovered within the hive, there’s doable motive for worry. Serving to to allay such issues for some then again, is analysis that has discovered that “honey has a possible function in decreasing BPA-induced ovarian toxicity by way of decreasing the morphological abnormalities of the ovarian follicles and bettering the standard estrous cycle.”1
Different research display that present production processes that produce plastics with estrogenic task are needless. To cite from one summary, “Virtually all commercially to be had plastic merchandise we sampled – impartial of the kind of resin, product, or retail supply – leached chemical compounds having reliably detectable EA (estrogenic task), together with the ones marketed as BPA loose. In some instances, BPA-free merchandise launched chemical compounds having extra EA than did BPA-containing merchandise.” The authors of the find out about conclude: “Many plastic merchandise are mischaracterized as being EA loose if extracted with just one solvent and no longer uncovered to common-use stresses (microwaving, ultraviolet radiation, and/or autoclaving). Alternatively, we will be able to determine current compounds, or have advanced monomers, components, or processing brokers that don’t have any detectable EA and feature equivalent prices. Therefore, our information counsel that EA-free plastic merchandise uncovered to common-use stresses and extracted by way of saline and ethanol solvents might be cost-effectively made on a business scale and thereby do away with a possible well being possibility posed by way of maximum recently to be had plastic merchandise that leach chemical compounds having EA into meals merchandise.”2
It’s effectively established that the substance royal jelly, this is essential to elevating wholesome larvae all through their first 3 days or so of construction, and the queen this is fed royal jelly all the way through her existence, shows susceptible estrogenic actions.3,4,5 Given the plain significance of this estrogenic task in honey bee construction, no longer sufficient is understood about how the estrogenic compounds emitted by way of plastic hive parts have an effect on the well being of the hive.
“In step with the corporate the Drift body that lies on the center of the Drift Hive, is “constituted of top quality, food-grade,BPA-free plastic.”
As though the well being issues of compounds associated with using plastic don’t seem to be sufficient, the poisonous pollution produced all through plastic manufacturing and the massive quantity of plastic particles this is clogging up our landfills and collecting in our seas, trapped and gathered by way of ocean currents is probably not helped. Sadly it’s laborious to peer how the Drift frames might be manufactured to any extent further economically by way of the rest as opposed to plastic. After all this additionally signifies that when a hive should be burned because of American Foul Brood contamination, numerous poisonous fumes might be launched into the air and a vital financial funding might be misplaced. One has to think that the present worth of $51-$77 in line with body will ultimately come down as manufacturing is scaled up.
The opposite primary grievance of this new gadget for harvesting honey is the possible state of mind that it’ll inspire in beekeepers that use the Drift Hive. The benefit with which a beekeeper can track the accumulation of the Drift body comb throughout the window at the facet of the Drift Hive tremendous and extract the harvestable honey from the hive with no need to boost the lid and open the hive might worsen a topic this is already a priority in beekeeping circles: beekeepers who don’t steadily check up on their colonies and stay tabs at the well being and well-being of the hive.
Whilst the Drift Hive window can provide one a coarse concept of the way speedy the Drift Hive honey tremendous is filling up, it does no longer supply a window into the brood nest doubtlessly combating the well timed prognosis of queen problems or sicknesses. This can be a easy incontrovertible fact that except a beekeeper is aware of what’s going on within the hive, they’re not likely in an effort to intrude at the bees behalf in a well timed type when hassle rears its head.
For beekeepers within the northern areas of North The usa, overwintering is a big problem. One of the vital number one necessities for a success wintering is an ok retailer of honey. Until beekeepers take care to make sure that every hive has stuffed sufficient honey supers prior to putting in the Drift Hive tremendous at the colony, the benefit with which the honey can also be harvested may simply lead to overharvesting and colonies that both starve all through iciness, or require numerous feeding with the intention to make sure that their survival. If the bees are fed a man-made nutrition rather than their herbal nutrition of honey and pollen, we now know that the full well being of the colony’s immune gadget is prone to endure making the colony extra at risk of illness.
The inverse of this example is also simply as disastrous. Conscientious beekeepers who modulate their impulse to reap and depart complete Drift frames on their colony with the intention to make sure that the hive can have a number of honey for Iciness might to find that the considerably deeper cells of the Drift frames so conducive to plentiful nectar and honey garage, don’t seem to be the intensity of mobile this is favorable for brood rearing. Because of this, leaving supers of Drift frames filled with honey at the hive in chilly climates might lead to susceptible hives in Spring and higher queen problems.
Some people have identified that this invention turns out to drift from the similar extractive mindset that is a part and parcel of our capitalistic method to international governance. Given capitalism’s present trail of by no means finishing expansion based totally totally on useful resource extraction to the detriment of planetary well being, one can’t assist however be involved that the benefit with which we will be able to now take honey from the bees might in a similar fashion lead to not their salvation, however in some instances might hasten their death.
Beekeepers might be challenged to combat the temptation to overharvest and rededicate themselves to correct hive stewardship based totally upon sound beekeeping rules and an apicultural ethic that doesn’t position their wishes above the desires of the bees.
Judging from the feedback at the Indiegogo marketing campaign website online, Drift™ generation is stimulating a brand new wave of other people getting excited by beekeeping, and has rekindled the spirit in those who gave up beekeeping up to now. Make no mistake, to any extent further everybody who leads beekeeping workshops and teaches beekeeping categories should make an effort to grow to be no less than acquainted with the Drift Hive with the intention to knowledgeably resolution the questions that can inevitably get up. Lecturers will have to be ready to supply recommendation reminiscent of: if you’re excited about bee stings you will have to most definitely nonetheless put on a veil, gloves, and so forth., you are going to nonetheless wish to do brood inspections, care for mites and sicknesses, hive beetles, wax moths, swarming, and the entire leisure. Until your bees are situated in a heat desolate tract, semi-arid or tropical local weather reminiscent of happens all the way through maximum of Australia and the bees have forage to be had thru many of the 12 months, the Drift frames will have to no longer be left on overwintering hives lest the cluster transfer up onto the frames of honey however are avoided from elevating wholesome brood within the further deep cells of the brush (as discussed above the plastic honey cells within the Drift body are further deep which is okay for honey garage, however no longer conducive to correct egg laying by way of the queen.
Some people have identified that this invention turns out to drift from the similar extractive mindset that is a part and parcel of our capitalistic method to international governance.Moreover, the build-up of larval skins within the plastic cells used for brood rearing might ultimately motive issues of the power of the honey to drift throughout the channels correctly when the body is activated.)
The Drift Hive seems to be the most important technological leap forward in hive design in effectively over 150 years. It’s prone to take no less than a number of extra years of use in all approach of climates and geographic places to ensure that beekeepers to discover ways to superb song the Drift Hive advantages and mitigate any of its destructive attributes. With over 12,000 beekeepers from world wide striking pre-orders thru Indiegogo, the Drift Hive has no longer simply captured the creativeness of beekeepers all over the world, it’s poised to have a big have an effect on on beekeeping normally. Whether or not it proves to be of long-term worth to the well being of the hive and the economics of the beekeeping business, or just leads to a temporary bubble… time will inform.
Ross Conrad is the creator of Herbal Beekeeping: Natural Approaches to Fashionable Apiculture, 2d Version.