A NEW HIVE, NATIVE VOJA (NV), AND ITS ADVANTAGES IN COMPARISON TO OTHER BEE HIVES
When we take into consideration all the mentioned factors, the production of honey can be increased from 200 up to 300%. Because of its constructive (designing) advantages, the new hive offers the possibility of easiness and pleasure in working with it.
This hive, during only one normal bee pasture, in comparison with many other bee hives, achieves so great a difference in crops that it can completely cover its purchasing price. It was created on the basis on a need, because of the shortcomings regarding the existing system of hives, and it was also a product of more mutually connected constructive and practical solutions.
Only certain more important solutions are to be mentioned:
The mutually crossed frames, supers and feeder-shallow box in the hive set:
| During the foraging, they give the opportunity of the ideal ventilation, that is the removal of moisture and they speed up the process of the ripening of honey as well as the bringing in of the new nectar, that is they create the necessary conditions for the bigger production of honey. |
| The bees pass from each frame onto each frame so that they are accelerating the traffic and there is no stoppage and suffocating in the hive which enables 100 cross-roads between each super, that is 300 cross-roads in the hive set. |
| The ideal micro-climate is created. Fresh air, because of the length and the crossings of frames evenly passes through the whole hive and the humid layer around the brood is easily maintained. |
| There is no starvation of bees (bees are in one super and honey is in another super or honey is in one part of super and bees are in the other part). In our country a normal bee cluster is always in 2 easily bridged-over supers and it is always in touch with the food. |
| This hive corrects many false beliefs of many beekeepers – a big frame means a lot of honey. Bees bring and easily process more honey on more smaller crossed frames. On a big frame there are big top bars and the blockade for the moving of bees, queen and cluster in summer and in winter too. On the high frame a honey above the cluster creates a blockade and the bees do not like to go over the closed honey and to go up to make honey super. |
Feeder-shallow box is crossing on the supers:
| If a additional feeding must be added, it is added above the cluster wherever it is, closer to the front or to the right, closer to the left or to the right on the frames, and under the feeder which crosses and rotates when needed. |
| The capacity of feeder is 2 litres of syrup. |
| Shallow box is ideal for moving. By rotation of feeder we have a shallow box with ventilation. |
The scope from comb to comb between the supers is 26 milimetres with the crossed frames:
| Bees are enabled to have easy mobility between the supers in all the conditions. |
| There is no more artificial moving (by the beekeeper). The queen passes up and down without problems because the top bar in the frame is 10 mm high, and the lower thin lath in the upper frames is 6 mm, plus a passage of 10 mm, which totals 26 mm from comb in the lower super up to the comb in the upper super. |
| There is no more honeyt under cluster on the lower frames in the brood super – the brood is unique in two crossed supers per about 6+ 6 frames, which makes the ideal ball, that is the bee nest in the square basis. |
The ideal exploiting of energy (heat):
| The hive surface (of the inner part) above the frames is 14 dm2, that is 374 times 374 mm. Honey, as a stabilizer, that is, as a heat accumulator, is grouped into 10 frames of the same length as is the width of 10 frames. |
| Because of the easier maintenance of heat, the comsumption of honey is reduced both during the winter and during the whole year. |
| Bees are less burdened while maintaining the cluster and its temperature. |
| Because of the favourable temperature and bigger stores of food, as a result of the reduced need for food, we achieve a faster spring development and the possibility of the better exploiting of early spring pastures as well as the formation of the very early swarms. |
Mobility of brood super and honey super:
| Brood super can be reduced onto one super by moving of the queen bar (as onto the surface of 7 LR frames) in case of the forthcoming of some stormy and short pasture, for example of locust, honey supers are widened onto 3 supers that is 75% of the bee hive or 180 decimetres of comb for the stocking of 54 up to 63 kilograms of honey. |
| Brood super is widened onto 3 supers for the needs of forming of new colonies. |
| In normal conditions one square is brood super and the other is honey super (2+2 supers). |
The ideal nucleus in one super:
| The surface of comb is 60 dm2 or 48.000 cells in one super on 10 frames. |
| The capacity of nucleus is 16.000 bees (for example as 7 LR frames) but it has the square shape. |
| A fast building of comb because of the ideal frame.The inner measure 344x174 mm (the outer measure 190x360 mm - top bar 392x26x10 mm) |
| Nucleus, when needed, easily accepts the added brood (frame is of the corresponding dimensions). |
| It can be independently widened into the other super without additional moving (by the beekeeper) of brood, but I do not recommend that. |
| The new colony can winter in one super although it is formed late. |
| The procedure of the forming of the new nucleus can be repeated after 2 – 3 weeks, that is, the number of colonies can be trippled on the apiary. |
Bees are closer to their natural habitat and the natural needs of the bee colony:
| The cluster here always develops vertically and not horizontally. |
| The foor for winter is regularly distributed - from 15 up to 25 kg of honey, with the exceptionally high quantity of honey above the cluster (as in the natural habitat) also because of the shorter frames which is not the case in many other bee hives. There is no the unnecessary autumn comsumption of food – bees earlier stop with maintaining of brood and they enter winter tireless, much stronger and more mature. |
| Did we realize that the bees, always above the brood super, if they have free space, build comb crossingly in relation to the frames, as well as in the nature, where they have that possibility. The example of photos of author Ivan Brndušić, Comb According to the Bee project, is in the magazine Beekeeper (No. 5/2002, Belgrade). Check it yourselves (leave the space above the honey super 5 up to 10 centimetres without comb) and you will be assured. |
| The hight of 4 supers 20 cm each is 80 cm. From the visual and practical point of view, the comb in the hive is mildly intersected with top bars of 10 mm and with lower thin laths of 6 mm, that is with sections of 26 mm and it completely depicts bees´ natural habitat. |
| Honey is always grouped onto the smaller surface where it ripens more quickly in the conditions of the ideal ventilation and the bees, because of the stable quantity of brood, that is because of the big percentage and the number of collector bees of the excaptional physical strength, are enabled the creation of large stores of food. |
| The capacity of one super is from 18 up to 21 kilograms of honey. |
| The capacity of the hive is about 64.000 bees and it can be increased, if needed. |
| Because of the stable quantity of brood, bee colony is more resistant to diseases and viruses, and the life of bees is prolonged, that is, it is brought back onto the normal natural level. Brood is maintained in the conditions of the ideal micro-climate, always in the presence of the multitude of bees, and in abundance of high quality food, which results in further obtaining (creating) of long-living bees of the exceptional physical strength and the surprising crops. |
| Bees directly pass from each frame onto any other frame, that is onto each frame in the next super, by which the ideal traffic and the ideal ventilation in the hive are obtained, which reduces the tendency to swarm. |
Man gets closer to the bee comunity:
| The supers are lighter for 50% than LR, DB, Zender and many other supers, and they are even shorter so they are twice lighter for a man. And, a woman is also a man, and she can work and manipulate this hive easily, as well as the children and older bee keepers, who are very happy with the new hive. And we ourselves, middle-aged people, are not too strong and we shall not be middle-aged people in a few years. Children and youth easier decide to become bee keepers because there is no lifting of heavy supers of 35 or 40 kilograms, but two or three times per 20 up to 25 kilograms. |
| After obtaining more honey and after having worked easily, we shall make our apiaries bigger. |
| All the colonies winter (a normal bee cluster, because of the length and the hight of super, always comprises 2 mutually crossed supers) and in spring they develop fast. |
| Rojevni nagon is reduced onto the minimum because of the stable quantity of brood (40-45.000 cells), the ideal age structure of bee colony (more generations of bees, that is less percentage of the youngest bees who are the starters of tendency to swarm), the ideal size of comb brood super of around 120 dm2 (as 14 LR frames) but of a square shape, as well as because of the reduced suffocating, that is, better ventilation. |
| Because of the ideal micro-climate, bees are more peaceful and they sting less. |
| The hives are stable and safe against the wind blows, which is different from some nine-framed or eight-framed hives which, in order to satisfy the shortcoming for comb, are widened into the hight which is detrimental for them. |
| A reduced number of working operations in spring and of the unnecessary opens of hives if the colonies start wintering on three supers. The same is during summer, too, when beekeepers work more with supers and less with frames individually. |
The outer dimensions of supers are 414x414x200 mm and the inner ones are 374x374x200 mm, while the outer dimensions of wire bottom board are 414x414x80 mm and the feeder is 414x414x60 mm with the same inner space for syrup as well as for the ventilation 144x374x55 mm. The roof has outer dimensions 470x470x100 mm and the frames of top bars are 392x26x10mm, lateral 190x36x8 and lower 360x26x6 mm. Except for the frames, all the constitutive parts are assembled with boards of 20 mm. This hive, because of its constructive solutions, has a unique frame the length of which is equal to the width of 10 frames, аnd at the same time the hight of comb in the frame is equal to the half of the length or width of 10 frames. That hight of frame, in accordance with the idea of the complete invention, enables the creation of the real fictitious air cube under the feeder in 2, or two air cubes in 4 crossed supers, аnd at the same time it determined the quantity of more than 190.000 cells of working bee comb, as well as the hight of super of 200mm.
It is the only bee hive in the world with ten-framed supers, which enables the bees the passing of bees from passages in the cluster during winter, by which the quality of wintering is improved and the winter death is reduced (the percentage of dead bees in the colony) and the possibility of dying of the whole colony is completely neutralized. The beekeeping with Native Voja is easier, simpler and safer.
The above mentioned is confirmed in practice during the last 7 years on apiaries of the author, where there is more than 200 new bee hives, and in many other apiaries where beekeepers use this type of bee hives, and those beekeepers praise and are thankful for the exquisite results of those bee hives.
All this make joy and pleasure in beekeeping with the new bee hive which is, with its drawings published in Geneva and in all the Institutes of the world for the Intellectual Property under the code of WO 02/076194 A1 with the international testing report. The date of the International announcement is October 03, 2002.
The European patent bureau in Rejsvik, in the Netherlands, has the new hive Native Voja under the code PCT/JU 01/00024 and in Yugoslavia it has been, since March 26, 2001, under the protection and code P.227/01. The new hive was awarded the silver medal and the second place on the International Exhibition of Innovations and Discoveries.
Adapter - additioner.
This is another necessary solution on the way towards the modern and profitable beekeeping. Adapter - additioner enables us to easily make transition from the old technology onto the new one, that is, to make transition from the LR, Farar, DB ten-framed and other ten-framed bee hives onto the new NV bee hive. It is set onto the mentioned bee hives and it is adapted so that 12 frames of Native Voja can occupy it transversally. We shall discuss on some other occasion about the additional possibilities of Adapter - additioner. It is also under the code P769/01, described and stamped in the relevant native Institute. Since the point is about the special copyrights, a larger industrial production of Voja bee hives as well as of the Adapter - additioner is possible only after agreement with the author.
I allow all the beekeepers, without any recompense, the production of 5 bee hives Native Voja at the most, in order for them to convince themselves regarding all the mentioned, then in order to to modernize beekeeping, to make apiaries bigger as well as to multiply their crops later.