The Switch to Modified Dadant Sized Woodenware
From the Editor
Beekeeping has been around a long time, so we do have celebrities in our world of Honey Bees. Aristotle wrote about honey bees, A.I. Root, Charles Dadant, Edmund Hillary, Brigham Young, Charles Mraz, Eva Crane and many more were inspirational beekeepers.
When I discovered honey bees and beekeeping “long, long ago on a planet far, far away” one of the names that was always mentioned was Bro. Adam. The short story is that Bro. Adam started learning about honey bees and beekeeping in 1915 at Buckfast Abbey, Devon, England. For those of you who may have heard of Bro. Adam’s decades long honey bee breeding genetic improvements with the result of the Buckfast Queen this is the person.
Bro. Adam’s birth name was Karl Kehrle. Here is a little bit of his Bio.
Because of health problems Karl was sent by his mother at age 11 from Germany to Buckfast Abbey, where he joined the Benedictine order of monks (becoming Brother Adam) and in 1915 started his beekeeping activity. Two years before, a parasite, Acarapis woodi, (the Tracheal mite which we still have today) had started to extend over the UK. Called the Isle of Wight disease, devastating all the dark native bees. In 1916 it reached the Abbey, killing 30 of the 46 bee colonies.
Bro. Adam was allowed to travel to Turkey to find resistant bees for selective breeding back at the Abbey. In 1917 he created the first Buckfast strain, a very productive bee resistant to the Tracheal mite parasite. In September 1919 Bro Adam was put in charge of the Abbey’s apiary, after the retirement of his mentor (boss) Brother Columban. In 1925 and after some early studies on breeding honey bees he created his famous breeding station in Dartmoor, an isolated cold, treeless,windy location a few miles from Buckfast Abbey to try obtain selected Drone and Virgin Queen matings. From 1950 and for more than a decade Bro. Adam continued his gradual improvement of the Buckfast bee by analyzing and crossing bees from places all over Europe, the Near East and North Africa.
In 1964 he was elected member of the Board of the Bee Research Association, which later became the International Bee Research Association. He continued his improvement of the Buckfast bee. During the 1970s he received several awards, including appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and the German Bundesverdienstkreuz.
On 2 October 1987 he was appointed Honorary Doctor by the Faculty of Agriculture of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences while in search of a bee on the Kilimanjaro mountains in Tanzania and Kenya. This deeply moved him, and he saw this as the official recognition of the scientific nature of his research. Two years later he was appointed Honorary Doctor by Exeter University in England.
On 2 February 1992, aged 93, he resigned his post as beekeeper at the Abbey and was permitted to spend some months in his home town Mittelbiberach, Germany with his niece, Maria Kehrle. From 1993 onwards, he lived a retired life back at Buckfast Abbey, and became the oldest monk of the English Benedictine Congregation. In 1995, at age 97, he moved to a nearby nursing home where he died on 1 September 1996.
Everything I knew about Brother Adam I learned in my early days in beekeeping as he was still alive and active at Buckfast Abbey. I was cleaning out some clutter in my office at Bee Culture and discovered a small paper back 86-page book titled Bee-Keeping At Buckfast Abbey by Brother Adam, printed in 1975 in England. I was excited. I read it and then I read it again. So many good things I had learned over the years but didn’t know where they came from. They came from Bro. Adam.
The intent of this article and the future ones is that Bro. Adam changed the size and style of his honey hive boxes from the British Standard to the large Modified Dadant Hive. Over this coming season I am going to try out a custom made, by Ed Simon, Modified Dadant hive to compare and contrast hive sizes.
But first I want to share some insights from Bro. Adam in his book “Bee-Keeping at Buckfast Abbey” about honey bees, beekeepers and how he decided to transition to a different hive.
Principles of Management – Page 8
“There was a time, not so many years ago, when great value was placed on certain particular methods of management, based on complete disregard of the truly marvelous organization and wisely balanced interactions regulating the activities of a colony of honey bees. However, experience has shown that all such intrusions and lack of elementary considerations not only usually fail to achieve the intended results but in fact prove positively harmful to the well being of a colony. Indeed, were it not for the most extraordinary ability of the honey bee to overcome and adjust itself to the most flagrant, wanton interference of many well-meaning custodians (beekeepers), success in the keeping of bees would prove even far more of a hazard than is actually the case. There is doubtless some truth in the assumption that in many instances a colony will produce a surplus (honey) in spite of the beekeeper”
The Hive – Page 13
“I now pass to make a few observations on the hive we are using and some indications of the reasons which prompted us to adopt this particular type, as for almost 50 years we used British Standard equipment before the changeover to the Modified Dadant hive in 1930.
Needless to say, the type of hive used has a bearing on the results obtained in honey production. On the other hand, we must not lose sight of the fact that a modern hive is in many respects merely a tool in the hands of the beekeeper. Bees are by nature extraordinarily undemanding and accommodating, a hollow tree, a cavity in a rock or wall having formed her normal habitation from time immemorial.
Perfection in a modern hive is not found in a complicated design nor in a multitude of gadgets, but on the contrary in an extreme simplicity of every detail. The more conveniently and more rapidly, and with the least effort the seasonal manipulations can be carried out, the more perfect the hive from the strictly practical point of view. It is indeed surprising how one can produce honey with best success by the use of the simplest of makeshift hives and equipment. There is however one really vital consideration, namely, the capacity of the brood chamber.”
“It is now widely accepted that the more prolific Italian bee demanded a very much larger breeding space than afforded by a single ten frame British Standard brood chamber. The needed capacity of breeding space, whether it should be provided in one large unit or two smaller ones, was less easy to decide. The majority of the more progressive beekeepers favoured the Langstroth hive. But a single Langstroth brood chamber though considerably larger than the British Standard, was still too small for a prolific queen. We did not wish to use two Langstroth brood chambers as is common practice in America, and wherever this hive has been adopted. Indeed, I saw no real advantage when thus used between the Langstroth and the British Standard. Twenty combs had to be examined in either case. Moreover, as experience has amply demonstrated, the space between the two brood chambers tends to act as a barrier to the queen with the result that, though the breeding space is there, the actual area of brood rarely if ever exceeds that when no such barrier obstructs the movements of queens. Our final choice, therefore, fell on a brood chamber holding twelve Modified Dadant frames. A brood chamber of this size is square and measures 19⅞ inches x 19⅞ inches x 11⅞ inches in depth. The supers are of identical size but only 6 inches deep….”
“It will be readily appreciated that a changeover of this kind would not have been justified without tentative tests carried out over a period of years. The most convincing arguments and conclusions concerning all practical aspects of beekeeping require substantiation by concrete results. In order to secure positive comparisons of the kind needed we transferred in the summer of 1924, half the number of colonies in each out apiary into 12 frame Modified Dadant hives. The other 20 hives in each apiary remained on British Standard combs and on two brood chambers. The summer of 1924 was a poor one, but we managed to carry out the changeover without undue difficulty. The following summer proved outstandingly good. The comparative results achieved between the colonies on British Standard combs and those in Modified Dadant hives were indeed startling. The colonies in the Modified Dadant hive fulfilled our most optimistic expectations, not only in regard to every practical consideration, but foremost in a very substantial difference in the amount of surplus produced. On the Moor (heather) the yields were approximately double that of the colonies in the smaller British Standard hives, a result confirmed in the succeeding years. These comparative tests, involving 120 colonies of which half were on British Standard combs and the others on Modified Dadant combs, situated in three different localities, were maintained over a period of five years. At the expiry of this period the overwhelming advantages of the large hive were from every point of view beyond dispute. The final changeover of all our colonies to twelve frame Modified Dadant hives was made in 1930.”
The Aim of Beekeeping – Page 18
“In order to place beekeeping at Buckfast in true perspective, I have to point out that South Devon (England) is no bee paradise. Our rainfall averages no less than 65 in. and is one of the highest in the British Isles. The imperative need of exceptional strong colonies such as can take full advantage of the honey flow whenever it arises is a prime necessity. With haphazard methods one cannot hope to secure remunerative crops in this area. Only the most intensive form of beekeeping will, in such environmental conditions prove profitable.
While therefore, our beekeeping is of necessity carried out on intensive lines it is nevertheless, based on the simplest and most elementary ways of management. Methods of questionable value and every step not really necessary are eliminated. It is indeed truly astonishing what few means we can employ that have a positive influence on the well-being and prosperity of a colony and in turn on the economic results. When all is said and done our efforts and endeavors are restricted to a kindly ministration serving the needs of a colony. When bees were still kept in ‘skeps’ the term “bee master “ was in common use—with some justification, for a time the life and death of a colony, was at the end of the season, determined by him. But we really never have had or ever will have a mastery over the honey bee. She is wild by nature and will at times have her own way and will unfailingly and un erringly follow her instincts. It is up to us to understand her ways and adjust ourselves to her truly marvelous nature, not attempting the impossible of “mastering” her. But rather doing all we can to serve her needs.”
I wish I had read Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey years ago. He is honest, truthful and insightful of his journey with honey bees at Buckfast Abbey. I would suggest you google up where you can buy this short 86 page book and set aside an hour to read it. It will make a difference in your honey bee, beekeeping outlook.
So now if you have gotten this far here is my plan.
Ed Simon, Master Craftsman, has laid out and cut out, hive bodies, supers, frames, tops, bottom, queen excluders for the Modified Dadant Hive. We are going to follow along with Eds instruction to build all of these LARGER than Langstroth hive components over the next couple months.
And I am going to do a very non-scientific typical backyard ‘trial’ on comparing my Langstroth two brood chamber colonies to the Modified Dadant that Ed Simon, ‘Master Woodworker’ made for me.
