Harvest Haven Natural BeeKeeping in a Log Hive

After researching the best methods for raising honey bees, Martin Van Popta, manager at Harvest Haven, found that log hives are more beneficial to the honey bees. They don’t like living in apartment box cubicles (Langstroth-style hives). It’s hard for the bees to cool themselves or heat themselves in the standard bee box. In a cylindrical hive there are no corners where the air is cold or hot, so the bees spend less time regulating temperature in the hive. This gives them more time to groom themselves instead of overworking in an artificial environment.
Also, in the log hive there’s a composting floor where pseudoscorpions live. These tiny arachnids crawl up on the bees and pinch off the Varroa mites that weaken the bees.
In the log home, there’s a whole ecosystem that bees thrive in. Being nicer to the bees means they are happier and less stressed, naturally producing higher quality honey.

[@samanthagoy8262]

I've been trying to find info on this kind of bee keeping. Something just always seemed off in my heart about modern day bee keeping. That makes so much sense about bees needing diversity, thank you SO much for sharing!

[@karenholmes2764]

I work in a warehouse that is a former truck repair garage. It has concrete block walls and a large garage door. One year I was delighted to discover a single bee had come inside and had found a hole drilled into one of the blocks, and worked to fill it with nectar. It even capped the hole with wax. Then, it left and never returned, and eventually, the ants found the hole. My parking lot is basically an empty lot with lots and lots of wild flowers. I call it my meadow, and I watch over the bees and wonder where their hive is. It is a great place to work. Bees don't seem too fussy about where they will work, if my bee is any example, but putting nectar into concrete block walls doesn't make a hive. Then, we have to figure out what will, and I think you have a great idea. Thanks for sharing.

[@stephanier1336]

I bet those are the happiest bees in southern Alberta!

[@SecureAcresNaturalBees]

That is a really cool hive! We use Layens Hives but I can't get over how cool log hives are, and they are no doubt the best home for Honey Bees. Keep making videos about this as I would love to see how well this does. Best, - Wes

[@lotus7561]

Thank you! Would love to see an update video on this!

[@Hummabirdatune]

Please post an update video!!

[@Linda-fg2rz]

Wonderful! Quality over quantity!

[@Cahangon80]

Nice to meet you brother 🤝 I really like this activity, we are both beekeepers

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

Excellent information for all of us studying bees! Thanks! I never thought of the manure part of that! Makes SO much sense!

[@kingdomofdirt5666]

Great video, well presented.

[@KurstieMichela]

What an awesome concept!

[@chickensinthegarden]

So many valid points raised in the video!! Awesome!

[@nbeizaie]

Very interesting. can you please share how the setup is? is the bottom covered? how to harvest honey? how to prepare it for next round (after honey is harvested)? etc.? Thanks.

[@BrooklandsHoneyBees]

Great video thanks for sharing :D

[@davidmcinnis154]

Reminds me of a tree hive we had between the dorms at Mountain Home AFB in 2005.

[@wroughtiron7258]

Nice video. This is what I was looking for, very hard to find. Keep up the good work. The only thing I don't like about this is how close the hive is to the ground for predation.

[@harvesthaven1]

Thanks. I have a good dog and very low predator pressure, so it hasn’t been a problem.

[@DarkoPcelar]

Greetings from Serbian beeekeeper. I am also filming my bees. I wanted to make new log hive

[@dariuszdata1431]

I wanna make a log hive this year. So I guess I'm very lucky because my bees overwintered 3 winters and going strong 😃🐝🐝

[@NaturalBeekeeping.]

Very nice

[@pdfico]

Is there an update video, two years later

[@ThePOTUSofMatthewEmbryBradshaw]

I’m totally into keeping the colonies alive for as long as possible.

[@TheBaconWizard]

Very curious about this style of beekeeping. Can you tell me what your colony losses are vs total colonies over the last few years?

[@debrafry3265]

I love this! What about when the bears find the hives...??? I have heard that Shungite placed near the hives benefits the bees also...

[@harvesthaven1]

Hi Debra! We live in the prairies, so no bears here!

[@Trioceros_h]

How do u go about hollowing the log?

[@paulishism]

Grooming is work.

[@denisel4580]

How do you attract bees to your log?

[@MagicBeans.StarlightDreams]

How do you gather honey, how do you care for them, how do you do maintenance, etc etc etc?

[@patriotridge]

You tear out their comb. This is not about you making jars of honey.

[@HinduBoy]

🐝💞♻️

[@Livey01]

Circles and curves for everyone and everything is what we're designed to live by. Hard corners wasn't meant for nature.

[@papawushutv]

Less honey = Less efficient period There is a reason the top honey producing companies do so well and it's not because of forced bee slave labor and yelling at them.

[@stephensmith2738]

This is conceptually pretty cool, it’s always neat to see how bees can really build hives anywhere. This is a very bad idea though. Maybe you’re new to beekeeping or considering getting into it, and think this would be a neat way to do it. Let me start debunking. In short, any hive where you can’t take out and inspect the frames is a bad hive, for you and for the bees. The guy seems to be suffering greatly from the “natural is always better” fallacy and is making up a bunch of nonsense to justify it. This video is full of bad information about honeybees and pretty good salesmanship targeted at the uninformed. Or maybe he’s just the uninformed one and I’m beeing cynical. Beekeeping in an inherently unnatural practice, and the commonly used, unnatural methods of doing it exist because they’re the best and most practical way. Modern hives have remained relatively unchanged in recent times because they are just what is best for bees, which is what is best for beekeepers. Anyway honeybees have been bred to be kept for thousands of years, and are essentially livestock. The european honeybee is an invasive species on the north and south american continent, there is even evidence that they compete with native bee species for resources. If you want to be a natural beekeeper and an ecological purist, you’ll need to leave canada or the US. This is not a good hive for varroa control in any way, it is the opposite. Varroa mites are invasive to the european honeybee, and they are not equipped to deal with it in a natural way. Having an unmaintained bottom layer to a hive actually provides mite harborage, and the idea that tiny pseudoscorpions (not an insect) could control mite populations is laughable. Bees will happily make their homes in any sort of cavity, this being a round log has no benefit to their ability to regulate temperature in the hive. In nature bees rarely find perfectly round logs to build in anyway, and will normally make very irregularly shapes hives in tree cavities or rock faces. I’ve seen feral honeybees building large successful hives in any variety of things from old black plastic barrels to abandoned rusty metal farm equipment to piles of abandoned plywood. The bee bearding he mentions happens in every hive when it’s trying toncool down, and has nothing to do with mite grooming. Also, the idea that a colony will rarely last a year and overwinter, and almost never last more than two years is indicative of a bad beekeeper. Speaking of bad beekeeping, if you have a beehive and you can’t regularly inspect the comb, you aren’t a beekeeper, you just have bees. You can’t even see how productive the queen is, if you even have a queen, or what kind of resource levels the hive has. These hives have poor honey production as said, because they are probably doing poorly and their production isn’t being monitored. Most importantly, not being able to check what’s in and on your frames is a great way for many preventable diseases, including varroa mites, to overtake and kill your colony, and spread that disease to the surround area’s hives as well. Please check your hives for my sake if not for the bees. Excuse me this hit a lot of nerves lmao

[@davecavana1031]

Not everyone is corporate friend. There are 180 types of mites alone that live with bees in a tree hole. You are the problem you and your bottles of chemicals and bags of sugar. You requeen are queens every year and wonder why? You guys make shit low quality honey and have sterile sick stressed out hives. We are fucked now because of this type of attitude.

[@RealHankShill]

Im to assume the way its done in nature is a poor example of it. But the way you do it has resulted in the decimation of the bee species. Its dangerous to assume that just because production is higher it is a better process. Thats just human selfishness and you can see it in all aspects of our agriculture.

[@AS-ug2vq]

@@RealHankShill if you want to build a log hive, build a segmented one so the you can take a part of their honey without damaging whole hive.

[@HinduBoy]

#Paleologics 🧠🚿✔️

[@franklloyd6769]

The holes in your statements are gargantuan. 3/4” thick stacked, movable boxes designed for the keeper isn’t best for the bees the reason we know is the commercial bee keepers hope for 30% loss every winter. Layens have been tested repeatedly proven to go months to a year without opening. Naturally Swarming creates the brood break to slow the varroa mites. Remember “you get more bees with honey”? Try it, your bad attitude loses people. Next time you are in a freezing climate, stand in a 3/4” box…that 6” tree is better insulation. It is proven bees move up 1mm per day in the winter. How does a 9” deep frame help? Dont use the super, there is a 1” gap. It would be like a human jumping roof top to roof top…

[@dougstucki8253]

Higher quality honey?? What does that even mean? That's funny. Making a claim like that discredits the rest of the claims. The quality of the honey is determined by the source of the nectar and the water concentration. The water concentration will always be at or below the acceptable limit if the bees have capped that comb. While the idea of the log hive is romantic, it isn't practical for the purpose of keeping bees. You aren't really beekeeping in this log. If you're just interested in creating more of the invasive species to go live in feral hives, then the log beehive is a good idea.