Bees, Hives and Colonies
"Management of a Honeybee Colony with the Dartington Long Deep Hive"
"Beekeeping needs to be economical, convenient and safe if it is to flourish in the year 2001 and beyond.
The British Standard hive - "The National" - was introduced some eighty years ago and has served well. Since then however, our understanding of bees, the climate and indeed the whole way in which we live, have all changed considerably. Placing all the honey storage above the brood box makes the National arduous to operate, as all this weight must be moved every time the brood needs to be inspected.
This booklet explains how to manage the Dartington Long Deep Hive, whose body provides the same volume as two standard National bodies plus two honey supers placed side by side. At first sight it may appear a large hive - but the overall volume when its four honey-boxes are in place is in fact 4% less than a National in mid-summer, when two brood boxes and four supers are needed for swarm control and honey storage.
The Long DeepHhive has been used continuously by Robin Dartington since 1975, but never in sufficient numbers for evaluation. It is hoped that beekeepers across Britain will conduct their own tests and publish their experience for the benefit of beekeeping generally.
Hives
A beehive is an enclosed structure in which some honey bee species of the genus live and raise their young. Natural beehives (typically referred to simply as "nests") are naturally-occurring structures occupied by honey bee colonies, while domesticated honey bees live in man-made beehives, often in an apiary. These man-made structures are typically referred to as "beehives". Only species of the subgenus Apis live in hives, but only the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) and the eastern honey bee (Apis cerana) are domesticated by humans.
Bee Colony
The bee colony optimization algorithm is inspired by the behaviour of a honey bee colony in nectar collection. This biologically inspired approach is currently being employed to solve continuous optimization problems, training neural networks, mechanical and electronic components design optimization, combinatorial optimization problems such as job shop scheduling, the internet server optimization problem, the travelling salesman problem, etc.