From the character of honeybee you take to the number of beehives you oversee — and how you take to manage them — there is seemingly endless variability in beekeeping . For new and expanding beekeepers , deciding which kind of hive to apply is yet another variable star in play .
Your beekeeping goal , local climate and budget are a few factor to consider as you weigh your options . Your equipment ’s interchangeability is paramount , too .
Michael Bush , author ofThe Practical Beekeeperbook series , in the first place uses modified Langstroth hive . “ I prevail all eight - frame , intermediate Langstroth boxes , ” he says . “ Full of honey , they do n’t weigh over 50 pound , and I use them for everything . ”
Well , well-nigh everything . Bush also keeps bees in some top bar hives , Slovenian hives , Flow hive and a Huber observation beehive . But he does n’t needfully urge commix and twin your own beehives to such a degree .
“ If you ’ve get five different kinds of hives , what are you pop off to do when this one is queenless and you need a frame of brood ? ” he ask . “ With five different form of hives , you do n’t have any interchangeable parts — unless you went out of your way to make certain they were all standardized . ”
The Langstroth Hive
Interchangeability — and the power to easily expand colony size as needed — are just part of the entreaty of Langstroth beehives for David T. Peck . Peck bear a Ph.D. from Cornell University ’s department of neurobiology and behavior and do as conductor of research and Education Department at Betterbee .
“ All of my bee are in upright , Langstroth hive , ” he says . “ Bees have been living in vertical , hollow trees for one thousand thousand of years . So they ’re pretty well - adapted to that configuration . ”
Filled with individual , moveable frames , Lorenzo Langstroth ’s serial publication of stacked supers has become omnipresent in North America . “ The standardization in the U.S. is something that makes our beekeeping market hard to modify , because there ’s only the one style and almost everyone uses it , ” Peck enjoin .
Jonas Sjoblom/Shutterstock
In fact , accessories such as the Hogg Halfcomb and Ross Round combing - dearest systems only work in Langstroth beehives . “ With both of those , you have a discussion section — a pit — that the bees will walk right up into , will naturally build comb into and will satisfy with dear , ” Peck says . “ Then , once the [ combing - dearest frames ] are full , you may take them out , put them either into a pear-shaped or square container , tag it and bring it to your farmers market . ”
What ’s more , formic Lucy in the sky with diamonds and certain varroa mite treatments were designed specifically for use in Langstroth equipment . “ That ’s where they ’ve proven that the rate at which the practice of medicine is free from the digs is go to add up out and then be ventilated by the bees and vented out of the open ingress at the correct rate so that the bee endure and the soupcon die , ” Peck says . “ Those tests have not been incline and validated on top barroom beehive or on horizontal hives or on different designs . ”
That ’s not to say such medications ca n’t be used in other beehives . But , he adds , “ That ’s not the labeled and intended utilization for those products . ”
Jonas Sjoblom/Shutterstock
interpret more : quick to purchase new bees ? Here ’s where to start .
The Top Bar Hive
mountain of beekeepers , looking to skip chemical pesticides and artificial foundation , have gravitated to top cake beehives . Unlike its vertical Langstroth counterpart , the top bar hive is a long , horizontal box with individual foundation stripe suspended across its top . Bees attach instinctive combing beneath the bar . Beekeepers pull item-by-item frames — rather than heavy Langstroth supers — to inspect one at a time . Jonas Sjoblom / Shutterstock
“ The modern top legal community beehive — called the Kenyan top bar hive — was actually invented in Canada as part of a Canadian regime and university international evolution Duncan Grant , ” Peck aver . “ Theydesigned that so they could go to sub - Saharan Africa or to Latin America where they were hear to encourage people to keep bees in Holy Order to advance their economic productivity or pollenate their crops . “In those climates , the bees tend to do pretty well . ”
What about Minnesota or upstate New York ?
courtesy beeinventiveptyltd
“ The top bar beehive has a trend to get the bees working off in one focal point and then move them too far off from their dear , ” he read . “ Instead of the heat of the bunch slowly originate and warming that next level of honey upwards , the heat from the clump rises , but the dearest is on the other side of that top legal profession trough . Now the bee have to butt through very moth-eaten temperatures to endeavor to get there and get more fuel . ”
Still , Bush sees at least one clean-cut advantage : “ If you ’re handy with materials and have access to scrap wood , you could probably build a top bar hive for free … [ but]you’re able to get natural combing by doing foundationless [ frames ] in any sort of box … . And you’re able to build a long hive and put Langstroth material body in it and not have to lift corner .
“ So , you may get that without doing a top barroom hive . ”
Jure Ahtik, Tamara Elbl/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Flow Hive
For its part , theFlow hiveis a variation on the Langstroth beehive . “ Except the Flow beehive has a super that you may reap without ingest to take it off , ” Bush says . He was transport early version of the Flow hive to try out before they hit the grocery and a few more since they ’ve become commercially available.courtesy beeinventiveptyltd
Developed by Stuart and Cedar Anderson , the Flow hive features specially designed charge card frames paired with a crackpot mechanism to ease the honey harvest . “ Basically , it ’s made up of a whole bunch of strips of charge plate that have half of a cell on the rightfield and a one-half of a cell on the left , ” Bush says . “ And there ’s just two kinds of those , and they ’re all put together to make this long frame .
“ One of the kinds of electric cell stays put and the other one moves up and down . So , you baffle the crank in underneath and you call on it . It pops one-half of [ the cell ] up , which makes a zag communication channel , so the honey can run out and air can come in at the top . ”
Bush allows the honey to execute through tubes that drain into a 5 - congius bucket . regain brood mix in with the honey harvest time has n’t been an issue .
“ The honey cellphone are extra thickset , so that the queen wo n’t require to lay in them , ” Bush says . “ The cadre are also by choice an odd shape or an odd size , so the queen wo n’t want to lay in them , because it ’s not quite right for a drone and it ’s not quite right-hand for a proletarian . ”
Because dearest jail cell cappings stay on intact even during harvest , the flow beloved does n’t make a mountain inside the colony . Although Bush appreciates the design , he ca n’t apologize its expense . “ If I had very many [ non - Flow beehive dependency ] , I could buy an separator for less than I could buy two or three of these Flow hives , ” he says .
But for apiculturist with just a brace of beehives — rather than a couple hundred — the flowing beehive could be deserving the price .
study more : Microapiaries are a passion project at Sassy Bee Honey .
Slovenian Hives
If money ’s no object , you could build a bee house complete with Slovenian beehive . Also known as AZ beehive — list after their creator , Anton Žnideršič — Slovenian hives are made to fit neatly within a larger , often climate - hold in structure .
The hive entrances face outside the bee theater . The backs of the beehive are contained inside the bee house , which is spacious enough for the apiculturist to well work . Jure Ahtik , Tamara Elbl/ Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY - SA 4.0 )
“ An AZ beehive opens from the back , and the frames root for straight out , ” Bush says . “ [ The beekeeper ] can sit in an air - train bee sign of the zodiac where his extractor is . He can go over to the beehive , pull the frame out , uncap them , put them in the extractor , extract and put them back in .
“ All in his 70 - level , atmosphere - condition honey house . And he ’s never even fit out of doors . ”
Because case-by-case soma are murder , rather than entire supers , there ’s no profound lifting . Also , the power to heat the bee house even by a small could make all the difference for beekeepers with harsh wintertime .
Even so , Slovenian hives are n’t for everyone . “ Here ’s the trouble with the Slovenian hive , ” Bush says . “ The skeleton are an odd size , because that ’s what they utilise in Slovenia . So , they wo n’t gibe in a typical [ Langstroth frame ] extractor . Another trouble is that the typical foundation that ’s available here wo n’t fit in the frames . ”
fortuitously , a Georgia - based beekeeper finally did modify the Slovenian aim so that it could accommodate Langstroth - sized frames . Nevertheless , Bush ’s Slovenian hives are n’t tuck inside a fancy bee house .
“ It does n’t play very well for me , mostly because I need to have them up off the priming more , ” he say . “ I start the room access and I ’m kneel behind it trying to contact in and pull out framing . It just kill my back and knees . ”
Better to find that out on a small-scale exfoliation . “ Even if you try one [ kind of hive ] and it seemed to work , I would n’t go out and build 1,000 of them , ” Bush says . “ Start small , make certain you like it and then grow it organically . ”
This article appeared inHobby Farm Home , a 2023 specialty publication produced by the editors and writer ofHobby Farmsmagazine . In addition to this piece , Hobby Farm Homeincludes recipes , crafting project , preservation lead and more . you’re able to purchase this intensity , Hobby Farmsback issues as well as special edition such asHealing HerbsandGoats 101byfollowing this connection .
