If you want any information on bees or any other "stuff" that I may know a little about feel free to ask. I enjoy good debates and information exchanges. Bee keeping is a life long skill set that never gets old.
I hope to be adding a hive to my hunting land in the future. I have none of the gear to do so at present. Honey would be a nice bonus, but my aim is to add bees, to replace some of those that have been lost. As long as it does not effect my hunting in a bad way,, why not?. By following these debates, I learn more of what works, what does not, and what is needed. (I had no knowledge of the worm issue.) However, I believe I mentioned in a cattle thread, that your knowledge in animals husbandry was extensive. Since you appear to be highly qualified for the post, perhaps you should start a thread on how to, how not to, start, raise, and manage bees. A tutorial. It could be a reference paper for newBEES, such as I. Suggested focus should be on DIY, not store bought. If this is to be a reference, it should be a from the ground up approach, because some of us are limited in funds, and store bought may not be available, due to SHTF, compilations. Is this worthy of your time and expertise?
I would be glad to help in any way I can. As to ground up, I still have my first Honey Extractor that was found in a junk pile, bottom rusted out, center pivot gone and it did not even hold rain water. Once again it sets outside but repaired with fiberglass and homemade brass pivot. If you are going to have only one hive then purchase a starter set, bees are very accurate in their hive house work and any difference/gaps in your frames or hive body and you will find a wax glue bonding the whole works as one. Killer bees are a threat, I once worked my bees in street clothes and only a simple veil, no gloves, but never again and that is a shame for the tactical feel of bare hands would let you know if only one bee was about to be crushed and bees get really upset if you wound their friends. For a few years I robbed the hives with a cap scraper and used gravity to drain the honey instead of the centrifuge extractor. So it can be done inexpensivly. BTW, I do not use chemicals; in fact I now have many ant hills of the beautiful Red Ants that were once thought to be gone from this county. So I try to use only nature's way and often experience loss due to that but over all life is better and the Road Runners enjoy the Ants as snacks while they are looking for small Rattle Snakes to eat. In short man can return the balance he has destroyed but it takes a life time to restore any a small plot to what it was. And we will never know what we lost. AND no I ain't no Tree Hugger. What flies, crawls or walks will always die and sometimes it is cruel to keep something on this earth after its time, just my personal code of living. But we also have some geriatric animals and as long as they are not in continued pain we will take them to natural end. FWIW, I'll try to do more spell checks.
I realize this was directed at HK but I found it quite easier to make my hives myself & I'm a mediocre woodworker. A cross cut saw & drill press to predrill holes in pine were all I needed. Plans should be available online.
I am a finish carpenter. I can build anything I have time and money to build. What I don't know, is what and why. If I do this, I want to do it right the first time. I have too many projects to waste time and money on trial and error. That means learn exactly how, what, why, first. That means recognizing talent and knowledge when you see it, and asking for a lifetime of experience to be destilled in to easy to understand directions for the introduction of new, completely untrained, keepers. Like a cook book is for those who do not cook by instinct. I follow recipes.
kellory you need to decide to what specs you want to build to. Experience still tells me that the best way to go is with moveable frames and wired embossed wax, I've tried a dozen different ways and most are more trouble in the long run and since time is more costly than money I'd work extra to purchase what worked. So that is the start, this way if you expand all parts will fit other hive bodie no matter what hive the came from. I have been given Hive bodies that were not made correctly and I gotta say they are a pain to use in standard hives. Think mass production and why you can build your own AR15 from a parts kit. With a good table saw and GOOD lumber you can make your own hive parts. To handle the stress of years of use parts need to be notched, nailed and glued. Think high quality furniture. Raccoons love to destroy hives as do dumb kids. Now if this is just a lark then any wooden box with a removable top will work. Get some bees, stuff them in a box and stand back. Production will be damaging to the hive, bees and of low quality. Wax produced solely by the bees will cost you 6 times in honey production, this per pound. OTOH if this is long term survival food then you need to go top of the line, which with your skills should work out.
Specs and reasons for building a Langstroth hive Enjoy HK......................... From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search A frame from a Langstroth hive (seen behind) Langstroth hives on pallets The Langstroth bee hive, patented in October 1852, is the standard beehive used in many parts of the world for beekeeping. The advantage of this hive is that the bees build honeycomb into frames, which can be moved with ease. The frames are designed to prevent bees from attaching honeycombs where they would either connect adjacent frames, or connect frames to the walls of the hive. The movable frames allow the beekeeper to manage the bees in a way which was formerly impossible. Since the invention of the Langstroth hive, there have been many other hive designs using different dimensions which are based on the principle of using removable frames. As such, the Langstroth hive can be considered to be the prototypical removable frame hive design. Other inventors, notably François Huber in 1789, had designed hives with frames (the so-called leafe or book hive),[1] but Langstroth's hive was a practical movable frame hive, which overcame the tendency of the bees to fill empty spaces with comb and to cement smaller spaces together with propolis. In contrast to August von Berlepsch's frame-movable side-opened hive (May 1852, Germany), Langstroth's hive was top-opened, as was the Bevan top-bar hive (1848, UK). These combined adaptations led to the Langstroth hive design being preferred by beekeepers over all others, and his hive is currently used throughout the world. Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 In Europe 1.2 In America 2 Design 2.1 Outer cover 2.2 Inner cover 2.3 Hive body and hive super 2.4 Specialty parts 3 Patents 4 See also 5 References History[edit] In 1851, the Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth (1810–1895), a native of Philadelphia, noted that when his bees had less than 1 cm (3/8 inch) of space available in which to move around, they would neither build comb into that space nor cement it closed with propolis. This measurement is presently called "bee space". During the summer of 1851, Langstroth applied the concept to keeping the lid free on a top-bar hive, but in autumn of the same year, he realized that the "bee space" could be applied to a newly designed frame which would prevent the bees from attaching honeycomb to the inside of the hive box. This attachment of comb to the hive wall was a difficulty with frameless designs, such as Dzierżon's frameless movable-comb hive (1835). US Patent 9300 was issued to Langstroth on October 25, 1852, and remained valid despite numerous attempts to challenge it based on its alleged use of prior art. Rev. Langstroth subsequently published a book called A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee,[2] nowadays commonly known as The Hive and the Honey Bee or, under the title with which it was recently (2004) re-issued, as Langstroth's Hive and the Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper's Manual. In this book, Langstroth described the proper dimensions and use of the modern beehive as we know it today. Prior to discovery of the dimensions of "bee space", bees were mostly hived in skeps (conical straw baskets) or gums (hollowed-out logs which approximated the natural dwellings of bees), or in box hives (a thin-walled wooden box with no internal structure). In Europe[edit] Dr. Jan Dzierżon, a Polish apiarist and Roman Catholic priest, had in the year 1835 determined the correct spacing for the top-bars in beehives. The distance between combs had been described as 11⁄2 inches (38 mm) from the center of one top-bar to the center of the next one. In this case, the distance between combs is 1⁄2 inch (13 mm); that is, twice the minimum "bee space" of 1⁄4 inch (6.4 mm).[3] This setup had been established for the brood chamber, as for honey storage the comb distance can be different. Later, in 1848, Dzierżon introduced grooves into his hives' side walls, to replace the strips of wood that the top-bars had earlier been hung from.[4] The grooves were 8 × 8 mm — a dimension intermediate between 1/4 and 3/8 inch (6.35 – 9.53 mm), the lower and upper limits of "bee space" as currently understood. Currently, 3/8 inch (9.53 mm) is the usual size meant when "bee space" is referred to. In Europe, both Dzierżon and fellow apiarist Baron August von Berlepsch had been focused on side-opened hives. Land resources for beekeeping was limited, and traditionally multiple bee hives had been kept in a single beehouse. The so-called "bee space" had been incorporated by Berlepsch into his frame arrangement (Bienen-Zeitung, May 1852) following Dzierżon's discovery that grooves added to inner walls remained free of propolis (1848). Thus, the correct distance between frame side-bar and hive wall was already understood by some European beekeepers prior to 1851. In America[edit] L.L. Langstroth's patent of 5 October 1852 adopted 3⁄8 inch (9.5 mm) between the side bars of a frame and hive wall, and also reserved rights to use the distance 1⁄2 inch (13 mm) between top-bars and inner cover, the latter of which represents a gap larger than optimal. The term "bee space" was coined later than Langstroth's 1852 patent. Occasionally incorrect definitions are ascribed to "bee space". Term easily confused with "bee space" include: inter-comb space, 1⁄2 inch (13 mm); the distance from frame to hive wall, 1/4 to 3/8 inch (6.35 to 9.53 mm); and even the distance from frame to hive bottom, which can be as little as 1/4 inch but ranges to as much as 3/4 inch (6.35 to 19.05 mm). L.L. Langstroth may have been aware of Dzierżon's discoveries prior to submitting his patent application. In the summer of 1851, he was introduced to Dzierżon's work by Samuel Wagner, who had translated it from the German language original. Wagner later founded the American Bee Journal.[5] Moreover, Samuel Wagner visited Jan Dzierżon in his apiaries in Silesia (presently Poland). Wagner also subscribed to Bienen-Zeitung, the journal in which Dzierżon published his apiarian works. Wagner's translation of Theorie und Praxis, ... was never published; instead, Langstroth published his A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee. Langstroth expressed great respect for Jan Dzierżon: "No words can express the absorbing interest with which I devoured this work. I recognized at once its author as the Great Master of modern apiculture."[6] Langstroth constructed his hives so that the frames, in which the bees were to make their combs, could easily be separated from all adjacent parts of the hive — the walls of the hive, the floor of the hive, the cover of the hive, and other frames within the hive. To extract a frame from such a hive will not require any comb to be cut. Usually the most trouble a beekeeper encounters in removing a frame from such a hive results from the bees using propolis to bond frames to the brackets they rest upon. Being able to remove and replace combs so easily makes it possible — and practical — for beekeepers to inspect all of their hives on a regular basis. Such inspections, to check for signs of disease and/or parasites, imminent swarming, an aging queen, and other conditions requiring intervention, are essential to successful bee husbandry. Design[edit] Langstroth hive frames The Langstroth bee hive is made up from top to bottom of: telescoping cover or migratory cover inner cover one or more hive bodies or honey supers made of wood, polystyrene, or other plastic (optional) queen excluder between brood box and honey supers eight to ten frames, made of wood or plastic, per hive body or honey super foundation made of wax and wires or plastic bottom board, with optional entrance reducer Outer cover[edit] This is a wooden or polystyrene cover that fits on the top of the hive. In higher latitudes (further north in the Northern Hemisphere; further south in the Southern Hemisphere), a cover which telescopes down around the inner cover and an inch or so down over the top super, called a telescoping cover, is usually used. Many commercial beekeepers use what is known as a migratory cover, a solid cover which does not extend beyond the sides of a hive body.[7] Inner cover[edit] The inner cover provides a barrier between the telescoping cover and the bees. In more temperate climates, a plastic foil may be used as an inner cover. Plastic foil should not be used to winter bees under, as trapped condensation would cause the hive to become wet, and bees can be lost due to freezing when temperatures fall during the night. In areas with a hot summer, a solid inner cover with a communication hole provides dead-air space for insulation against both heat and cold. This prevents the bees from gluing the top cover to the top bars of the super under it. When an inner cover is used, the top cover is more easily removed from the hive. Notches in the frame of the solid inner cover and telescoping cover can serve as an upper entrance for the bees. A communication hole in the middle allows bees to reach emergency food placed above by the beekeeper if it becomes required. Granulated sugar can be poured onto the inner cover near the hole, and the bees will be able to access it during even the coldest of days. Hive body and hive super[edit] Hive bodies and hive supers are four-sided boxes with standardized inside dimensions. There are generally four different sizes. Outside box dimensions vary depending on the type of material used. Polystyrene boxes have much larger outside dimensions than boxes made out of wood. Deep and medium hive bodies are provided to serve as the brood chamber, the part of the hive where the queen lays eggs and the bees care for the larvae. Medium, shallow and comb honey supers are used for honey stores and to harvest the honey. The inside width is 14–11/16 inches (373 mm) and the inside length is 18–5/16 inches (465 mm). The frames rest on a rabbeted side along both ends of each box. The deep hive body is normally used only for brood, as it becomes too heavy to handle manually if it becomes filled with honey. Commercial operations usually use one- or two-deep hive bodies for brood, and additional shallow hive components for honey supers. Some hobbyists prefer to standardize on all mediums. Shallow supers are not ideal for the brood chamber of the hive because the bees need to form a single compact sphere during the cold winter months — a sphere that can expand and contract without being divided by a horizontal plane in the middle caused by the gaps between combs in multiple hive bodies. TypeDepthFrame lengthFrame depthFrame width Deep body99⁄16 inches (243 mm)19 inches (480 mm)91⁄8 inches (230 mm)11⁄8 inches (29 mm) Medium (Illinois) super65⁄8 inches (170 mm)19 inches (480 mm)61⁄4 inches (160 mm)11⁄8 inches (29 mm) Shallow super53⁄4 inches (150 mm)19 inches (480 mm)53⁄8 inches (140 mm)11⁄8 inches (29 mm) Comb super43⁄4 inches (120 mm)19 inches (480 mm)41⁄8 inches (100 mm)11⁄8 inches (29 mm) The hive body or hive super holds 8 to 10 frames that are standardized in length. The frames hold the foundation and the honeycomb that is built on it. Specialty parts[edit] The Cloake board, also known as the "bottom-without-a-bottom", is a specialty piece of hive equipment that is installed between two hive bodies of the brood nest. It allows the beekeeper to insert a sliding metal or wood panel, which will split the hive into two parts without having to lift the hive boxes, the objective being to split a single hive into two independent hives. The queen excluder is a mesh grid, usually made of wire or plastic, sized such that worker bees can pass through, but queens (generally) cannot. When used, it is generally placed between the hive body and the honey supers. The purpose of the queen excluder is to keep the queen from laying eggs in the honey supers, which can lead to darker honey and can also complicate extraction. Many beekeepers reject the use of queen excluders, however, claiming that they create a barrier for workers and result in lower levels of honey collection and storage.[citation needed] A feeder is most often used to feed granulated sugar or sugar syrup at times of the year when no, or not enough, nectar flow is available from natural sources to meet the hive's needs. There are various styles. Division board feeders have a shape similar to that of the frame, and hang inside the hive body in the same manner as a frame. Entrance feeders are wedged into the hive entrance on the bottom board with an inverted container of feed. Hive-top feeders have the same footprint as the hive body and are placed on top of the hive, but underneath the telescoping cover. Other hive-top feeders consist of an inverted container with small holes in the lid, which are placed either directly on top of the frames, or on top of the hole in the inner cover. An "escape board" is placed between the brood boxes and the supers to clear the supers of most of the bees. The escape board lets bees exit the supers into other areas of the hive, but makes it difficult for the bees to re-enter the supers. There are several different designs. Patents[edit] USPatent|9300 -- L.L. Langstroth's patent for a Bee hive from Oct. 5, 1852 USPatent|9300 -- L.L. Langstroth's patent for a Bee hive Reissued from May 26, 1863 See also[edit] Amos Root References[edit] Jump up ^ Huber, François New Observations on the Natural History of Bees, 1806. (English translation as published) Retrieved from transcribed copy at [1], 21 November 2011; scanned copy also available at [2] as of 21 November 2011. Jump up ^ Langstroth, L.L. A Practical Treatise on the Hive and Honey-Bee, 1878 Jump up ^ Bienen-Zeitung, November 1845 & January 1847, Frauendorfer Blätter (11) 1846 Jump up ^ Bienen-Zeitung, January 1850 Jump up ^ American Master of Bee Culture. The Life of L.L. Langstroth. by Florence Naile, pp. 84 and 85 Jump up ^ "Reminiscences" Gleanings in Bee Culture XXI, 116-118 Jump up ^ gobeekeeping, Basic Beekeeping — The Modern Hive, The Modern Hive , Stahlman Apiaries. Accessed 19 July 2010. [hide] v t e Honey bee types and characteristics Bee Castes Queen bee Worker bee Laying worker bee Drone Lifecycle Beehive Honey bee life cycle Brood Bee learning and communication Swarming Western honey bee subspecies and breeds Buckfast bee Carniolan honey bee European dark bee Italian bee Maltese honey bee Africanized bee Apis mellifera scutellata Honey bee race Cultivation Beekeeping Apiology Apiary Beehive Langstroth hive Horizontal top-bar hive Beeswax Honey Honey extraction Honey extractor Lists Topics in beekeeping Diseases of the honey bee <img src="//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1" alt="" title="" width="1" height="1" style="border: none; position: absolute;" /> Retrieved from "Langstroth hive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" Categories: Beehives Hidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from June 2009 Navigation menu Personal tools Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history Actions Search Navigation Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Wikimedia Shop Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact page Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Data item Cite this page Print/export Create a book Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية Čeština Deutsch Español Galego Edit links This page was last modified on 24 April 2014 at 15:26. 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If this hive is for your hunting land and you wont be able to check on them every week, consider a Peronne. Install the bees and forget 'em for 18 months. Ideally you stock with a prime swarm, I've had great luck adjusting the design to put a NUC in. Here's where the NUC option looks like: Peronne hive with window & NUC option You don't need the window, of course. http://keepingwiththebees.wordpress.com/ explains the system and has plans to download. Of course, you could do a langstroth and manage it like a Perone. If you don't mess with it every week, that's what will happen anyway.
I am a ham radio operator, not because I have a driving need to reach out and pluck sound from the ether, but because it is a tool I might need someday. I am interested in bees for the same type of reasons. It may give me and others some benefit, and help the bees. As long as it remains a small part of my time and attention, not all consuming. I will have access to the hive(s) once or twice a month, on average. (When I have other reasons to be there as well.) I will build once, build well, and do the minimum in upkeep, for the health of the bees. Honey production is a minor issue. It is a backup plan, a source, and a seeder crop.
Kell, I started keeping bees 40 years ago, got up to 16-18 hives for 10-12 years then career, work, etc. got in the way and I moved on. Just got back into it with my daughter. There are plenty of plans etc. on the web to build your own. I think the first thing you need to sort out is why do you want bees? What do you want to accomplish with them? Do you have a philosophical bent about life and nature that is important to satisfy? Once you decide this then the direction you go may be easier to choose. If your goal is simply having bees around for pollination, for the greater good of the earth, for grins, or whatever then the top bar hives, Warre, whatever are fine. If you main focus is to harvest honey and wax, then the conventional Langstroth hive is the way to go. The 10 frame is a bit bigger, tends to have slightly stronger colonies and is a tiny bit more economical but if your upper body strength is low there are narrower 8 frame versions that are a bit easier to lift and work. There is a recent trend of permaculturists, etc. that embrace the TBH, Perones, etc. as being better etc as witnessed in this thread. My personal experience with Langstroths and retrieving wild swarms and seeing "natural" hives is I can't say they are wrong, but I have seen no evidence myself that suggests they are right. I guess it's like religion, different versions appeal to different people and many of the devotees are convinced. What I do know is modern beekeeping methods have evolved over the last 150 years through a boatload of research and experimentation by hobbyists, professionals, academics, etc. Journals like "Gleanings in Bee Culture" have been around for over a century documenting how beekeepers can best exploit the natural tendencies of bees to create strong, productive hives. The vast majority of modern methods are actually quite "natural" and they are not Monsanto beekeeping. I know some issues facing beekeepers today are tougher than 40 years ago and of the two hives my daughter and I started this year, one is going good the other is not good and we replaced the queen yesterday to try and save it. We probably would have lost it if using some of the new age methods. I only lost one hive in all my previous years with Langstroths and never needed drugs or chemicals. Maybe I was just lucky but being able to easily monitor their health and intervene than let nature take it's course with natural section etc. and the hive die is more productive for one interested in producing honey. But if that is not your goal, then go the TBH et al route if that appeals. AT
Basic Beekeeping -- The Modern Hive Back to Basics The Modern Hive At one time, honey bees were kept in a number of shelters. These included: Skeps like the one shown on the left. Logs often called bee gums which were cut from trees and set upright on a base to which was added often a box on top to gather the honey. And a number of other containers such as jars. You may want to check out an interesting book titled, "The Archaeology of Beekeeping" by Eva Crane to see other examples. In 1853, the Rev. L.L. Langstroth published a book called "The Hive and the Honey Bee" which changed beekeeping in a very profound way. This book describes the use of the modern bee hive as we know it today. The Langstroth bee hive is now the standard bee hive used in many parts of the world. Shown here is a cut away view of the inside of a Langstroth hive. Shown is a bottom board on which the boxes sit, a bottom deep hive body called the brood chamber, a queen excluder to keep the queen in the brood chamber, a medium honey hive body called a "super", and a comb honey section hive body called a "comb honey super". Above the comb honey super is an inner cover and a top cover is placed over everything to protect the hive from weather. Within the hive boxes are removal frames that hold the comb built by the bees. We will discuss each in just a little bit. What makes this hive so remarkable is not that Langstroth discovered hanging frames (that was done earlier), or that he used a box to put frames into (that was done earlier as well). Langstroth recognized that bees failed to build burr comb between a space of 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch. If the space was smaller the bees would use propolis to glue it up, and if it was larger the bees would build comb into the space. Thus we as beekeepers must use equipment that recognizes this natural habit of the bees to provide that "bee space" as it is called. Thus frames in a box must be at least 1/4 of an inch from the side of the box and not more than 3/8 of an inch from the side of the box. The space must also be provided between boxes, and the inner cover. If this space is violated, the bees will cement everything together, making it very difficult to remove frames for examination, or the removal of boxes. Although all the equipment needed to build a bee hive can be done in a wood shop, we would recommend that the beekeeper at least buy a box "super" to use as a pattern. It is very important for everything to be of a standard size. Else where in this site are plans to build bee equipment. Today the 10 frame hive body is considered standard. There are other sizes, but when you begin to have 8 frame equipment, or 11 frame equipment, you will suddenly find that parts are not interchangeable. Stick with 10 frame equipment. It will resell much better than any of the other sizes. Each part of the bee hive explained: The Bottom Board We are going to start at ground level and move up. The bottom board supports the hive. It is the floor of the hive with a 3/4 inch rim around three sides to allow the bees to enter the hive. It also extends 2 inches in front of the boxes to provide a landing board for the bees. Here bees take off for the fields to gather nectar and return to be met by other bees, called guard bees who check to make sure the arriving bee belongs to the hive. Bottom boards must be strong to hold the weight of the hive. They must also be well protected against rot. Because it is close to moisture in the soil, it is the first to show any sign of decay or rot. Another piece of equipment associated with the bottom board is a hive entrance reducer. The purpose of the reducer is to restrict the entrance so a weak hive can defend itself and is installed in the fall to reduce damage from mice and prevent drafts from blowing wind. The Hive Body The standard 10 frame Langstroth hive body will vary from dealer to dealer. The inside dimensions are critical. Depending on the thickness of the wood, the inside dimensions are: 9 19/32 inches from top to bottom, 14 11/16 inches from side to side for the front of the box, and 18 5/16 inches from side to side for the side of the box. A rabbet is provided on the top side of the box fronts for a resting place for the hanging frames. A great advantage of this type of hive box is that more boxes with the same dimension can be stacked one above the other and the bees will move up into the upper boxes and store honey there. Frames The purpose of the frame is to hold the comb made of wax securely within the hive box. A frame is made of up a top bar usually 1 1/8 inches wide and 19 inches across the top. It is notched for the end bars. The end bars can be of various depths. If the end bars are 9 1/8 inches they will go into a deep hive body "super". If the end bars are 6 1/4 inches they will go into a medium hive box "super". If the end bars are 5 3/8 inches they will go into a shallow hive box. Notice that I have been using the term "super". Beekeepers usually refer to boxes as supers. The bottom bar can be either solid or split. If you are buying frames in a catalog, you will need to know the size of box the frames are going to go in before you buy the frames. Foundation Foundation is what the bees build wax comb on. Foundation comes in many sizes and thickness. Usually we have thought of foundation being the wax sheet with starter cells pressed into the wax. Things have changed. You can still buy wax foundation in all sizes. It even can be bought with supporting wire embedded in the wax. If one is working with wax foundation, it has to be placed into the frames. You would need to have frames with a top bar that has a removable wedge. You would also need a split bottom bar. The wax foundation is held in the frame by fastening the wax sheet to the top bar with the removable wedge. The split bottom bar holds the wax sheet at the bottom of the frame. To hold the foundation straight in the frame, a beekeeper usually uses cross wires stretched from the end bars and embedded into the wax. However, many beekeepers are turning to plastic foundation. The ad shown above for plastic foundation gives you an idea of the various sizes and choices one has when selecting it. One can buy one piece plastic frames which include the foundation. No work at all in getting them ready for the bees. Just put them into the hive box and you and the bees are ready to go. Plastic foundation is also made for wood frames. Every beekeeper has an opinion on what is best. Our advice would be for the new beekeeper to try both. This way you can also learn to develop knowledge and prejudice toward which you favor. What happens if you don't use frames and foundation in a box? I was hoping that no one was really thinking this way but here is the answer. The bees build a mess in a hive body. This is not much better than the skep of old. One can not inspect or examine a box that has no frames in it if the bees have filled the box with comb. Believe it or not, but I have seen this situation occur to new beekeepers who were just to busy to build frames to put into their new hive body. You need to put frames into the box. Queen Excluders A big question often discussed at bee meetings is "Do you really need a queen excluder?" Again, you will find individual beekeepers who like or don't like them. They are often called honey excluders because bees don't like to go up into the supers above through the queen excluder. The purpose of the queen excluder is to keep the queen in the brood chamber so the queen doesn't lay eggs and thus have brood in the honey supers. It is almost mandatory to have queen excluders on bees when you are producing comb honey for sale. Queen excluders can be purchased with a wood rim around the metal excluder or one can buy all metal excluders. They even come in zinc and plastic. Honey Supers These are the boxes with frames and foundation for the bees to store surplus honey. They come in four basic sizes. The shallow 5 3/4 inch super that uses 5 3/8 frames. The medium (Illinois) 6 5/8 inch super that uses 6 1/4 inch frames. The deep 9 9/16 inch super that takes 9 1/8 inch frames Comb honey supers** **Comb honey supers are 4 3/4 inches deep. They require special supplies to produce the comb honey. The beekeeper has the choice of the old standard section boxes that require section holders, separators, flat tins and springs. Or the beekeeper can use what are called "Ross Rounds". In a Ross Round super the bees build comb into round section rings. Our advice to a beginner is to pass on the comb honey sections until you have a year or two experience. It takes strong bees and special management to produce good comb honey sections. If you really want comb honey, a easier way is to use the standard shallow frame with thin wax foundation and when the bees have capped the honey in the frame, you can cut sections of it out and put it into freezer bags or jars. One will find clear boxes or cut comb honey trays in the bee catalog which can be used to sell cut honey. Inner Cover The inner cover does several thing. First it provides a dead air space for insulation against heat and cold. Second it prevents the bees from gluing the top cover to the top bars of the super under it. With an inner cover, the top cover is easy to remove from the hive. One other advantage that comes to mind is the hole allows bees to reach emergency food if it is required. Granulated sugar can be poured onto the inner cover near the hole and the bees will be able to get to it during even the coldest of days. The Top Cover This is a cover that fits on the top of the hive. In the north, the cover is usually one that telescopes down around the inner cover and an inch or so down over the top super. This is called a telescoping cover. Many commercial beekeepers use what is called a migratory cover. This cover is a solid cover that does not extend beyond the sides of a hive body. The reason for this is the bee hives are usually on a pallet and the hives on the pallet are set against each other - side to side. There is no space between the hives for a telescoping cover to fit down into.
Another option is the Warre hive. Plans are available here: http://warre.biobees.com/warre_hive_plans_metric.pdf His book is available here: http://www.users.callnetuk.com/~heaf/beekeeping_for_all.pdf You can make top bars which are movable, which allows for inspection:
@Airtime , in short...they need me, more than I need them. If I can help out without taking over my life, I will. Just as I mow my neighbor's yard as I do my own, and shovel snow in winter for old folks. My tools are usually better than there's and at 50, I am in better shape than they are. Bees need help, for food production to continue. If I can do something about it with minimal resources and money, then I will. As for 150 years of learning about bees....that would be MY point. Why reinvent the wheel? ASK for the best method, and use it.
