I am impressed with Layens hive beekeeping.
They are easy to manage, and I like the deeper frames. In my long langstroths the brood nest gets elongated like a stretched out, long thin football. That means brood can be in 20 out of the 30 total frames in the box.
The queen can't lay up upward, because it's a long hive. I don't want to use an excluder to exclude her into fewer frames (like single brood box beekeeping), because that means frequent monitoring for swarm cells.
So, these Layens have piqued my interest.
However, the 14 frame Layens are too small.
15 frame Layens= 1 deep & 1 Medium Langstroth box
30 frame deep long lang= 1 deep & 2.75 med
25 frame Layens= 1 deep & 3.5 med.
28 frame Layens= 1 deep & 4 med
I plan on building two of the 28 frame Layens this summer/fall, or however long I can make them using 4 feet standard lumber and plywood.
I just put some bees into 7 Layens nucs for someone. I suppose the tradeoff for handling those heavy frames is not having to handle heavy boxes... It does have some minor advantages borrowed from the top bar hive. The top bars have no gaps in them which means less bees are exposed at one time like a top bar hive.
Question.
Just how essential is the flared part of the side bars of langstroth frames? When I kill bees, that's when I hear the crunch sliding frames touching together. Would the frames tend to lean/slant a lot and the bees cross comb is the side bars were more narrow than the top bar?
If I'm not mistaken I thought it was just to make inspections easier. Seeing into the box without removing frames, easier to get your hive tool into it, etc
I just finished my first Layens hive. It takes 29 frames, each 1.5 inches wide. The smaller one in the photo only takes 14 frames, and was a gift from a fellow beek. I discovered I like the Layens better than a long langstroth.
I made the cheap concrete block stand.
Now, I need to make another two of them.
Exciting, looks good. Hope the bees like it as much as you do
That looks good Bob.Will be waiting to hear how it works for you, keep us updated. (Shoulda had my glasses on)
That hive looks beautiful, Bob! Why did you decide to build it bigger than your first one?
15 Member.
The smaller 14 frames Layens hive was a gift from a friend. With a Layens, the broodnest is on about 6 or 7 frames. That only left about 7 frames for honey.
With my 30 deep frame long langstroth hives, the broodnest stretched through 15-18 frames frames, which only left 10-12 frames for honey.
So, now I will see what the larger 29 frames Layens will do.
Cool, that makes sense.