Long hive design???

homer · January 11, 2009, 05:51:38 PM

I was looking at this hive design on Beesource.com. Looks like an interesting idea, and the guy says that it is one of his best honey producers, but I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried this idea.

Sorry, I don't know how to post pics or I would, but here is a link to the site.

http://www.beesource.com/eob/condo/index.htm

hardtime · January 11, 2009, 06:14:36 PM

go look on page 4 at the hive with two queens post and look at bjornbee picture of his hive and see what u think about it .

drobbins · January 11, 2009, 06:39:40 PM

here's video of me putting bees in one I built

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOS-YXlZIIo

it's interesting to mess with
no lifting is great
they have made much less honey than a langstroth hive for me

Dave

Michael Bush · January 11, 2009, 06:40:20 PM

>I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried this idea.

I've done many similar hives. My main purpose was to eliminate lifting though. So with a double wide deep (such as that one) I try to get the brood at one end and the supers on the other.

justgojumpit · January 11, 2009, 09:12:52 PM

I built three to try some out this year. It will be fun to mess around with. I like the idea of no lifting, and I like the fact that I could run these as a top bar hive as well. Also, the no lifting would be great. I wish I did this last year so I would have some more experiences to share with you! If this works anything like the top bar hive that I had, it should be great. That was a pleasure to work, and it was interesting to see the bees build a natural brood nest. I'm going with foundationless frames to mimmick the top bar hive with the ease of using the frames. If you would like one ready made, send me a PM.

justgojumpit

homer · January 11, 2009, 09:40:45 PM

Quote from: Michael Bush on January 11, 2009, 06:40:20 PM
>I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried this idea.

I've done many similar hives. My main purpose was to eliminate lifting though. So with a double wide deep (such as that one) I try to get the brood at one end and the supers on the other.

How do you isolate the honey from the brood if you have a long box like that though. I like the idea as well, but it seems that it would be more difficult to keep the queen out of the honey.

HAB · January 11, 2009, 10:52:28 PM

The next answer was better.

Brian D. Bray · January 12, 2009, 12:00:43 AM

Quote from: homer on January 11, 2009, 05:51:38 PM
I was looking at this hive design on Beesource.com. Looks like an interesting idea, and the guy says that it is one of his best honey producers, but I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried this idea.

Sorry, I don't know how to post pics or I would, but here is a link to the site.

http://www.beesource.com/eob/condo/index.htm

That's a fairly common configuration for a 2 queen, 2 brood box hive. It will go gangbusters on production if the brood chambers are 2 boxes deep and then the offset supers above that. In this setup it is importand to have a queen excluder set under the super.to keep both queens down in their respective brood chambers.