Long Hive Question

[WayneW]

I am building my long hive (trench hive?) 48.75" long (33 medium frames), and will be populating it with a 3lb package. How many frames should i give them on the starting side of the follower to start with :?

[Brian D. Bray]

5 or 6 and then add 2 at a time by pulling the back 2 frames backward and inserting the new frames in between, that leaves a bait trail for them to expand into.  Once you're out to the 16-20 frame total you can feed them more each time.

[Tucker1]

Pardon my asking, but what is a trench hive ?  With 33 frames, it must be something to see.

Regards,
Rich

[WayneW]

Pardon my asking, but what is a trench hive ?  With 33 frames, it must be something to see.

Regards,
Rich

Same basic idea as a Top bar hive, but without the angled sides. It's a box that's 48.75 inches long (3 normal full size hive boxes) and mine is the same depth as a medium super. It holds 33 frames for the brood chamber. Supers will go on top of the brood chamber same as any hive.
Some of the advantages (in theroy :-X ): less lifting, the closed portion(s) of the brood chamber will give me a place to set supers when working in the hive, and manipulating frames and supers, to name a few.

If you google Long Hive, you should be able to get a better idea than my explanation. 8-)

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshorizontalhives.htm

[BjornBee]

Here is a picture of my two deep box trench hive. It holds 21 deep Top bars. The nice thing about this setup is I can take fresh comb out to harvest or place supers above the queen excluder.

http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x236/BjornBee/?action=view&current=beepictures159.jpg