Why Should You Raise Your Bee hives? 

bee hives

bee hives

Updated on 10/1/2023
Emma DowneyBy Emma Downey
Gardening Expert
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It would be best to decide where your bees will dwell before they come, so plan accordingly. There are three primary configurations for bee hives, and let's find out which of these styles complements your personality the best.

Most beginning beekeepers buy pre-assembled hive components, but it's also feasible to construct your hive from scratch. If this is the case, you must adhere to the dimensions specified for the hive style you want to complete. Will create Honeycomb in areas where it is not desired, at least from the beekeeper's point of view, if the measurements of the hive are not accurate.

The Top Three Varieties Of Bee Hive

Langstroth Hive.

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The Langstroth hive, seen in the image below, is the most common hive used today and is a popular choice among beginner beekeepers. Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth, who developed the design in the middle of the 19th century, was granted a patent for it. The hive has moveable frames in which the bees build their comb. The Langstroth beehive is made up of a series of boxes that are stacked one on top of the other.

Components That Make Up A Langstroth Hive

  • Outer/Telescoping Cover – This cover protects the hive from getting wet when it rains. Comparable to the roof that covers a home.
  • Inner Cover: The hive's top hive box and the inner cover are sandwiched together by the outer surface, and it insulates the frames and keeps them from simultaneously clinging to the external body. You can use honey in conjunction with a bee escape when collecting honey.
  • Honey/Shallow Supers Honey is often produced in shallow supers, the most common size utilized for honey production.
hive

hive

  • Queen Excluders are devices that only permit worker bees to pass through, preventing the queen and the drones from accessing the honey. It is a piece of apparatus that can use, but it is not required to stop the queen from laying eggs in the supers that hold the honey. Some beekeepers do not utilize excluders.
  • Frames: These frames can either be made of wood or plastic and can be removed from the hive boxes. There are three distinct sizes of supers; therefore, there are three typical sizes of frames. Honeycomb is constructed by worker bees inside wooden frames, with the help of a foundation made of either beeswax or plastic. Honeycomb cells store young bees, pollen, nectar, and honey.
  • Foundation is a term that refers to the sheets of beeswax (or plastic) used by most beekeepers as a guide inside the frames. It makes it easier for the bees to construct straight comb inside the shelves where they are housed.
  • The brood chamber, also known as the deep super or the brood box, is distinguished from the shallow super by the presence of significantly more expansive frames. In this chamber, the queen bee will deposit the eggs that will become the next generation of worker bees. Nursing bees look after the young bees in this maternity ward.
  • The bottom board serves as the foundation of the hive. Bottom panels can either have a solid base or a screened bottom, depending on your preference.

A Langstroth hive can house any combination of the three different-sized super boxes, including deeps/brood, mediums, and shallows.

Top Bar Hive

Top Bar Hive

Top Bar Hive

The top bar hive is the earliest kind of hive design in existence. Horizontal top bar hives are characterized by the presence of wooden bars that are arranged horizontally across the top of the long box. In place of the traditional four-sided hardwood frames seen in the Langstroth design, one-piece bars are utilized. The honey bees construct the comb downward from the top bars. There is no requirement for a foundation, but the hive should be raised off the ground and supported by some structure.

The use of a top bar hive comes with some distinct benefits. In addition to not requiring foundation sheets, no wooden frames need to be put together. One of the most appealing aspects of the top bar hive is that it does not need any hard lifting. Maintaining a top bar hive is significantly easier on the beekeeper's back than administering a Langstroth hive, which requires the beekeeper to move multiple heavy hive boxes.

The care of top bar bees does, however, provide a few difficulties. Because, for instance, honey cannot be extracted from a natural comb using a centrifugal honey extractor, this necessitates the removal of both the comb and the flame before it can remove the honey from the bar. As a consequence of this, the honey bees must continually construct new comb each year. Top bar hives generally require inspections to be performed more regularly to prevent overpopulation and to swarm.

Although this hive style can produce honey, beekeepers primarily interested in using their hives for pollination tend to prefer it.

Warré Hive

Warré Hive

Warré Hive

Another variation on the top bar design is the Warré (war-RAY) hive, which Émile Warré developed in the middle of the 20th century. The Warré hive is often described as a vertical top bar hive since it is not designed to be a long, horizontal top bar hive. Boxes of the same size that have been stacked have neither frames nor foundation sheets. The Honeycomb is built by the bees downward from the top bars within each box.

In the Warré method of beekeeping, the hive is frequently "bottom-supered," meaning that instead of placing empty boxes on top of the stack to provide the colony with more fantastic overhead space, open containers are placed towards the bottom of the pile. They believe this layout more accurately represents how bees live in the wild.

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These are the three most common beehive designs; however, remember that every type has advantages and disadvantages! It is up to you to choose which form of the beehive will work best for achieving your objectives and coordinating your operations. If you want to build your bee hive, whichever type you pick, carefully follow the blueprint's guidelines. Swarms of bees that have been improperly constructed result in comb that wanders, complex inspections, and agitated bees (and, soon, stung beekeepers).

Used Different hues to paint the Warré hives.

Putting Some Paint On Your Nest

If you paint it, it will preserve The wood of your hive for a more extended period. Hives have traditionally been painted white to reflect the light better. These days, you may purchase packs in a wide variety of hues.

Because of the risk of the hive overheating in the sun, lighter colors are preferable for use in southern regions while building beehives. Any paint that is water-based or made with latex will work, and you should only apply paint to the exterior surfaces of the bee hive.

Now that you have all the necessary equipment, have constructed a beehive, and know what you are getting yourself into, it is time to find out where you can obtain your bees.