Bob D
05-18-2005, 12:55 PM
1) I was reading about long hives. They look somewhat interesting. But I don't understand the advantage; is there one?
2) Also, especially in the long hive, I've heard about 2 queens. The left and right side of the long hive each have a queen with a queen excluder for both sides keeping the queen from laying in the middle or going up the center stack. It's said that it doubles or triples baby bee and honey production. However, wouldn't it be just as easy to have 2 standard hives? That is 2 hives, therefore "doubling" your baby bee and honey production. You are paying for 2 queens/packages anyway, right?
Michael Bush
05-18-2005, 02:12 PM
>1) I was reading about long hives. They look somewhat interesting. But I don't understand the advantage; is there one?
NO boxes to lift.
Let's take a typical inspection on a brood nest on a hive during the flow. Pull the lid off. Lift off five or six supers weighing 60 pounds each then one deep at 90 pounds and now we are at the brood nest. We move some frames around and then set the 90 pound deep back on followed by five or six 60 supers and the lid. And now we move to the next hive...
Now let's do it on a long hive. Pull the lid off of the front third, look where the bees seem to be, pull a few frames and inspect the brood. Put the lid back on.
>2) Also, especially in the long hive, I've heard about 2 queens. The left and right side of the long hive each have a queen with a queen excluder for both sides keeping the queen from laying in the middle or going up the center stack. It's said that it doubles or triples baby bee and honey production. However, wouldn't it be just as easy to have 2 standard hives? That is 2 hives, therefore "doubling" your baby bee and honey production. You are paying for 2 queens/packages anyway, right?
Yes you still need two queens. And two packages would probably be the way to go. But you'd probably get NO honey from two packages with queens in seperate hives and you'll probably get some honey from two packages in a two queen hive. But the theory is, especially with an established hive instead of packages, that you'll get three times as much honey as a single queen hive. My problem is that it's at least three times as much work. smile.gif But again, running a two queen hive in this fashion saves lifting all of those supers to get to the brood chambers to inspect as opposed to the usual methods that are all vertical and require a lot of lifting.