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Just bought an old langstroth your opinion appreciated

6K views 16 replies 15 participants last post by  honeycrab 
#1 ·
Hello
This is my first post and I am not a beekeeper yet but am taking the 8 week class my county offers this winter and hope to start in 2013 :)

Over the summer I bought an old Langstroth located here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/86547219@N08/sets/72157631858715531/

I think I can still use it with minimal repairs.
I have a few questions. I understand how the deep brooding supers work. However the small honey suppers have a different kind of frame, like a three sided upside down frame. Or do I need new frames for those small supers?.

Also the telescoping cover has a screen inside that i will probably replace. Is this for pests?

I will need to make an inner cover but is there a way to make a queen excluder? I was thinking maybe a frame with hardware cloth or something.

I was also thinking about splitting this Langstroh up into possible two hives and make another telescoping cover and two medium supers to put on top of one each of the large brooding supers.

Your opinions and suggestions would be greatly appreciated and excuse me if I am confused with the terminology.

Thanks again

Honeycrab
 
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#2 ·
It is a very good idea to take the class.Those supers you have are for the old basswood comb honey sections.Take all that out and throw it as far as you can.Comb section honey isn't for beginners.Replace with shallow frames.Toss the screen inside the inner cover as well.The brood boxes and hive bodies seem ok from what I can see from the pictures.The bottom board is toast so make or buy a new one.I make my inner covers from plywood with a 1/4/ to 3/8 ths rim top and bottom.Drill a hole the size of a mason jar lid and you can use that inner for a feeder as well.
Finally,before you get bees read all you can about mites and their treatment as well as small hive beetles.After you learn about these pests then you can decide whether to treat or not.
Splitting as you suggest is perfectly alright.I am assuming you mean equipment to set up for two hives next spring, and not bees, since you have no bees yet.
 
#3 ·
I too am a fairly new beekeeper and started with used equipment. Body and frames look like they are decent shape a scraper and some paint on the outside maybe. On my used equipment I accually had a swarm move into my hive far before I was ready for them... the equipment I got was free because they where wax moth damaged and the guy I got them from didn't want to bother with it. All I did was scrape the frames and rinse with plain water.

Looks like the honey supers are setup for comb honey production... Great if you want to try it. I am forgoing comb honey for a while as it seems like a bit more then I'm willing to take on currently. If you are of a simular mind you'll need to get frames for the supers.

There are plans on this forum for making excluders and can be done rather easy.

As for splitting into 2 hives... I highly suggest doing so. However, personally, I would stick with the same size boxes for brood. Interchangable brood frames have been a blessing to me in the past. (I'm currently working toward going to all mediums, for brood and honey)
 
#7 ·
I also started sooner then I wanted to, a friend of my son had hives that had been stored in an old shed for about 5 yrs .I bought them, took them home and set some up. they were really nasty! before I got them cleaned up there were scout bees coming in and in a few days a sworm came and in 20 minutes they were in the hive and i became a beekeeper and love every minute of it
Learned all I know from books and this fourm...... thanks guys and gals
 
#11 ·
I was at the antique flea market in Brimfield Massachusetts last spring and was astonished to find old toasty beehives selling for about $125 as yard decorations. I talked to the people selling them and said you could buy new hives for what they were asking so as a beekeeper they really didnt have any appeal. I also noted that as yard decoration that people were paying for the "patina" and that I didnt doubt that they would sell. Later in the day I noticed a woman carting the hives to her car and she was very happy to have found them. I joked with my wife that I should bring up half my equipment every year and sell it as yard art and use the proceeds to buy new equipment. I never turn down anything thats free if it has any value. Craigslist has made me plenty of money off of other peoples discarded junk.
 
#12 ·
I think you buy is fine. I don't encourage you to have different frames. It is an annoyance at best a intolerable if you make this a business. Don't ask me how I know that. I am just a hobbiest but I like to enjoy my hobbies not get frustrated by them. I started with different size supers but knowing all along I will settle on one or the other. I will not keep them mixed.

Now for the good news.

It think you will find in short order that the boxes are the cheap part of beekeeping. disposing and replacing of them is relatively painless. Frames woudl be next on my list. the wood is cheap. the extras and the labor begins to make them more valuable. by the time you take a 1 dollar os so collection of wood scraps. assemble them. add foundation. rivets. wire and eventually manage to coax a bee into building comb on it. you have a itty bitty frame of wax that cost you roundish 3 bucks and a lot of torment. In a ten frame lang you now have a ten dollar box holding 30 dollars worth of frames. This the first reason you ever have to give a squat about what shape the box is in. Now you are going to dump in 100 buck or more in bees.
And they are gong to commence to make a holy terror of all your precious frames. rest at easy cause everyone will tell you they know better than you. They don't seem to understand that this is high quality custom designer printed sheets of foundation you have provided for them. so they rip it out punch holes in it chew it to kingdom come toss it to the hive floor. make their own suitable wax and begin drawing comb. You now have invaluable honey comb in replacement for your 2 dollar a sheet foundation. Protect it like your life depends on it. if not that your sanity. cause it does it does it does. There is never enough of this honey comb stuff when you need it. value of hive can agruably be considered priceless at this point. but in reality why didn't really add much of anything. depends on how you look and feel about it.

The bees will now begin to fill that comb with the really good stuff. this is where the bacon meets the pan. the tire meets the road. the poop.... well you get the idea.

The bees will fill the comb with either brood, honey or disease. okay so the disease part is not so great. But I have heard you can sell brood for $20 a frame. for a ten frame hive packed wall to wall (which doesn't happen) with brood a single deep brood nest is worth $200. But better than that they will also fill that comb with honey. It is pretty fair to say honey is worth $6 a lb. and every deep frame packed full can hold 7 lbs. That is $42 per frame. No kidding and I am not exaggerating. This can make every 10 frame deep worth $420 just in honey alone. in all you have a single 10 frame deep super packed wall to wall (which they do do) with honey worth $450 in frames comb, honey and that does not count the bees. we have to knock of a few buck for the varroa mites and you now turned a $10 box into a $400 and some dollar treasure chest.

Sounds pretty good doesn't it? Yeah we pack em in here like sardines with that sort of BS. He He if they only knew the trap that awaits them.

Welcome and best of luck. Hope you enjoy yourself.
 
#13 ·
Well, this is a late addition but I did not realize the response I have received. Thank you.
Both myself and the wifey are now registered for our beekeeping class.
I will plan to keep/restore the hive I currently have and will build or buy 1-2 more.


I have been talking to the neighbors and they seem positive and on board with the project.

We plan to have no more then two hives on our .3 acre property. I have one adjacent neighbor and about 2.5 acres of community property with a creek as the other neighbor.
Yes I have to pitch the HOA but I am told as land as neighbors are ok they are ok.
Once we get a mentor we will get them to our home and see what they thinking about keeping the bees.

thanks again for the response folks.
HC
 
#15 ·
Hi HC,
People telling you to burn the hive are saying it for a good reason. If bees living in that hive ever had American Foulbrood you're bees can get it also, even if it was 30 years ago.
Hope you didn't pay to much because the bottom board looks ruined also.
 
#16 ·
Burn, Scorch or dip in Bleach water or something. If there is a worry of AFB I would not use it. You could not have paid very much for that gear. If you did I would do better research next time. Wooden ware is cheap and fun to build. Just ask me I have 500 deeps that need to be assembled in the driveway for next season.
 
#17 ·
It has been someones yard art for the last 10+ years.
I bought it off or her for $10.
Yeah i have been thinking about making or buying my next two and maybe use this one as a swarm trap type thing maybe.
I do not know if I have time to build two of them.
I had intended to clean with bleach. I do not know for a fact if it had foulbrood. Talking to the lady I think her husband might have bought it off of a beekeper. She used it as yard art though.

HC
 
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