Height of healthy hive

[AmericasBeekeeper]

How high is(are) your hives that are healthy? How high is the stand not the stack of supers? Wood homes are 18 inches off the ground for ants and termites. Are your hives?

[sqkcrk]

Is there some reason to believe that how high off the ground a hive is will have something to do w/ the health of the colony housed therein? Not in my opinion. I don't see the corrolation.

[alpha6]

There is no 4 in option...which is about what the height of a pallet is off the ground.

[KQ6AR]

Some of mine are 6"-8" others are 30"
I don't see a difference in health.

[John V]

Mine are about 18" now but I'm going to lower them to around 9" for my backs sake!

[beemandan]

The Certified Naturally Grown folks require that your hives be at least 6 inches off the ground. I have no idea why.

[honeybeekeeper]

Well if the sky is the limit then i guess im glad they make step ladders!

[sqkcrk]

The Certified Naturally Grown folks require that your hives be at least 6 inches off the ground. I have no idea why.

Seriously? Seems like they would require a heigth of 12 to 15 feet and facing SSE.

[Tia]

My hives are 21" off the ground and still got 6" of water during Hurricane Isabel. We're only 3 feet above sea level, so we get some storm surges in bad storms. A cement block on top keeps them from floating away and the girls are smart enough to just move up into the overhead boxes to get out of the storm's way.

[HONEYDEW]

The Certified Naturally Grown folks require.........

There goes that Subaru crowd again

[tandemrx]

2 cinder blocks = 16 (so I voted 18)

[Michael Bush]

After one year that I was putting supers on with a step ladder and all my hives blew over in a 60mph wind, I moved from 12" to 3 1/2". Mostly 3 1/2". To get things level sometimes it's only 1/2" and sometimes it's only 1 1/2" and sometimes it's 12" at one end and 3 1/2" at the other end...

So I guess the closest you offered is 0".

After I did that I also bought a toolbox that doubles as a stool and I use it almost all the time.

[AmericasBeekeeper]

Thanks for the responses. Please use the heights as up to -- 0 is on the ground to 8 inches, 9 is 9 to 17 inches, 18 is 18 to 27 inches, sky is the limit is everything over 27 inches. No top bar beekeepers? I keep mine with the top at waist high so the base is at 2 feet. Langs at 18 so the top is just over waist high with normal super load.

[Michael Bush]

My top bar hives are all setting on 4 by 4 blocks (3 1/2" high). When I put legs on them they blew over on a regular basis.

[AmericasBeekeeper]

Wow, that blows! Sorry just had to. So far it seems weather and convenience/lifting are the prime motivating factors. I have seen elevated platforms for bears and flood regions. The naturally grown group has some rules. I will have to research if they know why they have them. We do radon testing for homes and probably have similar ground contaminates, we do not even know about. To not do something because it is required of some, gotta know how that's working for you.

[sqkcrk]

Isn't it the confined space that makes radon gas a problem? Do people w/out basements have problems w/ radon gas?

[Growing Boy]

Started out at about 16". Once they were supered up they looked pretty precarios. Switched over to 8". Solid.

[forrestcav]

two concrete block high

[AmericasBeekeeper]

I went to the Certified Naturally Grown website and asked about their hive height recommendation. Reading the rest of their dos, donts, and maybes, it is expertly written and pretty much what a naturalist healthy beekeeper already does. They do not allow pallets for over 6 weeks in a year.
MB, I built a hive stand with steps because there are several families with kids at our bee workshops. It is almost 4 ft wide of 2 x 6 so it would take a cyclone to upend it. In a flood like one poster had, I suppose it would float too.

[LongWoods]

Mine are on concrete block topped with railroad ties = 16 inches (approx). We have skunks, raccoon and possum in herds around here.

This height seems to work fairly well with those critters.

LP