Crazy Hive Design

[RiodeLobo]

This hive is the brain child of my brother. He is a just entering his second year of beekeeping and decided he wanted to build a monster hive. At first he is planning to have multiple colonies in this behemoth. At some point he wants one colony in here. I had to just shake my head and smile.
photo2-2.jpg
PS that is a deep frame in the foreground

[NasalSponge]

It's a coffin!!

[Steven Ogborn]

He'll need ten packages to stock it!
Then he can use the other nine queens to requeen other hives.

[robherc]

OK, I'm guessing here that it's 2x as wide, 3x as tall, and 3x as long as a 10frame deep (approximating from the pic)?
...that'd be like an 18-body Lang. using all 10-frame deeps! How exactly is he intending to lift those "supers" forklift/crane? If he placed one full-width (of that hive, so double-width for "normal") frame that was the height of all 3 boxes in there, the bees could potentially stock that frame with >60lbs of honey...have fun luggin' those frames around! lol

Let us know how his hernia operation fares!
-Rob

[bsquad]

Kind of like a humongous top bar hive! Neat to see that people are pushing boundaries and trying stuff, let us know how it works!! (Is he planning on using frames? If so, could you post a picture of them?)

[odfrank]

He might do a search for my threads on my Gargantua hives, which I have modified this year. My main finding - don't build a frame bigger than will fit in your extractor.

[RiodeLobo]

The hive is 4x8 ft. The deep is using a 1 x 12 and the supers are 1 x 8. He is building frames for it and initially using 10 nucs to start it. He built removable frame supports for the deep nucs that will be removed when they pull out wax on the frames made to fit it. And yes it is designed to be lifted with a forklift. I estimate a super will weigh about 1 ton (if ever filled). The whole thing is insulated.

[HONEYDEW]

It's a coffin!!

He'll need one when he opens that baby up without smoking them first....

[Aerindel]

This may be a stupid question...but what is the point? And if its an experiment what is the hypothesis behind it?

[RiodeLobo]

This may be a stupid question...but what is the point? And if its an experiment what is the hypothesis behind it?

There is no point, this is just for the giggles of it.

[Moon]

There is no point, this is just for the giggles of it.

If that isn't the best reason on the planet to do anything I don't know what is. Keep us up to date with pictures would ya? I'm always up for something different than can make ya smile. =)

Tell your brother best of luck!

[jnewb71]

Holy cow, just imagine the size of the smoker that he will need, . Sorry just poking fun, curious to see it with bees.

[papamoose]

A smoker, just light the neighborhood on fire and blow it in that direction.

However, it is awesome.

[SRatcliff]

I always though about building a hive out of Lincoln Logs, haha.

[papamoose]

My son wanted to do one out of lego's. I am just not sure abount the survival of the plastic in the sun, otherwise I might try it some day

[Kelbor]

If this is anything like fishing, He's gonna need a bigger boat - That thing is going to bring in some HUGE bees.

Way to go - more power to him!!......Half the stuff I do is not practical as well but I guarantee I live an more exciting life then you practical people!

[Ben Franklin]

Seems to me he is trying to re-invent the wheel. Needless to say good luck. I will stick to standard hives, I can pick up a brood chamber by myself and not hurt my back.

[Kelbor]

I don't think he is trying to do any thing other then have fun - I think he is quite aware that this size is not practical.........although he should call it the "Back Breaker" or in the spirit of the ol'west "Tiny"

[RiodeLobo]

Yes this will be a forklift breaker. I will try to get new pics, he installed multiple nucs in it with division boards to keep them seperate. Once they have drawn comb on the super sized frames he will pull nuc frames.

[Luterra]

Let us know how it goes. My guess is that a one-queen hive will never fill it, for the same reason we never find 4'x8' hives in closets, barns, tree cavities, and other large space. There seems to be a natural limit to hive size, which we can stretch somewhat with hive management but the limit is still there.

If he can find a way to manage it as a many-queen operation though (creative use of double screens and excluders?), he might just have the world's largest box of bees :-)