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Newby with Horizontal Hive Build

19K views 74 replies 13 participants last post by  DrakeJ 
#1 ·
First time posting and after I started reading, thought maybe I should start beekeeping with the Langstroth hives then work into the Horizontal Hives. However, living in NE Minnesota where the we have had low temps > -30 without wind chill and talking to local beekeepers about poor overwintering rates (around 40%), I wanted to build an insulated hive based on a cross of the langstroth and Lazutin style hive except with insulation. The walls are made out of two 1/2" plywood sandwiching 2" of EPS insulation. The roof is covered by a sheet of FRP panel. I Built custom double deep frames langstroth width and depth to avoid the brood having to cross any potential barriers between stacked vertical frames in the winter. Also, I built the cover deep enough to accommodate 3 medium supers over top of the double deep brood frames in the event I want to run two colonies out of one hive. Additionally, I can use the space in the lid for moisture absorption and blankets/insulation in the winter. The hive holds 36 double deep frames equivalent to 72 langstroth deeps. I think extraction from a double deep frame will be difficult to impossible from those frames. Anyway, here are a few photos of the hive and a few questions I'm looking for answers for. Constructive criticism and advise are welcomed openly.

1) How do I transfer a nuc colony into the new hive? Do I just shake the bees into the new hive and lay the nuc box near the opening?

2) How do I get a nuc colony to build on the double deep frames and then remove the original single deeps from the purchased nuc eventually?

3) Is there any way to extract honey from the double deep frames without ruining the comb?

4) What pitfalls do you see in the design of the hive?

Thanks for the input.

Chad

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#57 ·
Yeah, if you can't make it yourself, then you are at the mercy of lots of potentially unscrupulous capitalists who want to sell shovels to the gold miners. :) Because I make my own stuff is why I am willing to give his ideas a try. But without some adaptation it does make your current investment in equipment a total loss. But Lazutin didn't adopt a new format so much as working with the one he had access to at the time. I am still going back and forth on what I want to do. The 18" Lazutin just seems unwieldy. There is the double deep Langstroth design which seems only mildly inconvenient to have to twist the lower frames to get them out. Though isn't it the AZ hive that does that but instead of opening the top you open the side and the frames slide out that way? Will the bees mind crossing the barrier of one frame to one above it? They do it now in double deep vertical hives, right?

So if one does just plain old all 1 deep langstroth Long Langstroth at say 25 frames. That is the equivalent to 3 (8f) deeps, or almost 5 (8f) mediums. So that means that if they filled it up, and you undersupered it come fall to let's say the normal 16 deep or 24 medium that would mean a harvest of about 8 deeps (giver or take) unless you are pulling capped frames along the way. (in which you could certainly come up with a higher number.) But as such that comes to 48 lbs of honey. Which is 13 lbs or 2 deep frames more than the most I have ever taken off of a hive in my location ever.

Every time I think I have eliminated one of the 3 designs from the running, Something makes me want it back.
 
#58 ·
Save yourself some hassle and don't bother building anything.
Just stand them up right and call it a day.
No need to hang up anything.
The free standing frames should be the furthest from the entrance and the bees will gradually move away from them.
Like so (a pair of Lang frames freely standing in a long hive).
Click image for larger version.

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Well, I did it! All alone, as covid has my second bee suite ( for my husband) locked in transit for the last 3 weeks, and it has all my bee friends that would be able to help locked away as well. I could have used a extra pair of hands, even unskilled ones. Mine were sure unskilled, and very nervous.

Suffice it to say it was an experience I will not forget. Not really a text book install, and it did not go quite as smoothly as I had hoped. I was so focussed on putting the frames in the box I hardly noticed the bees at all.

They were upset, but not attacking, maybe that was because the nuc box I had did not have the frames solidly standing and when you took one out all the rest tipped over into the void. Or maybe they are all like this and I did it wrong, either way it sped up my process and I did not bother looking for the queen. I thought, the quicker the better and if she is there she is, and if not I will deal with the problem when I find out.

Three days later and they are bringing in lots of pollen.

I have a question on the leaning frames, when do I remove them? I have only 4 layens frames in the rest of the hive space because I did not want to give them too much room at the beginning. The Langstroth are leaning against the back side but I will need them gone when I have to add frames.

I am afraid to disturb that part of the brood nest too early and too often.
 
#59 ·



I have a question on the leaning frames, when do I remove them? I have only 4 layens frames in the rest of the hive space because I did not want to give them too much room at the beginning. The Langstroth are leaning against the back side but I will need them gone when I have to add frames.

I am afraid to disturb that part of the brood nest too early and too often.
Keep putting the Layens frame towards the entrance as the bees progress.
Keep the Langs far away from the entrance.
When you notice the queen working the Layens frames - place a follower board between the Layens frames and the Lang frames so that the queen no longer returns to the Lang frames.
At this time the brood nest will be shifting over onto the Layens frames.
When you notice the Lang frames no longer having the brood on them - remove.
 
#60 ·
Just a quick question, how long should I wait for them to move over?

I have had the bees for 2 weeks, they are starting to put pollen on the first new frame at the entrance of the hive but the 4 langstroth standing frames are still full of bees and the queen is still there. I check the bees once a week, remove and correct some of the comb they seem to be building on the edges of the langstroth frames and the hive box itself. The lang frames are deeps so I could not put them side by side and had to lean them up against the side, the bees are building some comb a little wacky. I was considering laying a cotton cloth over the frames to give the impression that they cannot build comb extending out into the hive.

I keep telling myself to have patience, to take a breath and wait, but I guess I am anxious to do this right and to have the frames hanging in order. I understand this is my problem and not the bees.
 
#61 ·
This will take weeks.
Clearly, you only have enough bees to cover the 4 original frames - they will not just leave them behind and jump into some emptiness.
You need to have enough bees to cover 6-7-8 frames - then those additional bees will be building your new frames.
Then the queen will come and start laying into newly build combs.
Then the nest will be gradually moving over.
 
#62 ·
months is a better yard stick than weeks. When the hive doubles it Should be 1/2 transfered, doubles again 3/4 transfered , by then maybe 2 frames could be shook out.
do you have pics of the wonky? Is there eggs in the new comb? Else they may be reusing the side ways ones.
If they are building they may need feed to help with wax secretion.

next check see if there is open brood in the old frames, if yeas and it has been 8 days then the queen is laying in the old combs.
They will move out at thier own pace.

if you wish to hurry them , you will force them to leave stores or brood behind..

Any way to start fashioning a Queen excluder? as you find a frame brood less or you find the queen out in the new part , "preventing" her from re laying up the old comb could speed up the process. But the bees would need access , queen exclude only. then in 3 weeks when all the brood hatches you can pull that frame. Likely you do 1 at a time to lessen the impact, and "help to transition , not force.

Or just leave it there till spring then prune it out during the sping inspection.

GG
 
#63 ·
Thank you both, I did not check for open brood, but there is definitely capped brood. I was in there yesterday, is it too soon to go look again today? I don't wish to bother them unnecessarily but how often can I go in?

I removed the sugar water feed, they were not taking it at all. The blooming season has just started here and I live right up against the Boreal forest which is abundant with wild choke cherry, saskatoon berries, wild gooseberry, currants and willows. I have a large number of apples, cherries, and plums that are ready to burst, and I run a peony root business with about 400 plants some of which, do produce pollen. I will also add that I have a large yard that is rife with dandelions, which I purposely did not mow and, which I am sure, my farmer neighbour is just itching to spray LOL!

I do have a way to exclude the queen, I have a fairly tight follower board that I could set with a 2 inch gap at the bottom. I would suppose that the fact that the bees are working the frame of drawn comb that I put at the entrance side of the hive is a sign that they are starting to move over.

From both of your answers, and I respect both after reading this forum for the last year, I see that the best course of action, for the bees, is to do nothing.
 
#64 ·
Just a quick update, I was in the hive yesterday and they have moved onto the frames nearest the entrance and are building new comb, there are a lot of bees. This would make the timeframe about 4 weeks.
 
#65 ·
Sweet
as more bees hatch they will expand into the hive farther.
I would not use the follower board as the excluder. Ideally the queen be kept out only, once brood free the old frames can be removed 1 at a time over several weeks. A follower "may" create a split and E Queen Cells. As well a disjointed nest.

sound like you are progressing nicely

GG
 
#68 ·
The follower was only used to keep the bees out of the back end of my hive. It is an extra long Layens and I thought the space was too large, but I did leave room under the board for them to explore. So I have not yet excluded the queen from these frames. My confidence in handling the frames full of bees is getting better so up till now I have not closely examined them but I certainly will this weekend.
 
#69 ·
Ok - thanks for that clarification.

Speaking from my own experience, I have no concerns whatsoever regarding the use of truncated 'follower' boards to clear combs, and have been using this method for several years now without a single instance of queen cell development or split broodnests.

Indeed, for me Long Hives have two major advantages (apart from lifting issues) over vertical hives. One is the ability to easily adjust the effective size of the box by the simple moving a of board. The second is an ability to place combs on the 'wrong' side of the board, either for clearance (in the case of partially-filled combs of honey, pollen or brood), or for 'bed & breakfasting' for a few days combs of open brood which have been used to pull nurse bees up through a queen excluder (say) when using a Cloake Board. A very useful facility when queen-rearing.

Here's a top shot of my favourite 'stash' hive:



It's very versatile: will take any depth of frame, and - thanks to the two different sizes of partial Crown Board shown at the left - by positioning the truncated partition board appropriately, it's then easy to arrange a 'stash area' such that only the end Crown Board needs to be opened for that purpose - thus there's almost zero disturbance to the main hive.

There appears to be no significant reduction in Queen pheromone when using a truncated partition (follower) board, as any increase in path length is essentially no different than that presented by a fully-drawn comb in the same position, and - unlike a brute-force metal-grid QX - there is free, unimpeded traffic flow around such a board.

LJ
 
#70 · (Edited)
That is an interesting hive little_john.

As I get more comfortable with my Layers hive I hope to try a few modified hive ideas that have been posted on Beesource. There is a wealth of information here that new beekeepers can access. Thanks to all of the more experienced for sharing expertise that would be otherwise hard to access.
 
#73 ·
OH WOW, what an incredible treasure of information and new explorational experiences with working with Insulated beehive designs! Just found BS and just found thread on what I am most interested in direction of beekeeping for MY region of long winters for honeybees to survive. Have just jumped into our second attempt with bees but have been taking the as many classes and research as I have been able to find over the last five years on the subject. There is soo much that I wish to discuss/share/learn I hope I don't wear out my welcome.

I believe in the advice of all the beekeepers(published or not) in the advantage of using bee races and husbandry practices best adapted to your region for the beat success for the "hobby" beekeeper. Over the width and breathe of our country how can anyone think that one type of honeybee and practices to house them could be or should be the exact same everywhere. Some things might be somewhat universal but others might be needed to be very different to "keep" HB's throughout our various regions, especially being faced with the many challenges to survival they are facing in our man altered environment. Being said winter is one of the toughest things to survive where I live and anyone making it thru them here firsthand knows the advantages of an INSULATED home if you need to stay warm to live. So I see that as a critical thing to address over beekeepers that can winter in our milder regions. As that direction is not(YET) nearly as practiced here in the US(as I can find) I am going to stumble off on that path, I hope with the sharing of info with any others also interested.

So far I have three insulated hive designs that I have built to start with. A 20 DD(18") frame Lazutin hive design, a modified, insulated DD(18") brood based Langstroth hive, uninsulated supers and a Lewicki design hive(a horizontal design that has DD frames with a brood area and an excluded honey frame area, like a lang on it side).

I also am trying to overcome the issue of installing single deep nuc frames in my new DD hives. Our first attempt two years ago didn't go well in that I thought that a good way to get them off them quickly would be to install them into the lower portion of the hive(on temp ear rails) as I thought as they couldn't build new comb down on them they would move over to DD frames. I also misunderstood Lazutin suggestion that once the hive is inspected in the spring to not disturb them the rest of the summer if things appear well from the outside. This lead to the bees having prospered but they built a winter core of deformed comb upward to top of hive(and just started on to DD frames before winter trapping themselves off from honey reserves above them wanted on DD frames and they starved. Also the Nuc wasn't delivered until late June, they were Italian bees and our winter was coldest in 50 yrs(3/-38F nights in a row).

Took me to two years to source bee cert Russian (I think better adapted to our attitude and as close to the "Northern European Dark Bee" I can yet find Lazutin are best matched to his methods and area. We have jumped in again with a nuc of these bees and a deeper understanding of Lazutins writings as several reading have found their way into better detail I hope(sadly Lazutin is no longer alive to inquire of hi thoughts). This time we searched new nuc for the frame with queen and installed the int the Lazutin hive(which we decided to start with) in the pattern he suggests with two DD foundation frames against one wall then the undisturbed nuc queen frame then the other 4 frames(of 5 F nuc) we brushed/smoked bees into hive(which has the extra space below frames prescribed) so we were OK when we attached another 9" frame under them and we put into hive over them. Stray bees found way into hive as they returned. Then we put 3 more DD frames to the open area side of hive as our first inspection. S 12 F's - F/F/F/NDD/NDD/NDD/NDD/NDD/QN/F/F.

We went with two plastic 9" deep frames attached together(with masonry wall ties) as it was pretty easy to do, they attach very aligned and are very solid. They are mark matched so they can be separated and fit in any standard extractor. Bees are filling them out well though we are having spotty issues on some we waxed ourselves). Starting supplies being limited for some of us such as frames, wax, used comb(especially on DD F's).

We were informed of Russian capacity of spring build up and we got them in late April this time. We thought we were set until mid summer with room for the bees but the bees filled the frames we had by early June and all we had was enough(unwaxed) frame to fill hive and we were just learning that there were different sizes of cells in plastic(which would be OK for Russians and there was drone comb(did we need it?) and in the time to figure it all out. We filled out hive with prewaxed frames but it had already went swarm mode and we got our first one mid June. It was captured in several attempts(very high 35,very hard, against tree trunk). NOT the docile bee shake so often talked about. Got it installed in Mod-Lang hive but as we only captured about 50% of swarm needed to get a feeder/pollen patties. Whew! Lot more to learn so far than I had planned. Two weeks later an after swarm(dream swarm on a branch 5' high - easy peasy).but we needed way more frames(now Covid shortage).

So now we are three colonies. One mother swarm w/ mated queen, laying brood. One after swarm, virgin queen?, new comb no brood yet. One original nuc colony, lot of bees, virgin queen?, no brood in used brood comb(being filled with honey). So much to learn about at once. ALL filtered to be applicable to three different INSULATED hive designs and Russian race bees. Good news lots of bees(two colonies of which are now all on DD frames), have excellent nectar resources for colony reserves but a lot too learn about getting colonies back to brood production(getting virgin queens mated). I am not near any apiaries I am aware of. Do I have enough drones of my own or maybe feral? Will there be a DCA around me?

Things learned so far: 1)If you want to use plastic frames wax, wax, wax, more is better than less. 2)Lazutin speaks of the use of the hive opening as a means to move the bees brood comb thru hive(queen likes to lay brood close to opening). I think I underemphasized this and did not move my portion of the hive long slit opening to maybe prevent swarming. I am not anti- swarm just wasn't ready for it this year. 3)Lazutin also suggests as little bee disturbance as possible but I think now he is talking about the developing winter core than just checking the hive to add frames, activity etc if weather/temp is not detrimental. 4) be prepared for the next thing if you can - bees don't appear to interested in my schedule/plans, lol.
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