[TDITim]

I am thinking about doing a hive for comb honey production next year and I've been reading alot on the subject. Richard Taylor and other advocate stuffing an existing 2 deep story hive into a shallow or just 1 deep. They also talk about moving the rest of the hive directly behind the existing hive and adding a new queen. I'm pretty lazy and more worried about hurting my back than necessarily the expense of building a nice stand so I've put together a picture of something I have been thinking about that I want to run by everyone. My main existing stand design is basically built around 3 hives in a row, except I leave the middle empty to stack onto when I'm doing inspections. You can see that right here.

For this new design I have decided to try and design something that is reusable just in case the comb honey idea doesn't pan out. I'm going to make 2 sections that are bolted together but that can easily be taken apart to make an L shaped stand in the future. I'd like any ideas or constructive criticism you have. The picture of the design is located here.

[This message has been edited by TDITim (edited December 28, 2004).]

 

[Michael Bush]

Basically it's not that critical where the split goes when you do the cut-down split. Behind or beside or whatever, but it's helpful if it faces a different direction so the workers don't drift so much to the new one, especially if the new one has a queen and the old cut-down does not (which is how I would do it).

I think you're overcomplicating it. I'd just build stands like you already are, except maybe a bit wider. I'd probably put less blocks under them too, just so I don't have to lift those supers so high. That top one gets to be a reach even with a hive almost on the ground.