Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications  (Read 3770 times)

beechet

  • Guest
Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« on: January 14, 2018, 04:32:48 pm »
I have in mind to make several mods to a hive plan and have the equipment and believe I can make the cuts and build the hive but doubt my ability to draw the plans.  Is there a company that does this and provides the blueprint?  TIA

Offline HillBilly2

  • New Bee
  • *
  • Posts: 46
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2018, 05:46:37 pm »
If your talking about cut lists, I use MaxCut. Just input the sizes and the stock your cutting it will generate an optimized cutting diagram.

Offline BeeMaster2

  • Administrator
  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 13494
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2018, 08:04:19 am »
What type of hive are you planning on using and what modifications are you referring to?
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline minz

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 332
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2018, 12:16:03 pm »
Other than a pencil and graph paper? You have top, hive, bottom and frames are you looking to determine ?clash? like on a BIM construction model? Maybe more info on what you are trying to do.
Poor decisions make the best stories.

beechet

  • Guest
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2018, 01:46:38 pm »
I want to try a layens style but adapted to two med langs joined together and turned 90 degrees with sbb.  I know making those measurements to allow proper bee space shouldn't be hard but I'm a big dunce on that kinda thing.

beechet

  • Guest
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2018, 02:16:01 pm »
I should also say that I am trying to adjust the dimensions of the hive plans in Dr Leo's site to accomdate these lang frames. TIA

Offline little john

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1537
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2018, 07:11:08 pm »
The first question to be asked is what variation of the De Layens hive are you planning to build ?



The original is a very successful format, details of which can be pulled from Georges de Layens' book: Elevage-Des-Abeilles.  There's an online .pdf copy (in French) at:  http://apiculture-populaire.com  but as you will see from the following graphic, this format does require an extra-deep 16" frame, which will obviously need to be custom-made:



If you should decide to use this format, then simply stack your boxes, measure their internal height, then subtract roughly 0.5" - and make your frames that height.  This measurement isn't critical as it's below the frame. 

I've tried working with eleven 14" deep frames (see: http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com/beek15.htm), as opposed to De Layens' twenty 16" frames and, although the 14" does perform noticeably better than the British standard 9" deep frame, I couldn't entertain the idea of yet another size of frames in this apiary - so I've standardised on 9" and 12".

This is a shot of a Layens-style 'a grenier' (granary) format 20-frame Long Hive - designed to accommodate both 12" and 9" frames - with the two space-occupying boxes pushed together at one end.



I'm using this hive configuration for the first time to over-winter a medium-strength Carnie colony - can't comment further on this, other than to say I've seen substantial flying from the hive within the last 2 weeks, so it's a case of "so far, so good".
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

beechet

  • Guest
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2018, 11:23:52 am »
Thank you so much LittleJohn, looks like I'm not as well versed on these as I thought - I didn't know about the other versions, although I have given some thought to being able to place upper supers.  I still think I want to build to suit 90 degree turned lang med frames and I say that because on another forum I have seen a thread where the person did that and the bees seem to be doing very well.

Offline little john

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1537
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2018, 12:33:22 pm »
Thank you so much LittleJohn, looks like I'm not as well versed on these as I thought - I didn't know about the other versions [...]

We've ALL been there.  Everyone - without exception - starts off knowing little, and in many cases nothing at all.  Then, we gradually amass various bits of knowledge from books, tips and advice from other beekeepers, and so on ...

My own motivation for building the 'a grenier' format Layens-style box is in order to create a 'stash-box': somewhere I can deposit frames of open brood for a week, between using them for priming nurse bees in a Queenless Starter-Finisher, and returning those frames when the queen-cells are capped in order to keep adding a supply of new bees to the population.  A Long Hive is ideal for this temporary stashing of brood frames, as it's a breeze to enlarge and contract the frame capacity, and with this particular variation of Layens, two frame sizes can very easily be accommodated.

I've no idea what your own motivation is for working with the Layens Hive, but I think experimenting with different size formats is time well spent.  I also think staying with standard boxes (if at all possible) whilst experimenting is the most sensible approach.  If you're staying with standard Langstroth gear, then the only issue becomes that of frame depth and bottom spacing, which as I say isn't critical - so Good Luck with this.
 
BTW, who is Dr. Leo ?  Not a name I'm familiar with.
'best
LJ
A Heretics Guide to Beekeeping - http://heretics-guide.atwebpages.com

beechet

  • Guest
Re: Hive Plans Drawn To My Specifications
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2018, 01:45:59 pm »
Dr. Leo Sharashkin is the editor of Keeping Bees With a Smile.  You can find him at the horizontalhive website where he provides plans and sells equipment.  I visited him at a conference back in October, seems like a great guy.

 

anything