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Author Topic: Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments  (Read 1810 times)

Offline RatedMark

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Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments
« on: May 02, 2020, 07:52:00 pm »
Going with the top bar style, this won't probably ever be moved as its a suburban and its on my patio roof. Gotta get some glue. I used 3/8 plywood and I screwed 4 sheets together on each side. Thinking about running a 5th but with an air gap between them. I also have flow frames im gonna install. But have them installed perpendicular to the hive instead of parallel so I can access honey with minimal changes.

Thoughts comments. I got all the measure menus working. What is the gap recommendation between the bottom of the frame and screen. Right now I have about an inch, and then 1 inch between the top of the frame and the removable boards.

Offline Kwalt

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Re: Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments
« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2020, 09:28:56 pm »
Look up "beespace".  If you have more than 3/8" space anywhere the bees will fill it with burr comb.  If you have less than 1/4" they will fill it with propolis.  If you have more than the 3/8 open space above the frames the bees will build comb up there.  If you have too much space at the bottom of the frames they may build comb below but I've never had them attach it to the bottom.  It's something to be aware of when designing your hive.

Kevin


Offline RatedMark

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Re: Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2020, 09:33:09 pm »
My hive is gonna be similar to yours in the picture. Only diffence is I'm building in flow frames.

Online cao

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Re: Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2020, 11:02:29 pm »
I have several long hives and Kwalt is right about beespace.   The top is more important than the bottom.  No more than 3/8" between top of frames and cover.  The bottom can be more.  Most hives with bottom boards have over 3/4" space under frames.

Offline FloridaGardener

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Re: Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments
« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2020, 11:35:32 am »
     It's been my observation with my TBHs that they take more active management than a vertical Langstroth. That's quite fun for a new beekeeper, and certainly I prefer the way the bees aren't in the air during inspections as they are in and vertical hive.

     As far as disturbing the bees: You have a great head start in the long-hive format. Actually the bees are good natured and don't get disturbed much if you can cultivate work that is gentle, purposeful, precise, and quick.  You may even find that you have a little communication with them as livestock, in that they can tell you what's going on by their sound or what they're doing, and they can act sort of relieved when you fix something for them. So "disturbing" the bees is one of the little pleasures of beekeeping.

     That said, honey management is more difficult in a long hive.  I'm foundationless,  and it appeared to work best if, after one use (first white wax + drones), drone comb was moved to the outside edge as the "pantry" ... out of the way where the queen could conveniently lay more drones. 

      In a long hive, others too have noticed that the bars become sort of mixed honey/pollen/ brood.  If I want a couple cups of household honey, I can bring a tupperware and cut out the top of a bar which the bees can easily festoon and re-fill.  There are fewer solid bars of all honey.

     So from my experience, using a flow frame would be sort of incompatable with a long hive without an queen excluder...the bees might not fill it.  But it would be a good experiment.   


Offline RatedMark

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Re: Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments
« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2020, 11:20:53 pm »
I'm gonna modify an excluder. There is a possibility they won't even use them. I do have 7, and well there is close to 30 frames before them. The entire box is close to 48 inches and 19 inches at the end is for the flow frames.

I suppose this is a bit of an experiment for me and I really like the idea of the flow frames. We will see i guess.

Thank you all for the information.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2020, 11:51:31 pm by RatedMark »

Online cao

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Re: Building a rectangular hive thoughts comments
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2020, 12:20:50 am »
If you get them to fill the entire length they will probably use the flow frames.  By the time they get that big they are filling full frames of honey.  Not the normal mixed frames that are typically found in the brood nest.