I finished the new hive I designed - just enough anyway to get some pictures on here. I still need to put the 1/8th inch screen in the stand. I accidently bought the wrong size and had to get more.
This hive has a double brood box on the bottom. It's exactly long enough for two of my regular hive boxes to fit the length of it. The frames will run parallel to the entrance. The stand is on 18 inch legs, and has a screened bottom (will have).
These are the various parts for the hive. Top Left - hive stand (needs screen), Second from Left - double hive body, Third from Left - honey super, Far Right/Leaning on honey super - two inner lids, Bottom far Left - small uppermost lid, Bottom Center and Right - two lids. The stand also has frame rests on either side that can hold 3-5 frames.
In the winter, with no honey supers, all that will be on the hive is - double brood box, two inner lids, two upper lids, and the uppermost lid in the center.
click for larger imageIn the summer, as I start to add honey supers they'll go on the back end of the hive, away from the entrance. I plan to put all the frames with brood towards the front of the large brood box. The small uppermost lid will come off and get stored away. After putting on the honey supers, the inner lid and outer lid will go on top of that.
click for larger imageThe reason I made the brood box the exact size of two of my supers, is so that if I ever wanted to add a weak hive to this one that I could do it without taking off honey supers. I can put it on the front area of the hive, above the brood area. I'm also hoping that this increased brood area will encourage the queen to lay more. We'll see over the next year how it goes. You can also see in this picture how I have added holes to the lid, with screen, for cross-flow ventilation.
click for larger imageI didn't take any pictures of the building process. I figured that would make for too long of a post to show you all of that. The pictures of it finished I hope give enough of an idea of the way it's built.
Beth