What Does the Novice Beekeeper Need to Know?

Number 2

The Beehive

"And Why"

The "beehive" is the location that the honeybees live at. The honeybee colony is the group of bees that live in the beehive.

A properly constructed and clean beehive is essential for a healthy bee colony.

Ventilation to reduce moisture is important to colony health as American and European Foulbrood are associated with increased moisture in the hive. Good ventilation also assists in dehydrating the honey as it ripens after being place in the comb. Proper ventilation also assists the bees in regulating the inside temperature of the hive.

Wood hive or plastic: There are traditional 10 frame or 8 frame Langstrof hives. There are hard plastic hives and there are soft styrofoam hives. Plastic is supposed to give you maintenance free hives. Styrofoam is supposed to act as an antiheat insulation. 8 Frames is supposed to reduce the weight you may have to lift at any one time. The 10 Frame Langstrof made of wood and painted white is the standard.

By using the 8 frame hive you reduce the total weight of any of the boxes used for brood chamber area and honey super. Many people use only medium depth boxes for both the brood chamber and honey supers in their 8 frame set up. This reduces weight and confusion but increases management time. The bees will work and fill up 8 frames faster than 10. Medium depth will get filled faster than deep boxes. If you can only work your bees on Saturday the larger format might be better to schedule your management times. You will have more flexibility with 10 deep frames. Frequently vacations get scheduled at peak honeybee work periods and you won't have 7 days before the bees need tended again.

A "good" 10 frame hive with lots of bees and a good nectar flow, can draw the comb on 10 shallow honey supers, fill them with honey, and cap them in less than 10 days. For vacation you just add a few extra supers. With an 8 frame medium hive you have to add the supers faster and more of them.

Plastic hives or hive parts can warm from the heat of the sun. Styrofoam hives damage easily, denting and breaking. They also degrade from the UV sun rays.

Many times, the non-wood products are not compatible with standard wooden hive parts. This is also somewhat true between wooden hive parts between different manufactures. The wooden boxes and the frames and frame sub parts (top, side, and bottom bars, are not compatible) are not exactly the same size. A 1/16^th of an inch can make the difference. This can make maintenance difficult in future years.

Telescoping cover: A good level outer storm cover is desirable. Some people use "migrating covers". You want a weather proof top cover that sheds rain and reflects heat. A cover with a rim around the upper most box will shed more rain. Optimally the lid will facilitate increased hive ventilation. A migrating cover fits tightly "over" the top box but does not have a rim. It is designed so four hives can be placed exactly tight together on a shipping pallet. The rim on a "normal" hive would keep the migrating hive boxes 2" apart.

You don't want your lid so tight it is hard to get centered and placed on the top box. If it is too tight it will become difficult to use when you are working the bees and the wood is a little swollen from aerial moisture.

A metal covered lid will extend the life of the wooden lid. It also will reflect heat from the sun beating down on it. A plastic lid looks like a good idea but they warp from the heat. They also become brittle in about 5 years because they are not ultra violet (uv) stable.

Some people cut holes in the center of their lids the correct size to hold a feeder bottle. More on that under "feeding and care of the honeybee # 5".

Inner cover: They come in wood and plastic. Plastic will warp. Ones made out of particle board or light weight plywood will delaminate due to the moisture from the bee respiration inside the hive. The primary purpose of the inner cover is to allow the outer cover to not be propolyzed tightly shut. If the outer telescoping cover does not have an inner cover under it the bees will glue it tightly to the edge of the top box. There is no way to pry the lid off with a hive tool without causing some damage to the upper box. With an inner cover the telescoping cover can be lifted off and then the inner cover pried off by inserting the hive too into the crack between the top box and the cover. No damage done.

I like inner covers with a solid wood frame for durability and inner space of waterproof plywood or "hard board". Hard board is made using water resistant glue.

Most inner covers have an air vent hole in the middle. This is very important here in the south for air flow ventilation during the summer and moisture escape in the winter. With migrating outer covers you lose these two advantages because there is no inner cover.

Honey super: shallow medium deep w/frames

The important point on honey supers is to just have one size. If you have multiple sizes you will invariably have to wrong size frame when you need to add frames to the box.

Weight is the main concern when choosing a size. A 10 frame shallow super weighs about 40 lbs. when full of honey, yielding 30 lbs. of honey. A 10 frame medium about 60 lbs., yielding 45 lbs. of honey. A 10 frame deep is 90 lbs., yielding about 60 lbs. of honey.

The main reason for using shallow supers is our irregular nectar flow here in the mountains. The honeybees will draw the comb, fill a shallow super with honey, and cap it faster than a deep frame. You need to have 90% of the honey capped before you extract it. 50% of a deep frame equals 100% of a shallow. This means you would have one shallow super completed and one not completed. You could extract the completed shallow one and leave the partially completed shallow until the next nectar flow to be finished. But, you would not be able to extract the partially completed deep super. Uncapped honey is left on the hive for winter food for the honey bees.

Brood Chamber: Your choice is 1 or 2 boxes. And then you must decide between shallow, medium, or deep frames. Oh, and then the decision of 10 or 8 frames.

Shallow frames are out because they fill up with brood too fast. The queen does not appreciate having to jump over the one inch space between each layer of hive boxes. In reality the worker bees don't either.

Some people talk about being one box brood chambers. They are not being accurate. Everyone that uses one box brood chambers places a medium or a shallow honey super over them to provide a place to store extra winter food. During the year you also need extra food stored up in case there is a dearth (short duration dry spell) when there is no nectar available.

So, in reality everyone is a two box brood chamber. The question is a medium or another deep box (called a double deep).

The double deep is the way to go. It takes a full year (the first year) to get the comb drawn and filled with honey. The extra honey that might be stored comes in handy when spring does not come on the correct day and you need more stored honey at the end of winter. It is better to have the honey than have to implement emergency feeding practices to avoid starvation.

Also, a good queen will fill 8 deep frames with brood in 8 weeks. This makes a 10 frame hive system more handy. Two double deeps equal 20 frames for the queen to lay on. Some years she will use 16 frames. There needs to be some for honey and pollen storage for larval brood food. Your ability to lift a 90 lbs. deep box full of bees and honey may come into play. This will cause you to choose the medium or 8 frame configurations. Just remember you will need to inspect and manage the colony more frequently.

Frames:

Foundation: You have several choices here. You can install foundation in your frames or you can encourage the bees to draw comb "naturally". You can use plastic foundation coated with a layer of beeswax or us thin beeswax sheets that do or do not have wire imbedded in them for support.

Many people unduly worry about pesticide contamination of the wax that is used for foundation. You can always have your own wax rolled into foundation. The science is a little shaky here. Yes, contamination can be found in the commercial wax. It is questionable how seriously this affects the queen and young larvae.

Plastic foundation is preferred by many commercial beekeepers because of its durability during transport. Different manufacturers coat their plastic foundation with varying thicknesses of beeswax. If the coating is too thin the bees will avoid drawing comb on it. You have to plan on rewaxing any new plastic foundation you buy. If the foundation is not properly waxed the bees might make comb that is not connected to the plastic foundation. This creates a hidden pathway for the bees to use making finding the queen nearly impossible.

If you let the bees draw their own comb with no foundation you may be pleasantly surprised at the strange ways they will position the comb. The foundation is designed to encourage the bees to draw the comb perpendicular to the frames. This allows for thorough inspection of the hive and honey extraction using a mechanical extractor. When left to their own devices, honeybees might make columns out of the comb. They might draw it 90 degrees to the frame eventually making it impossible to remove the frames without destroying the colony structure.

Bottom board: Your choices here are screened or solid. Screened bottom boards are recommended as an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) practice. The screened bottom allows the shed varroa mites to fall through to the ground vs. landing on a solid bottom and then climbing onto another honeybee. In the South the screen aids in summer ventilation keeping the hive at a more manageable (to the bees) temperature.

There are IPM bottom boards that have slots where a ridged plastic panel may be slid in to close the bottom in the winter. This helps retain temperature in the hive and blocks wind. Some of these plastic panels have 1" squares so you can measure the varroa mite drop to monitor the colony's infestation.

I use all solid bottom boards. The bees avoid the bottom 4" of the frame with a screened bottom board. The avoid the light and coolness of an open bottom. With a solid bottom the queen will brood all the way to the bottom and the workers will store honey all the way to the bottom. We really do not need the extra ventilation here in the mountains.

As for the good and practical advantage of the screened bottom board reducing the mite count, I think the current varroa mite treatments are working well enough that the IPM trade off versus the bees using the full frame tips toward the solid bottom board and proper mite management.

Well painted wood is an excellent bottom board.

Different manufacturers have different heights to the entrance slot. Most are about 7/8". You can use the "winter"3/8" any time of the year. They are better to keep the mice out of the hive. 3/8" will also keep the European hornets out. It is not so hot here in the mountains that we need the 7/8" summer entrance.

There is much discussion on where the entrance "hole" to the hive should be. Traditionally it is at the bottom of the hive. In a tree it is maybe 5' off the ground. The honeybee seems to make it work. They like it up and about 1" long by 3/8" tall.

Hive stand: You have to have a hive stand. It slows the ants and mice from entering the hive. Placing the hive on a 4" pallet will reduce the moisture moving up from the ground. Placing the hive on a stack of cinder blocks 2 high will make it much easier on you back to work. Going more than 16" high on the stand will make it more difficult to add and manage honey supers above chest high.

There are cute commercial stands. Cinder Blocks are excellent for individual hives. Benches made of wood laid between cinder blocks is okay. You don't want multiple hives too close together. No closer than 3' and 5' is better. Bees will drift from colony to colony. This can spread diseases.

Bear fence:

You need one here in the hills. The bears do not really hibernate so it needs to be on all year long. Solar power is good. Sometimes you need the reliability of the old fashioned 12 volt car battery type.

All the types of insulation:

Bee hives do not need any type of insulation. Insulation can cause moisture accumulation in the hive. The bees live in hollow trees in Siberia and Minnesota. They are okay at 50^o below zero. You do want to reduce the effects of wind. This is done by reducing the entrance hole in the winter and blocking the bottom of the hive.

Picture of hive

Need to figure out how to do this