What kind of hives do you use?

Brice

While I feel I am new to beekeeping, my back is not new. This year I went from 10 to 8 frame Langstroth big hives. I have 5 frame Langstroth nucs. I have Layens hives in 6, 7, 8, 15, 20, and 25 frame horizontal hives. I am leaning towards the horizontal hives over the vertically stacked Langstroth hives. I am curious about Top bar hives, does anyone have any experience with top bar hives?

AthenasBees

I use a custom eight frame hive that is 13.5 inches wide rather than the 14 or 13.75 wide sold commercially. I also have a WBC hive from England. I thought the WBC would be interesting as it is double walled. The frames are a unique size so only a swarm or a package works with it. My first season with it I put in Sascatraz bees, not knowing at the time how much they love to draw comb. They gummed things up pretty good. Last year I installed a Russian hybrid package and they seemed to love the drawn comb but neither of these colonies made it through a winter. No surprise with packages but hopefully in 2025 I can install a swarm from my healthy, acclimated colonies.

Brice

Athena, are your honey supers 8 frame as well? On another hive style, I have wondered about using the "Sam Comfort Hive" for some splits. By using short bamboo skewers as top bars, I could install them in a variety of frames. Any experience or thoughts?

AthenasBees

I haven't thought of Sam Comfort in a long time. He spoke at our club some time ago - then top bars fell out of favor but are back now with more climate savvy designs. No experience with top bar hives, Brice, and yes, my honey supers are mediums. I like one deep brood box and I like the same number of frames above to keep pathways open for the bees. I know when left to their own devices bees can make some pretty maze-like designs with comb in a box but just in case it matters in winter and I leave honey supers on, I want them to conform to lining up box to box. Great article on Sam Comfort from back in the day here: Bee Culture Magazine.

ktmurphy54

After finishing my first bee school, I picked up my first two hives from White Mountain Apiary on May 5th, 2022. I built a 24 frame Layens hive and a Bee Barn. The Bee Barn hive consists of (1) deep and (1) medium Langstroth boxes joined together with frames that extend the full length of both boxes for the brood. On top of those, boxes are added just like on any other Langstroth configuration.

Everything went great for my first two years, I produced quite a bit of honey and I expanded my apiary to (2) Layens hives and (2) Bee Barn hives, and (1) regular Langstroth hive. During my second year I took a great refresher course from Athena. Then in the fall of 2024, even though I had a baited electric fence around my apiary and tested it weekly, I lost all five hives to a bear. The only thing I can think of was that the soil around the apiary was to sandy and the bear wasn’t grounded enough to get the full shock from the electric fence.

This year I plan to begin again with several hives - (2) Layens hives, (1) long Langstroth hive, (1) Keepers Two Queen hive, and (1) Ivy Bee observation hive. I have (2) Saskatraz bee packages coming from Vermont Beekeeping Supply and (3) NUCS from Troy at Hall Apiaries in NH.

Brice

On electric fences and grounds, if you have dry and or sandy soils and have an all-hot wire fence there might not have been adequate grounding. A 5-wire fence with, from the bottom wire, hot, ground, hot, ground, hot, may be more effective at providing a better ground contact for the bear. This is a 3 wire setup that works, adding another hot and ground for good measure makes the 5-wire setup I have... that has been tested by my local bears! https://youtu.be/k8-tmulErMA?si=Bc7DwzcvYWkmNoIT

ktmurphy54

Brice, thank you very much for the input. I'll take a look at the link.

Brice

sure thing. on my fence I made the lead to the bottom hot wire detachable so I could still be protected even with a bit of snow covering the bottom wire.