Traditional Long Hives - present time
Many years ago, I gave an idea to my friend Bogdan to re-design the long hive model used in Europe for more than a century to accommodate American deep-size frames. Based on this suggestion, my friend constructed the hives pictured on this page. These photos demonstrate his remarkable craftsmanship and attention to details.
The hive body pictured here features tri-layer walls and holds 32 deep-size frames.
One inch Styrofoam is installed between two wooden walls.
In this model, additional hive bodies are not possible, because the main idea of long hives is to have only one hive body without any attachments. This approach helps to maintain proper ventilation inside the hive. As a matter of fact, I have never seen any mold inside my friend's hives.
BS - bee space, a 3/8-inch space that the bees use to navigate around the hive. "In all things there are exceptions... when it comes to the gap between the frame bottom bars in the bottom box and the floor surface underneath it, this is usually 28 mm or 31 mm in UK hives, but it does not suffer brace or burr comb unduly, as the bees consider it a similar situation to a wild nest in a cave." http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/bsp.html You can read more about bee space here
The hive with an open roof
Inspecting this type of hives is very convenient
because you don't have to disturb the whole colony.
In addition, you can open the only small number of frames. Such technique helps to prevent hive-robbery.
Fresh brood
Hive divider.
You can keep two small colonies or six to seven nuc-size colonies in one hive.
Two colonies in one hive.
Bogdan's wife during a hive inspection. Here you can see How is too easy to inspect this hive - Full HD Video
Five-year-old hive. There are no mold signs, hive is completely clean inside!
Comb honey
Comb honey
Two more hives
Normally, my friend keeps just one colony in each hive (two entrances are opened).
Nevertheless, if a colony occupies less than 2/3 of the hive, he uses a divider to limit access to the extra space. In this situation, the second hive entrance is closed.
If your bee colony starts propolizing the ventilation mesh, that means you have to consider installing additional insulation, especially if the colony size is too small.
For some hives Bogdan installed ventilation pipes (screened at bottom with mesh) instead of boards with mesh.
Ventilation pipes wrapped with wool for the winter.
If your local winter temperatures are cold, I recommend installing insulation skirts around hive stands.
January 04, 2014 Outside Temperature: - 16C Inside Hive Temperature: + 22.6C
Snowy winter - February 14, 2014
All seven bee colonies successfully survived during harsh winter. New eggs and brood - February 20, 2018
Entrance Pollen Trap - May 21, 2018
Bee Pollen (150 grams/per day/per hive) - May 21, 2018
Bearding of the very strong colony (a lot of bees and brood, and therefore temperature in this hives became uncomfortable for the bees).
Attention, very often bearding is a very good sign a colony should be divided to avoid swarming!- June 10, 2019