Welcome to our "Technical" Pages

The Hive

Beekeeeping Equipment

Frames

Back to the Technical Index

Back to the Beekeeping home-page

 

The Hive

A hive

The hive as everyone knows is the home of the honeybee, but how is it constructed? and what goes on inside?

In historical times bees were traditionally kept in 'skeps'. These were basically upturned baskets that the bees could build their comb inside. Sadly the only way to get the honey out at the end of the season was to kill the bees and remove the naturally formed comb…. Understandably today skeps are usually used just for collecting swarms.

skeps
Skeps at a beekeeping demonstration

Our Skep
Our own skep, we only use this for catching swarms. The sacking is to cover caught swarms

During the last century a great invention was made to separate the honeycomb from the comb used to raise brood…. The queen excluder… But more of that later. Removable frames of comb could now be placed inside protective boxes in which the bees were hived, the honeycomb could be removed separately without disturbing the brood. Many many different types of hive were designed, but most follow this principle… Langstroth, WBC, National, smith, commercial etc…. but don't worry about all that they all work on the same principle.

The most popular hive early this century was one called the WBC hive… It is the one we traditionally associate with bees and its picture adorns many a jar of honey. Its big drawback was it was double walled. The inner boxes were surrounded by a second box, traditionally painted white. The gap between could be packed with straw for Winter protection. The bees stood a good chance of surviving the winter but there is a lot of work using these types of hive particularly for commercial beekeepers.

(***Insert wbc.jpg***)

The single walled hives have now become most popular….. We use a hive called the 'National' hive. The most popular type in the U.K.

hive floorHere we have the hive floor. It is changed and cleaned every Spring. We inspect the debris that we collect to look for the dreaded Varroa and other parasites. Behind the floor is the brood-box, In here 'frames' of comb are placed for the workers to make cells for rearing brood: More bees!

brood box with excluderHere we see the brood box positioned on the hive floor, notice the narrow entrance at the bottom just tall enough for bees to enter. On top of the brood box is the 'queen excluder' the vital piece of hive equipment that mentioned earlier. Slots in this metal sheet are only just wide enough for worker bees to pass through. The queen bee is too large to fit through so no eggs or brood can be laid in boxes above this…. Hence the name queen excluder… Therefore only honey is stored above this….

excluder in situAn excluder in position on one of our hives, notice the frames of comb below

completed hiveThe upper smaller boxes are called 'supers', don't ask us why they are called supers as we don't know! In September these boxes are removed. Remember that the queen excluder has stopped any brood being reared in these upper chambers which now should just contain stored honey.
On top of these boxes is the 'crown board'. For most of the year this is on top of the supers. Note the small openings on which 'feeders' can be put, (these feeders are useful for us to give the bees feeds of sugar syrup if they look as if their stores are getting low). The main use of the crown board however is in September when it replaces the queen excluder. (Giving rise to its other name of clearer board). One way bee escapes called 'porter escapes' are fitted into the slots in the clearer board and these allow the bees down into the brood box but not back into the supers. Thus the honey supers are emptied of bees and we can sneak off with the honey crop.

bee escapesPorter escapes. (Some opened-up to show how they work).

all the bits that make up a hiveAt the very top is the roof. We've made sloping roofs as it makes the hives look more like the prettier wbc hives, but most National hives have flat roofs…

So that is the bits that go together to make up a bee hive

beekeeperv and beehive

A beehive and a beekeper.