Beekeeping can be defined as the art of tricking a bunch of bees into living and working inside of a provided container long enough to make it worthwhile to steal from them. That may seem mean, but if you do it right, they don’t seem to mind, too much. Bees have been building hives on their own for millions of years—they don’t really need our help in that regard. We do need their help, however, which is why I think learning about bees and beekeeping is something in which everyone should be interested. So many of our food crops are pollinated by the various species of bees. I personally keep honey bees as a hobby; they are outside in their hives right now, huddled in a ball around their queen, eating honey and trying to stay warm. It’s hard to say if they will survive the winter. I’ve had some successful over-wintering experiences and some not-so-successful ones. I’ll find out some time in the next month when there is a warmer day (and I happen to be home). If it’s in the 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit range, they will be out flying around, trying to do some house cleaning and using the bathroom, so-to-speak. I would also like to open up their hives and take a peak inside. Hopefully I’ll see some activity, if not, I’ll have to buy some new bees and start over. This isn’t a big deal, but it can get expensive. A new queen and a couple of pounds of bees is nearly a hundred dollars delivered. One of my ambitions for the future is to run some experiments on the more popular alternative hive designs, but it all costs money, so it could be a few years. In the mean time, I’ve been enjoying the process of researching the history and evolution of beehives.
Early Hive Styles
In the wild, honey bees tend to live in hollowed out areas in trees or in rocks. This means they also like hollowed out areas in the walls of a house or garage, which can cause quite a headache for an unassuming homeowner. In Pipestone, MN, the town to which I live nearest, a huge (but dead) hive of honey bees was found in the dome of the courthouse when they were repainting it last year. They removed three hundred pounds of wax comb out of a rusted gutter, which is pretty impressive. It just goes to show that bees are pretty adaptable. All they require is a dry, dark, protected space, and it needs to be within a certain range of volume. Early beekeepers probably just harvested honey from wild hives in trees, a practice still done in many parts of the world. Then hollowed out logs were probably used to mimic a wild hive. This style of bee hive, called a “bee gum” is still used today as well. Another once popular style of beehive is called a skep. It can be made of straw or wicker and is often covered with clay. It’s sort of like an inverted basket, though the walls are quite thick, to repel water and insulate the hive. Hives can also be made out of pottery or mud adobe. This style is still popular in Egypt. The problem with all of these old-fashioned styles of bee hives, is that you almost always had to kill the bees or destroy the hive to harvest the honey. Making a wax comb and filling it with honey is a lot of work for a hive of bees. If you have to destroy it every year, that means you’re starting over from scratch the next season. And, if you have to kill your bees every year, that would also include catching a new swarm and convincing them to go into your hive the next Spring.
Langstroth Hives
I keep my bees in what are called Langstroth hives, which are the most common variety of man-made bee housing. The design was patented in 1852 by Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth and it combines the recently discovered knowledge of proper bee spacing with vertically stacked modular boxes full of frames that are built with a wax foundation. The boxes and frames vary in size depending on if they are for the brood chamber or for a honey super. This style is used by all of the big traveling pollination companies, and they are the industry standard. I inherited most of my equipment, so I am happy to use what I have. Langstroth hives are popular because they work well, and their reinforced foundation frames make centrifugal extraction of honey possible. However, Langstroth hives aren’t the only hives out there. There are lots of variations on the idea, including WBC Hives, Dadant Hives, National Hives, Commercial Hives, and then there are some completely different designs that I find very exciting, like the Dartington Hive. I’ve even come across hives that are built into buildings, some inside a mobile trailer, and some with elaborate paint jobs. My hives are just plain white, but I’m considering the idea of customizing them or accepting sponsorship and selling the ad space—I don’t think the bees will mind.
Top-bar Hives
http://www.beethinking.com/
One of the most foreign (to me) alternative beekeeping styles is called a top-bar or Kenya hive. As you might guess, this style of hive has its origins in the African country of Kenya, and is supposed to be a cheaper alternative to a Langstroth style hive. The other name refers to the moveable bars that are suspended over the body of the hive. Bees will attach their comb onto these bars and then it serves the same purpose as the frames in a more typical hive. The other aspect of this kind of hive is that it is horizontally oriented, as you can see in the picture. I’m not sure how one goes about harvesting honey without disturbing brood, but I’m sure they’ve come up with a system to keep the queen in one area. The lack of reinforcement in the comb would also eliminate a spinner type extractor, so this kind of beekeeping would be more complicated for me in that respect. I’m still fascinated by the idea, and I may try building or buying a top-bar hive sometime soon.
Warre Hives
http://www.beethinking.com/
Another style which I’ve come across recently is called the Warre hive. It is named after its inventor Abbé Warré, a twentieth-century French priest, author, and apiarist. What I initially liked about the Warre hive is that I just think it looks neat, with the little house on top. Its design sort of combines the vertical stacking of the Langstroth hive, but uses top-bars instead of frames. This means harvesting the honey will require different equipment and methodology, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Also, you also always add boxes from the bottom when you need more space, which is different. The house on top can be packed with blankets, which both insulate, and draw moisture out of the hive. It also helps prevent condensation from dripping down into the hive in the winter. I have found that you can get the neat pitched roofs for Langstroth hives from a couple of different suppliers, but the windy conditions in my geographic location would make using them impossible. I need to be able to stack a bunch of rocks on my hivery covers or it would be a disaster. Ratchet straps are another solution, though they would sort of disturb the aesthetics of the whole thing, in my opinion. The hive pictured here, which I think is very aesthetically pleasing, is available from beethinking.com
Modern Innovations
http://www.omlet.us/
One of the coolest things I’ve come across lately is the Omlet Beehaus. It comes from Great Britain and it is made by a company that is famous for its small-sized plastic chicken coops which are perfect for urban backyard chicken keeping. They’ve used their manufacturing skills to come up with another really quality backyard product. The design is a long-deep hive based on the Dartington hive. Essentially, there is a horizontally oriented brood box on the bottom, and you can add honey supers to the top as needed. What also looks to be a neat design feature is that it is up on a stand, so the working height is more ideal for those of us who don’t like bending over too much. Personally, I’m rather partial to wood based beekeeping, but I can see that this sort of hive would be very durable. There are some other plastic and foam based hives I’ve seen at beekeeping classes that I kind of wondered about. It’s all fascinating to me, and I wish I had more time and money to devote to learning all I can about honey bees and the hives in which they live.
References and Resources
http://beehivejournal.blogspot.com/2010/01/alpha.html
http://www.omlet.us/shop/beekeeping/beehaus/
http://www.beethinking.com/
http://www.beesource.com/build-it-yourself/10-frame-wbc-hive-steve-moye/
http://www.dadant.com/
http://www.peak-hives.co.uk/tag/national-hive/
http://www.dartingtonhives.co.uk/
http://www.mannlakeltd.com/
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