# Kirkhoff Hive



## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

I don't remember the hive of which you speak, but have you considered using longhives for this? You could put a queen on each end, put in a queen excluder on each end of a "common area", and then place your supers over the common area. Just a thought.


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

Wasn't there an article in ABJ in the past few years about something similar?


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

Some years ago, an old timer up here had one that he tried (unsuccessfully) to overwinter. It did have a common bottom and common top. I don’t really remember much about the details. It does seem there was a space around the outsides (or was it the common center?) of each chamber that allowed bees to travel up through the hive. Unfortunately, the old guy passed away about a month ago. Have you tried asking on Bee-L? There is a guy from the Eagle River/Chugiak area on Bee-L who was a good friend with him. I’ll PM his e-mail address to you.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

TWO-QUEEN HIVE: Horizontal Configuration – Two brood chambers side-by-side inside single hive body [DLW]. Developed during 1980s by Michael Johnston??? [ABJ, 3/05, p211]. Somewhat similar to a two-sided nuc hive, brood chambers (18” wide rather than 16-1/4) are divided w/ a 3/4” thick board and accommodates 5 standard deep frames on each side. Two clusters of bees are able to grow upward in the 2-colony hive independently of each other. Half-width inner covers and top covers [BC, 5/05, p54] are removed and standard (undivided) honey supers are added on top, in a single stack, straddling adjoining walls of brood chambers [BC, 5/05, p54]. Standard queen excluder separates brood chambers from standard honey supers where the bees from the two different brood chambers mix in honey supers without a problem [ABJ, 3/05, p213].


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## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

click on this link and tell me if this is something of what you were looking for:

http://www.betterbee.com/resources/images/dronereport.pdf

Grant
Jackson, MO


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

>click on this link and tell me if this is something of what you were looking for:<

No, that's not it.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

>two stacks of 5 frame boxes, with common bottom, excluder, and cover . . .
>Any dimensions I can get . . .

Maximum width of each 5-frame nuc would have to be 8-1/8" (8.125 + 8.125 = 16.25)
If used w/ 1-3/8 frames, sides of nuc must be no thicker than 1/2".
1/4" tk sides would give more room to seprate frames when removing them.

Two 8-1/8" wide nucs would set side-by-side on one standard width BB.
Any standard excluder could be used over the "pair" and any style cover would fit.


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

The Kirkhoff hive Mike is asking about is not the same as two 5 frame nucs stacked side by side.


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## Kieck (Dec 2, 2005)

How does the Kirkhoff hive differ from two stacks of five-frame nuc equipment stacked side-by-side?


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

It could be very helpful to "all", if we coud hear a bit more from Michael Palmer


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Kieck said:


> How does the Kirkhoff hive differ from two stacks of five-frame nuc equipment stacked side-by-side?


Not much, I guess. I know it had a common bottom and cover. Maybe a common excluder and supers. 

I just remember the photo in one of the bee mags. I thought I'd find it. Looked in Gleanings and ABJ's from the 70's and 80's. Couldn't find it. I did find a Kirkoff hive in Connecticut. He's supposed to send me photos and measurements.


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## Dick Allen (Sep 4, 2004)

So Mike, did you ever get some photos of the Kirkhoff hive? I'm curious myself.


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## Keith Benson (Feb 17, 2003)

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/9722

Keith


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/9722


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Kirkhoff hive original patent: http://patents.ic.gc.ca/cipo/cpd/en/patent/1055313/summary.html?query=kerkhof&start=1&num=50

Kirkhoff hive updated patent: http://patents.ic.gc.ca/cipo/cpd/en/patent/1120783/summary.html


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Get rid of Google....

http://www.dogpile.com/index.gsp/


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## JPK (May 24, 2008)

I guess I'm having trouble understanding what the real advantage to this kind of hive is?

There's been discussion in other threads about using hive boxes to home multiple nucs but in the end it seems to me that while there is some convenience there are also huge disadvantages.

Tougher to manage. Say you need to separate the two colonies/nucs into truly separate equipment...its not easy to give the "shake" to the box to move the remaining bees once you've transferred frames,

Disease: I would think that housing multiple colonies/nucs in one physical structure would make it much easier for the transfer of many diseases from brood based to mite based ones....not to mention Nosema.

Seems to me that these negatives would outweigh the positives.


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## thesurveyor (Aug 20, 2002)

Anyone here interested if I could get them made? I have a friend who does woodworking and he makes all my wooden ware. My wooden ware looks as good as finished kitchen cabinets.

Just asking, if anyone is interested;.


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## newbeemike (Jan 20, 2009)

I searched for many hours trying to find anything I could about the Kirkhof. I found the patents, but nothing else. Fortunately a couple friends here have them.

I did a small writeup on them on my web site. I also wrote a 3 page article that I've submitted to Bee Culture. If I don't get it published anywhere I'll post it here. Or you can send me a private note and I'll send it to you.


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## idav5d (Nov 24, 2008)

Chris Werner of Indian Summer Honey is a commercial queen breeder in Florida. Last weekend he gave an excellent lecture on queen breeding at the Ga. Beekeepers Assn. In his lecture, he showed a 3 nuc box, used for queen rearing. He uses these a opposed to "baby nucs".
He uses a standard deep, divided into thirds with luan. Each compartment has a separate entrance,three frames. A standard queen excluder over the top of everything. A super is placed above, and the workers from all thee nucs work the super. He said that he had very few problems with this arrangement, and that the extra (shared) warmth was really helpful with early splits.


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## Barney (Jul 9, 2005)

*kirkoff Hive*

Michael:
Try this address it a adjusted version of the Kirkoff. WWW.rusticelementbees/?p-beeequipment.com. I fould it on the regular forium a couple days back just in case I didn't get the address exact.
Barney


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## newbeemike (Jan 20, 2009)

Barney said:


> Michael:
> Try this address it a adjusted version of the Kirkoff. WWW.rusticelementbees/?p-beeequipment.com. I fould it on the regular forium a couple days back just in case I didn't get the address exact.
> Barney


Actually, that should be RusticElementBees.com. I just updated my web site.


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## wisbigcheese (Jan 23, 2009)

*Kerkhof hive*

Bee culture this month full artical on the 2 queen hive .


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