# Best hive for backyard hobbyist?



## jdmidwest (Jul 9, 2012)

Where did you find plans for the horizontal hives at?? 

How do you add for honey flow to get the honey? 

How do you keep the brood out of the honey frames?


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## BigDawg (Apr 21, 2013)

Great job! Could you post a pic of your empty frames so we can see what kind of comb guide you're using? Thanks!


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

jdmidwest said:


> Where did you find plans for the horizontal hives at??
> 
> How do you add for honey flow to get the honey?
> 
> How do you keep the brood out of the honey frames?


Jd, these were my own design, but each is really nothing more than a standard deep stretched lengthwise so it holds 32 frames. I'm a semi-amateur boatbuilder, so I used the idea of strengthening ply with solid stringers, an idea used a lot in boats. The sides and bottom are 3/8" ply, the ends and top covering boards are 3/4". There are lots of examples of long hives on the web, and I expect most of them would work fine.

I haven't yet had to add any space to my largest hive, though maybe I would have had I not made splits and used frames of brood for other hives. The top covering boards are sectioned into sizes that would allow you to super the hive with 8 frame equipment, if the hive gets big and strong enough. This would complicate the hive somewhat, but why not plan for the best?

I initially built up the broodnest by inserting empty frames into it every week or so, and once I had a critical mass of bees, they started building honeycomb on the outside frames. The dozen or so frames closest to the end entrance are broodnest. Everything else is honey, and I haven't had any trouble with the queen laying in the honey frames. You could probably build a queen excluder to fit, but I wouldn't bother.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

BigDawg said:


> Great job! Could you post a pic of your empty frames so we can see what kind of comb guide you're using? Thanks!


I don't have a pic of the comb guides handy, but I can describe them easily. They have a triangular cross section, a fairly narrow equilateral triangle with the base upward. I make them on a table saw by cutting 3/4" stock to a length to fit between the frame end bars. Then I set my fence to a 3/4" space, and tilt the saw to make an acute angle. I run the stock through the saw, flip end for end, and repeat until the stock gets too skinny to be safe. I glue and brad them to the top bars of the frames.

I'll see if I can take a pic and post it later.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

Im liking that, never seen one before. The disadvantage is not major. Keep a few extra lang boxes around if you need to move or build a few out of cheap wood for moving. 

Way better than TB. I have never liked the idea of a TB, but what you have is a nice hybrid. Tb are fragile, finnicky with wild comb and crushing comb makes me cry. Its messy and honey is dirtier when crushed than from an extractor. And if the flow is still on bees have to rebuild all the comb instead of just refilling. 

I may just have to build one this winter. I wonder how they winter up north compared to sunny FL in a horizontal vs lang. Do you have plans??


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

rhaldridge said:


> So tell me why these hives are not the best choice for a backyard beekeeper.


I don't think anyone will say that they aren't the best choice for some backyard beekeepers. I think that it depends on your goal. If it is to have some bees to enjoy in the backyard, those hives will work just fine. I sell honey and bees and right now my production hives all have 20 deep frames and 60 medium frames on each hive. That would be a long hive. Vertically they don't take up much space and I just put the extras in storage when I go back to 20 frame hives.

So the type of hive you have and like the best will probably be defined on your beekeeping goals.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

beedeetee said:


> I sell honey and bees and right now my production hives all have 20 deep frames and 60 medium frames on each hive. That would be a long hive. Vertically they don't take up much space and I just put the extras in storage when I go back to 20 frame hives. So the type of hive you have and like the best will probably be defined on your beekeeping goals.


I was gonna make the same comment. With a horizontal what do you do when a slamming flow hits and you can't harvest. Super positional hives have practically infinite volume hence the name. I've removed a feral hive at Kentucky Kingdom early this month filling about twice the volume of the horizontal. 8-9 gallons of honey. 

I do like langs alot but for me im small and a horizontal sounds like a fun experiment, just one to be trendy and different ;-)


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

beedeetee said:


> I don't think anyone will say that they aren't the best choice for some backyard beekeepers. I think that it depends on your goal. If it is to have some bees to enjoy in the backyard, those hives will work just fine. I sell honey and bees and right now my production hives all have 20 deep frames and 60 medium frames on each hive. That would be a long hive. Vertically they don't take up much space and I just put the extras in storage when I go back to 20 frame hives.
> 
> So the type of hive you have and like the best will probably be defined on your beekeeping goals.


True. 

I suppose if you had the sort of nectar flow that would support a hive of that size, you could put 9 medium supers on one of my hives without needing a stepladder to get to the top ones. That's because each layer would be three supers. That would take away some of the advantages of the long hive, of course. Maybe next year. 

Though this does make me think of another advantage for the backyard hobbyist-- no supers to store. You can regulate the size of the hive to keep it all in one box, by removing honey as it reaches the end of the box. Another is easier swarm control. When the best hive was booming in the spring flow, they started queen cells on a couple of occasions. I put several empty frames into the brood nest and they tore them down. It's slightly more complicated to do that in a 2 deep brood nest, I would imagine.

I think if raising bees is a goal, then long hives might be pretty practical. They are very flexible in terms of space allocation. You could get quite a few mating nucs into each hive, and the way I make my top entrances, you could change space around very easily. Still have to put nucs in nuc boxes to sell, I guess.

This is an entrance/feeder board for a langstroth hive, but the principle is the same. I just routed out a 3/8" slot in the edge of my covering boards for entrances. You could put a half-dozen or so nucs in a single long hive, with division boards for each. At one point I had splits in each end of a single hive.









Probably the most worrisome criticism of this system that I've heard is that bees are more reluctant to move sideways than vertically. I haven't had any difficulty getting them to expand horizontally, but I'm a beginner, so I may run into trouble soon.


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

I really think, that for backyard beekeeping, long hive is a really good choice:
- easy to build;
- bees love deep frames! 
- bees ARE calmer in the long hive!
- management is easy
- etc.

I have Lang and the long one. My long hive is 20 frames - it is too short, but it could be easily supered with standard Lang boxes. My personal mistake is that I am using top-bars instead the foundationless frame. Comb with honey is too heavy - a few times it collapsed. I added sides to my TBs and problem solved  

Rhaldridge made a good point - this hive is *much-much calmer *than others (Langs). In Russia, long hives are quite popular and people reported 100-200 kilos honey yield per hive. They also "winter" Russian winter  Right now, my long hive is a hybrid - long and vertical. It is in the shape of "L" now. I tried to split long hive unsuccessfully, as a result, bees occupied vertical part (which supposed to be a split) and now it is a nest. Horizontal part is a storage.

Oldtimer from New Zealand thinks that long hives are less productive than Langs and it is more natural for bees to expand vertically. I have to admit, that my bees love both parts vertical and horizontal


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

.
Thanks for the thoughts Cerezha and I've got to say it was a great pleasure looking at the beautiful pics both you and Raldridge have posted of the nice honeycombs.



rhaldridge said:


> my first spring as a beekeeper has given me a full complement of opinions, and I'd like to see if I can be talked out of them.


Can't imagine it. 

However the long hives certainly seem to be working for you and you've also done very well for a first year beekeeper getting all the combs drawn right with no mess, obviously taken it seriously and done the research. For you, long hives seem to be a good fit.

Next year, you may find another downside to long hives, being swarm control is pretty difficult. This season you've been in expansion mode so swarm control has not been an issue, but if the bees come through winter in good shape they will be wanting to swarm and hard to stop unless you split them, taking honey out alone won't be enough if the bees are healthy. Other than that though it all seems to be going well.


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## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

Great to see you are doing well and to see more photos Rhaldridge

I totally agree with all the positive comments. I love my Horizontal Lang.

For those wanting to see what it's like with supers on it:










This season could be interesting with swarming, it's been very mild. As of today I'm already seeing drones and we haven't even finished winter yet!
I'll be doing more testing of my theory on "Opening the Sides" of the brood nest this season, for swarm prevention.


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> ....Next year, you may find another downside to long hives, being swarm control is pretty difficult. This season you've been in expansion mode so swarm control has not been an issue, but if the bees come through winter in good shape they will be wanting to swarm and hard to stop unless you split them, taking honey out alone won't be enough if the bees are healthy.....


 My long hive is in its 2nd season and it does not look like have intention to swarm. When possible, for all my beehives I do a checker-boarding and it seems to me helps. My lazy approach is that I remove extra honey at periphery and insert 1-2 empty frames in the nest at every opportunity, once a month may be. I do the same with Langs too! As for vertical vs horizontal, Oldtimer, my bees are much smarter than I am  they use one horizontal and one vertical deep for the nest right now! I am going to do walk-away split with vertical part. I just need to find space for the 5th hive on our tiny property (away from neighbors). How is your winter, Oldtimer?


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## BernhardHeuvel (Mar 13, 2013)

Long hives (we call them trough hives) are popular here in Germany, at least in some parts of Germany.

For a short description in German see: http://bienen-ruck.de/_upl/de/_d-upl/10_09_13_Ruck_Trogbeute_T_120_Flyer.pdf

The hives have special floor boards, that allow an inhive split with the queen and recombining 14 days later after the split as a swarm prevention. 

The floor has two storeys and in the first floor two channels to the front entrance. The channels are separated from each other. With a follower board you can make a queen split within the hive in the back of the hive. 

Colonies build up very strong very early and this hive is a honey cow. It is supered with a deep or a shallow. Less lifting! Very comfortable to work with. Also the follower board allows a lot of manipulation techniques. For example the broodnest can be tighten in early spring, to 5-8 frames, so the brood nest is very compact and warm. 

You cannot migrate with those hives, but that's about all downsides I know of. 

Placed on an elevated stand those hives are really comfy to work with.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

cerezha said:


> My long hive is in its 2nd season and it does not look like have intention to swarm. When possible, for all my beehives I do a checker-boarding and it seems to me helps.


I actually think my best hive was on the verge of swarming a couple times this spring, because they built queen cells. They probably weren't supercedure cells, because the queen in this hive is great, laying up dense slabs of brood. Some of her work:









I don't know for sure, but I think expanding the broodnest by inserting empty frames was a factor in preventing the colony from swarming. Each time I saw queen cells, I added new frames in the interior of the broodnest, and a week later the queen cells were literally gone. I have a feeling this ready access to the broodnest, and the ease of manipulating it may be helpful in preventing swarming.

As I think Bernhard is saying, a cut-down split would be pretty easy to do, with the queen and a couple of frames of bees residing in one end of the hive, and the main colony in the other. Eventually, you could combine the colonies and harvest some queen cells to make increase. Now that I think about it, I can't help but wonder if the presence of the queen in the same box might delay the development of laying workers in the main colony. Be a good way to manage a brood break, too, I would think.

Some of the European longhives are fine examples of the woodworker's art-- as is Matt's. Mine are pretty crude in comparison, but I kind of like the way they look. My wife painted them for me. She's experimenting with cottage colors, in the hope that I'll build her one in the North Country..


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

burns375 said:


> Im liking that, never seen one before. The disadvantage is not major. Keep a few extra lang boxes around if you need to move or build a few out of cheap wood for moving.
> 
> I may just have to build one this winter. I wonder how they winter up north compared to sunny FL in a horizontal vs lang. Do you have plans??


My plans are in the form of some scribbled dimensions in a notebook, but I'll try to put something together to show what I'm doing.

One experiment I'm making involves screened bottoms. The first hive had a completely open bottom with 1/8" screen, and that was a bad idea. The follower board put enough pressure on the screen so that it sagged, and I had to C-clamp a stick under the follower to keep bees out of the unused portion. The next was built with several screened 3" holes, and the bees did fine. The latest has no ventilation holes in the hive except for the top opening, and the bees seem to do okay-- though this is a new hive from split, so it isn't very big yet. But we'll see.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

BernhardHeuvel said:


> The hives have special floor boards, that allow an inhive split with the queen and recombining 14 days later after the split as a swarm prevention.


Very interesting Bernhard, I met a German guy who keeps bees (langs) in my country I had to do a disease inspection of his hives and could not understand the way they were set up. But then he showed up & explained to me that the way they were split with a queenless part was a method of swarm control very common in Germany. I have never seen anything like it, it is not done here. But it did look like it could work.

Always can learn something new.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

rhaldridge said:


> I don't know for sure, but I think expanding the broodnest by inserting empty frames was a factor in preventing the colony from swarming.


Yes, expanding the brood nest, and then the hive generally, is one of the best ways to reduce swarming.


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## B-Rant (Nov 8, 2012)

Do you have any problems with SHB control with all that available space?


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

B-Rant said:


> Do you have any problems with SHB control with all that available space?


I haven't yet, but I'm a beginner, so who knows? I have seen a small hive beetle, but I haven't found any damage yet. The unused space is closed off by a follower board, but of course if it were tight enough to keep out beetles, it would be too tight to move easily. I do have traps in the hives, both the kind that is filled with mineral oil, and the CD case traps, baited with a mixture of pollen sub, honey, and boric acid. I haven't caught any, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

About screened bottoms. On all my regular hives long or vertical, I an using the same bottom board design. It's a sandwich: screen - 1.5 cm space - solid bottom. Space is occupied ether by sticky board or oil-pan. If sticky board, it has "plugs" to prevent bees to get in. Oil-pans just made to fill the space without large gaps. So, the actual screen did not exposed outside. The gaps provide ventilation, but it is not like completely open bottom. So far, this setup works very well to me. Once I had SHP issue in Lang - oil pan fixed the issue. I could use oil-pan on all my beehives including long one. 

Recently, I had a chance to compare a solid bottom vs my approach. I have one hive from the swarm, which intended to be for sale. Thus, I made a simple solid bottom for it. This is the only hive, which is bearding even in semi-shade. The hive on the roof in full California sun (my screen bottom) does not beard at all.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

cerezha said:


> About screened bottoms. On all my regular hives long or vertical, I an using the same bottom board design. It's a sandwich: screen - 1.5 cm space .


Could you take a picture of the screened false bottom board? Do you have ventilation issues on hot days?

I just put aluminum catering pans under my hives. Do you use vegatable oil or mineral, what r pros and cons of each. 

I I really want to build a horizontal. If you have time scan in a rough sketch or just dimensions of boards needed for construction, mainly front and back panels.

Horizontals also could be useful for breeding bees or making nucs in spring. Create a bunch of divider boards, make a no pass thru bottom and top, and drill a few extra holes. You could easily fill that thing with 5-10 nucs. Have any of you horizontal folks tried this?

Thanks for all the info, really like this idea.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

burns375 said:


> C
> 
> I I really want to build a horizontal. If you have time scan in a rough sketch or just dimensions of boards needed for construction, mainly front and back panels.
> 
> ...


I'll try to put together some dimensions of my hives. The concept is pretty simple.

If you wanted to use a long hive as a nuc battery, you wouldn't need to drill any holes. If you look upthread at my picture of an entrance board, you can see that I just routed out a 3/8" slot for the entrance. The slot goes down, and the bees have a top entrance. I'm thinking about doing a nuc battery next spring, if I can overwinter some bees from the North Country. I plan to use a bunch of divider boards, as you suggest, and a top board for each nuc sized to cover 4 or 5 frames. With a slot routed out of these top boards, you could close off a section by simply flipping over the top board. The roofing panel would cover all.

I seem to remember that Oldtimer uses long hives as mating batteries, or something connected to queen raising.


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## cerezha (Oct 11, 2011)

burns375 said:


> Could you take a picture of the screened false bottom board? Do you have ventilation issues on hot days?


 Sorry no pictures - I am small and made my hardware usually in a hurry on demand. Basically, it is typical solid bottom and I made a frame the same size as a solid board with the screen (~1in frame around the screen). I place screened frame on top of the solid board. You may want to add some spacers below screen-frame to accommodate the oil-pan; you also need to add spacers above the screen-frame to provide the entrance (as it was on solid board). So, it is literally a sandwich with two nearly identical boards, top one have a screen. All dimensions are standard for Lang's boxes and solid bottom boards. 

So far, I did not witness any bearding even in hot weather except this one hive with solid bottom. But my bees do gather on the porch all day-night. It is distinguishable from bearding.



burns375 said:


> I just put aluminum catering pans under my hives. Do you use vegatable oil or mineral, what r pros and cons of each.


 Any oil is fine but bees love oil too! Oil pan should be protected from bees. I used to use motor oil, but these days it is more expensive than vegetable oil. 



burns375 said:


> I I really want to build a horizontal. If you have time scan in a rough sketch or just dimensions of boards needed for construction, mainly front and back panels.


 see above - I made everything just when in need and do not use any sketches - for horizontal, I just put together two deep Lang's boxes and copy the outer dimensions. Note: 2x Lang is too short - use at least 30 frames as rhaldridge!



burns375 said:


> Horizontals also could be useful for breeding bees or making nucs in spring. Create a bunch of divider boards, make a no pass thru bottom and top, and drill a few extra holes. You could easily fill that thing with 5-10 nucs. Have any of you horizontal folks tried this? ...


 Officially, I am permitted to have only two beehives on our property (city), so using one long hive with a few nucs or two colonies etc. is really beneficial to me. I never tried to split long hive into many nucs, but technically it is really easy to do. Also, you always could add boxes/nucs on top, which may be easily separated from the 1st floor by inner boards = "beehouse". It would diminish the advantage of the long-hive (easy access to all frames), but still an option. 

In my opinion, long-hive is really good choice for backyard beekeepers.


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

I love the idea of this hive. I will look forward to seeing the plans if you get them together. So, you basically have a solid board on the end of the frames and just move it along as you add frames to keep the bees tight. I like the idea, I was going to ask the same about the pests with so much unused space. B-Rant beat me to it. Keep it up and good luck, great pics love to see some plans. G:thumbsup:


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

rhaldridge said:


> I seem to remember that Oldtimer uses long hives as mating batteries, or something connected to queen raising.


I house some breeder queens in modified long hives plus raise queen cells in them. Don't know of anyone else in the world doing it like that but it can work if you do it right. I'll be starting to raise queen cells in around 6 weeks so will post some pics if I can remember.


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## Sasha (Feb 22, 2005)

I have a long hive converted into 4 x 5 frame nucs + 1 three frame nuc. Works great. It was the only box which had 100% of queens mated for some reason. The awerage in that apiary was 50% due to strange weather patterns I presume. Have a picture somewhere, but cant find it. Will take a photo next time I go there.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

BigDawg said:


> Great job! Could you post a pic of your empty frames so we can see what kind of comb guide you're using? Thanks!


I took a couple pics last night:















The first image shows the monofilament fishing line I string through the 2 center holes of the deep frames. The second image is from a frame that I harvested, so you can see how the bees attach the comb. 

One of the reasons I think these triangular cross-section comb guides are far and away the best is that the attachment of the comb is so much stronger. The downward pull of the comb is mostly in shear. Engineers will understand what I'm talking about here, but another way to look at it is that because of the acute angle of the guide, there's much more surface for the bees to attach the comb to. I haven't a a single comb wander off the center line, so evidently the bee engineers are pretty happy with the guide. 

I find the arguments against putting any wax on the guides convincing; seems to me the bees can do a better job of this attachment if there's no layer of wax between wood and comb. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the first wax the bees put on the guide is mixed with propolis for a stronger attachment. When I look at partial, or newly-started comb, I see some evidence of this, I think, but that might be my imagination. Anyway, I haven't had any comb fall off yet.


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

biggraham610 said:


> I love the idea of this hive. I will look forward to seeing the plans if you get them together. So, you basically have a solid board on the end of the frames and just move it along as you add frames to keep the bees tight. I like the idea, I was going to ask the same about the pests with so much unused space. B-Rant beat me to it. Keep it up and good luck, great pics love to see some plans. G:thumbsup:


As I said, my "plans" are a few scribbled dimensions in a notebook, but I made a little drawing to show the only different aspect of my hives from many others. This isn't an original idea; I stole it from D. Coates" nuc box design, a very clever idea that allows you to make a number of nice nuc boxes from a single sheet of ply. 

You start by cutting the sides from 3/8" ply (or 11/32") to 9 11/16" by 45". (You make these shorter than 4 feet because if you make them 4 feet, then a 4 foot piece of ply will not cover the top and bottom.) Then you rip stringers from 2X stock, 1" thick, and you glue and screw these to the sides. Refer to the drawing below to see how the top stringer is offset from the ply:










I made the offset 11/16" so as to provide bee space above the frame top bars. There are also short stringers at each end, so that you can attach the end ply to solid timber crossgrain. In other words, these end pieces are framed all around with solid timber stringers.

The front and back panels are cut from 3/4" ply. My first couple of hives used thinner ply on these ends, reinforced by stringers, but since the legs are bolted or screwed to these front and back panels, I decided to use the heavier ply, which also saves the effort of framing the ends with stringers. Make these panels 10 3/8" by 28 1/8".

Here I recommend that you screw the front and back panels to the side panels, using a frame to be sure you have the proper distance between the rabbets. This doesn't always work perfectly-- in my most recent hive the side panels are spaced a little too far apart, so that if the frames are not set carefully into the hive, one end may slip off the rabbet. Rats.

Anyway, once you have the ends screwed to the sides and squared up, you have your bottom board dimensions, which you can cut from 3/8" ply. Glue and screw this bottom board to the side and end panels. You can cut and screen a few ventilation holes in the bottom board if you like.

Now you have the basic box. I made my cover boards from a 2' by 4' piece of 3/4" ply. I cut this into sections to match my Langstroth 8 frame supers, so 13 7/8" by 24". I made an entrance by routing a 3/8" deep slot into the edge of the first cover board.

The legs are cut from pressure treated 2X4, 32" long and bolted or screwed to the "ears" that extend from the front and back panels.

I cut a 5 foot section of galvanized roofing as a waterproof cover,

All you need is 32 deep frames and a follower board so you can control the size of the functional chamber.


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

Thanks for the info, I am definitly going to build one for next year. The possibillities are limitless. G


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## Sasha (Feb 22, 2005)

I have no idea how to upload an image to beesource. Anyway here is my long (deep langstroth frame) hive converted to 5 nuc boxes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/9350898431/


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## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

How much space do you have under the frames? I don't understand if bees space is an issue there or not since langstroths sometimes hAve 3/4" under the frames. I'm using all mediums. If I built a long long with a solid attached bottom, how tall would the sides need to be? Would 71/4" 1x8's work? I don't have a very good table saw. I was also thinking of making a few ten frames with solid, attached bottoms for swarm traps at first then hive bodies.


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## Kenww (Apr 14, 2013)

Forgot to mention that Ill probably just use top entrances. Thanks


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## rhaldridge (Dec 17, 2012)

Ken, the dimensions I gave above allow for bee space and a bit more under the frames.


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