# Long Lang Honey Production?



## Muddy Goat (Mar 27, 2015)

Recently, I saw a post about Long Box users switching back to traditional Langs because their bees store very little honey in them! I've been considering scrapping my plans for a long box and just using a normal Lang, but I am wondering if I am just scaring too easily. I'd like to keep this thread easy to navigate, so please post your response in the below format to keep it simple. 

1: How many frames/size of frames you run in your Long Box (Supers on top?)
2: How old is the hive
3: How many honey frames you get and how many harvests you do in a season. (Is this more or less than you would expect?)
4: How many brood frames are present, and do you use an excluder
5: Your location (by state)

6: Any information, thoughts, and opinions you care to share on your hive. Any design suggestions or pitfalls to avoid? Love it? Hate it?

Anything goes in #6, but please keep 1-5 formatted. Thanks everyone! I CAN'T WAIT TO GET MY BEES!!!!


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## TNTBEES (Apr 14, 2012)

I have three different types of long langs. I have two that are identical. They are 20 frames long and both have two supers on them. I then have two that are 34 frames long. One is a single colony and the other is a double colony. I have no issues with any one of them not collecting honey. I haven't kept track of their production as I am always pulling frames of honey. I have multiple entrances on all of them. As they proceed down the box I can uncork an entrance. I don't use excluders. Even the two colony doesn't have an excluder or a divider. I have a minimum of six frames of honey separating the two colonies. The queens won't pass through that. I will put in a divider to overwinter the two colony hive. All the colonies are overwintered. Some have Lauri Miller queens, and some have Sam Comfort queens. They all started as packages that were requeened. I think the trick to get them to store honey is drawn comb, and more than one entrance. I'm in Montana at almost 5000'. We have several days at -30 to -40. I think they are all fairly equal in production. The supered ones are easier in that you don't have to keep pulling frames. But the long ones are easier on the back.


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## Muddy Goat (Mar 27, 2015)

TNTBEES said:


> I think the trick to get them to store honey is drawn comb, and more than one entrance.


That is a great lead! Multiple entrances down the length of the box must encourage them to use more of it. I'll factor that into my design. Can I ask what keeps your queen from laying in your supers on your 20 frame hives? I'm picturing the supers side-by-side on the top, or are they stacked on one end?

Thanks for all the great details. It was exactly what I was looking for.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>1: How many frames/size of frames you run in your Long Box (Supers on top?)

I usually don't super them. Bees seem to be more efficient when working in only one direction. Mine are usually 48" or so long.

>2: How old is the hive

More than 14 years...

>3: How many honey frames you get and how many harvests you do in a season. (Is this more or less than you would expect?)

If I have time (and I seldom do) then I harvest several times in a year and often every week in a heavy flow. if I don't have time, they usually swarm...

>4: How many brood frames are present,

It all depends on how much time I spend. If I get empty bars into the brood nest to prevent swarming and encourage expansion of the brood nest then 15 or so would not be unusual. If I don't, it may be half that.

>and do you use an excluder

I have tried it. I don't recommend it. They did not want to go through it.

>5: Your location (by state)

NE

>6: Any information, thoughts, and opinions you care to share on your hive. Any design suggestions or pitfalls to avoid? Love it? Hate it?

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeshorizontalhives.htm


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## TNTBEES (Apr 14, 2012)

Occasionally the queen will move up into the super. But usually she is content to stay in the main box. Especially if I give her enough open frames. As Mr. Bush said they like to go horizontal if they can. I'm more into bee's than honey so it isn't a big deal to me for her to go up, but that isn't very often.


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## beestudent (Jun 10, 2015)

sorry about using this old thread, but I am considering for next spring, using a modified 20-frame long lang, with dividers in there to divide it into 4 4-frame sections (for 4 queens), but use double queen excluders so the queens can't get through. AND, using 4-frame nuc boxes on top as extra brood space. the point of this would be having the 32(combined) frames packed with brood, and make a major hive! 

and as a side note, i may even go to a 30-40 frame hive too!


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## Little-John (Jun 18, 2015)

Dividing a Long Hive into four sections is one way of over-wintering nucs (solid dividers not shown):



















But there's no way I would ever contemplate running a working hive using such a format. Why ? 'Cause in order to prevent swarming, you'd need at least 3 layers of nucs stacked above the main box (and even those may not be enough). And then honey supers above them. 

How exactly would you go about inspecting such a set-up ?

LJ


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## rmcpb (Aug 15, 2012)

As LJ said it would be very fiddly to maintain. However, if you were going to keep them as nucs to bank the queens its possible but then seperate nucs are more mobile when youmwant to use a queen.

Swings and roundabouts......


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## Little-John (Jun 18, 2015)

rmcpb said:


> if you were going to keep them as nucs to bank the queens its possible but then seperate nucs are more mobile when you want to use a queen. Swings and roundabouts......


Agree 100% - I started to make 11 of those divided hives - and even cut all the wood to size ready - in order to have a bunch of over-wintered nucs for sale in April - but I only ever built that one, and to be honest I'm not that happy with it - for precisely the reason you mention. I'm now looking at strapping four separate 5-frame nucs together instead. More wood, a little more work, but a far more flexible end-product.
LJ


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