# Adventures in Observation Hives



## ApricotApiaries

Hey folks, Seeing Chas10's pictures and then jfb58's questions about spotting varroa mites made me want to share my own experiences. 
We've been running observation hives a few years now and I love them. My first one (with the attached photos) I built from a couple of old windows that just happened to be 20 inches and some 2x4. It is two frames wide and does not conform to bee space, which has been pretty fun. It is 2 deeps and a western tall, and I have a little two frame wide super that we can add on. She lives in the kitchen with access out the kitchen window. At this point we run a few observation hives. We've got a hexagon aquarium set up in the shop with top bars, we've got a two frame hive we set up in the summer with various experiments, take to schools and fair, and I have glass to build a few more. Love em. 
We set this one up a few years ago as an "egg nuc," just three frames of brood and some extra shakes, and have watched them raise queens, grow, and shrink the last couple years. We have gotten to see it swarm from inside and out, a couple of times. This last fall they had pretty high mite loads. The queen really shut down for a while, resuming brood rearing late in the fall. She dwindled down to only a couple of frames this winter but at this point has bounced back really fast is full up on brood and bees, and I added the super a couple days ago. 
Anyway, here are some photos from last summer. The queen layed out the burr comb on the glass with drones. We got to see mites crawling around, we got to see nurses pick out infected pupa, we got to see them metamorphose, overall one of the coolest things I have seen.


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## Cloverdale

That is way cool. :thumbsup:


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## Harley Craig

that TOTALLY makes me want to make one without proper bee space.


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## D Coates

That is pretty cool thanks for posting the pics.


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## Michael Bush

Nice pictures. I enjoyed one without good beespace for those kind of views. But eventually I got tired of cleaning off the glass or not being able to find the queen... The draper I have was about 2 1/4" between the glass and it has similar views of larvae developing. I narrowed it to 1 3/4" eventually.


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## ApricotApiaries

A few more fun pictures. 





















After transferring some cells into mating nucs, we took the leftover grafting frame and put it in a one frame observation hive. There were only enough bees to cover a few cells. three of them hatched. We found one dead on the floor. A couple hours later, we found these two fighting for it!


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## IAmTheWaterbug

Michael Bush said:


> Nice pictures. I enjoyed one without good beespace for those kind of views. But eventually I got tired of cleaning off the glass or not being able to find the queen... The draper I have was about 2 1/4" between the glass and it has similar views of larvae developing. I narrowed it to 1 3/4" eventually.


Fascinating!

How difficult would it be to engineer a small section of an OH to induce this type of visible cross-sectioned comb building? Without interfering with the rest of the "normal" OH features?


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## Michael Bush

>How difficult would it be to engineer a small section of an OH to induce this type of visible cross-sectioned comb building? Without interfering with the rest of the "normal" OH features?

If you built it in sections that stack and attach somehow, you could make different thickness. I'd recommend about 2 1/4" between the glass if you want to see the brood on the glass. 1 3/4" if you want no burr at all.


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## ApricotApiaries

Here's another fun one. 
This aquarium was sitting at a thrift store. I built some wedge top bars to fit it and built an extra cover and an entrance portal. We gave it a couple lbs of bees and a mated queen. They have a nice corner in the garden shed and an entrance through some hops vines. 
Ill try to remember to add more photos as they grow.


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## Cloverdale

Your ideas are awesome!


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## ollie

just one word


COOL!


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