backyardhive.com - How much space does your hive have?

How much space does your hive have?

Q. You seem to like keeping it small. How much space does your hive have?

A. The size of the Backyard Hive is based on several considerations. The first is to make it manageable for beginning bee keepers -- working with a hundred thousand bees in a box can be intimidating. The size and weight of the combs are manageable for the average person. In colder climates the smaller hive can be winterized more effectively and the smaller space kept warmer by the bees.

Also, the smaller hive is easier to transport -- the hive can be carried by one person to and from one location to another. Finally, in a backyard, semi-rural location, the small profile of the hive is not as obvious and intimidating for neighbors. It has an handsome aesthetic look that invites intrigue and interest, rather then "oh my, the neighbor has bee hives!"

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Article Id: 10 - Version: 4 - Created: 15-11-2005 - Last Updated: 25-04-2006 - Hits: 5425

Keywords: hive design,

Categories: Beekeeping FAQs

Comments & Questions

Duboisi

Wednesday, 09 September 2009

Safari 530.5

You don't realy answer the question here, instead you talk about the advantages of keeping it small. What are the actual measured space?

Corwin

Wednesday, 03 May 2006

MS Internet Explorer 6.0

There is a saying in bee land that you must move the hive either 3 feet or three miles, nothing in between.... at least that is what an old langstroth bee keeper warned me about moving my hive. I did it anyway and the bees found the hive 15 feet from its first location. No worries! My buddy Kurt said he had to move his Topbar accross the yard this spring because they were going to make a compost pile. I gave him the old Langstroth warning, my friend went ahead and moved the hive crossed the yard, and the bees woke up in the morning headed out for the day with out a catch. I can't seem to get my bees lost from their hive, they seem to be able to find it around the local area, especially if they are moved in the night and awake in the new location in the morning. Someone must have once had a missing bee problem, and this has been reported around the country. A fun thing to do is to move the hive during the season to several locations to follow a nectar flow. The locations should be several miles away from the last.

Tamaran Underwood

Tuesday, 30 November 1999

Unknown

I'm confused by your comment in this article, "the hive can be carried by one person to from one location to another." I read that you shouldn't move the hive even a few inches from it's normal location or the bees will not be able to find their way to the entrance. Can you clear this up for me please? Thank you.