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This article is about hives for bees. For other uses of the term, see Beehive (disambiguation).

A beehive is a structure in which bees live and raise their young. A beehive is located in an apiary.

The internals of the hive comprise a densely packed matrix of hexagonal cells made of beeswax. The cells are used for storage, or for housing the brood.

Beehives are created artificially to house bees for the purpose of producing honey, and to encourage the pollination of nearby crops. These hives are now frequently transported so that the colony may pollinate crops in other areas.<ref>Chapter 10—Honey. USDA</ref> A number of patents have been issued for beehive designs.

Ancient beehives

Archaeologist Amihai Mazar of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University said that findings in the ruins of the city of Rehov (with 2,000 residents at that time, Israelites and Canaanites) include 30 intact hives, 900 B.C., evidence that an advanced honey industry existed in the Holy Land at the time of the Bible or 3,000 years ago. The beehives, made of straw and unbaked clay were found in orderly rows, with 100 hives. Ezra Marcus, expert of Haifa University, said the finding was a glimpse of ancient beekeeping seen in texts and ancient art from the Near East. Religious practice was evidenced by an altar decorated with fertility figurines found alongside the hives. Beekeeping as a practice is known to predate these ruins, but this is the oldest actual apiary ever found.<ref>Yahoo.com, Archaeologists discover ancient beehives</ref>

Traditional beehives

Traditional beehives provided an enclosure for the bee colony but little more was needed. Because there is no internal structure provided for the bees to start from, the bees fill the space in the hive with honeycomb. The comb is often cross-attached and cannot be moved without destroying it. This is sometimes called a ‘fixed-frame’ hive to differentiate it from the modern ‘movable-frame’ hives. Harvest generally destroyed the hives, though there were some adaptations with extra top baskets which could be removed when the bees filled them with honey. These were gradually supplanted with box hives of varying dimensions, with or without frames, and finally replaced by newer modern equipment.

Honey from traditional hives was typically extracted by pressing - crushing the wax honeycomb to squeeze out the honey. Because of this harvest method, they typically provided more beeswax but far less honey than a modern hive.

Skeps and other fixed-frame hives are no longer in wide use (and are illegal in many countries) because the bees and the comb cannot be inspected for disease or parasites without destruction of the honeycomb and usually the colony.

There are three basic styles of traditional beehive; Tile hives, Skeps and Bee gums.

Tile hives

Clay tiles were the customary homes of the bees around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Long cylinders of baked clay were used in ancient Egypt, the Middle East and to some extent in Greece and Italy. They sometimes were used singly, but more often stacked in rows to provide some shade, at least for those not on top. Keepers could smoke one end to drive the bees to the other end while they harvested honey.

Skeps

In northern and western Europe, baskets made of coils of grass or straw, called skeps, were used. In the simplest form, there is a single entrance at the bottom of the skep. There is no internal structure except what the bees build themselves. Aside from the fact that it is not possible to inspect the interior of skeps for diseases and pests, the removal of honey often necessitated the destruction of the entire hive. Beekeepers often either drove the bees out of the skep, or killed them, and subsequently squeezed the entire skep in a vise of sorts in order to extract its honey.

Later designs included a smaller woven basket on top with a small hole to the main skep. This acted as a crude super, allowing the harvesting of some honey with less destruction of brood and bees.

Bee gums

In Eastern, particularly southeastern USA, sections of hollow trees were used up until the 20th century. They were called “gums” because they often were from red gum trees.

Sections of the hollow trees were set upright in “bee yards” or apiaries. Sometimes sticks or crossed sticks were placed under a board cover to give an attachment for the honeycomb. As with skeps, harvest of honey from these destroyed the colony. Often the human bee “robber” would sulphur the bees, killing them all, before even opening their nest. This was done by inserting a metal container of burning sulphur into the gum.

Modern beehives

One of the very first beehive frames was invented by the founder of rational beekeeping in Russia, Petro Prokopovych in 1814. However for easy operations in beehives the spaces between elements need to be correct. The correct distance between combs had been described in 1845 by Jan Dzierżon as 1½ inches from the center of one top bar to the center of the next one. In 1848 Dzierzon introduced grooves into the hive’s side walls replacing the strips of wood for moving top bars. The grooves had been 8 x 8 mm – exact average between 1/4 and 3/8 of an inch, which is range recently called bee space. The Langstroth hive was the first successful top-opened hive with movable frames. Langstroth hive was however direct descendant of Dzierzon’s hive designs.

There are two basic types of modern or movable hive in common use, the “Langstroth hive” (including all the size variants) which has enclosed frames to hold the comb and the top-bar or Kenya-hives which, as the name implies, have only a top-bar to support the comb. These hives are typified by removable frames which allow the apiarist to inspect for diseases and parasites. Movable frames also allow the beekeeper to more easily split the hive to make new colonies.

Langstroth hives

Named for their inventor, Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth, these hives are not the only hives of this style, but they are the most common. Langstroth presented his design in 1860 and it has become the standard style hive for 75% of the world’s beekeeping. This class of hives includes other styles differing mainly in size and number of frames used. Types include Smith, Segeberger Beute (German), Frankenbeute (German), Normalmass (German), Langstroth hive, Modified Commercial and Modified Dadant, plus regional variations such as the British Modified National Hive.

Langstroth hive make use of the discovery of bee space, a characteristic of Western honey bees which causes them to propolize small spaces (less than 1/4 inch), gluing wooden parts together and to fill larger spaces (more than about 3/8 inch) with wax comb but to hold the intermediate space open for traffic channels for the bees. His cleverly designed hive makes use of this bee space so that frames are neither glued together nor jammed up with burr comb - comb joining adjacent frames.

Langstroth hives make use of standardized sizes of hive bodies (rectangular boxes without tops or bottoms placed one on top of another) and frames to ensure that parts are interchangeable and that the frames will remain relatively easy to remove, inspect, and replace without killing the bees. Langstroth hive bodies are rectangular wooden or styrofoam boxes that can be stacked to expand the usable space for the bees. Inside the boxes, frames are hung in parallel. The minimum size of the hive is dependent on outside air temperature and potential food sources in the winter months. The colder the winter, the larger the winter cluster and food stores need to be. In the regions with severe winter weather, a basketball shaped cluster typically survives in a “double-deep” box. In temperate and equatorial regions, a winter cluster will survive in a single box or in a nuc (short for nucleus colony).

Langstroth frames are thin rectangular structures made of wood or plastic and which have a wax or plastic foundation on which the bees draw out the comb.
The frames hold the beeswax honeycomb formed by the bees. Ten frames side-to-side will fill the hive body and leave the right amount of bee space between each frame and between the end frames and the hive body.

Langstroth frames are often reinforced with wire which makes it possible to extract honey in centrifuges which spin the honey out of the frames.
The empty frames can be returned to the beehive for use next season. Since bees are estimated to use as much food to make one kilogram of beeswax as they would to make eight kilograms of honey, the ability to reuse comb can significantly increase honey production.

Top-bar hives

The top-bar or Kenya-hives were developed as a lower-cost alternative to the standard Langstroth hives and equipment. They are used by some devotees in the US, but are much more popular, due to their simplicity and low cost, in developing countries. Top-bar hives also have movable frames and make use of the concept of bee space.

The top-bar hive gets its name because the frames of the hive have only a top bar, not sides or a bottom bar. The beekeeper does not provide a foundation (or provides only a fractional foundation) for the bees to build from. The bees build the comb so it hangs down from the top bar. The hive body is often shaped as an inverted trapezoid in order to reduce the tendency of bees to attach the comb to the hive-body walls. Unlike the Langstroth design, a top-bar hive is generally expanded horizontally, not vertically. The top-bar design is a single, much longer box with all the frames hanging in parallel.

Unlike the Langstroth hive, the honey cannot be extracted by centrifuging because a top-bar frame does not have reinforced foundation or a full frame.
Because the bees have to rebuild the comb after each harvest, a top-bar hive will yield more beeswax but less honey.

However, like the Langstroth hive, the bees can be induced to store the honey separately from the areas where they are raising the brood so that bees are less likely to be killed when harvesting from a top-bar hive than when harvesting from a skep or other traditional hive design.

Patents

• ‘ (also here) — L.L. Langstroth’s patent for a Bee hive from Oct. 5, 1852

Beehive symbolism

The beehive (usually as an iconified skep) is one of the symbols of the US state of Utah. It is associated with the honey bee, an early symbol of Mormon pioneer industry and resourcefulness. (See Deseret)

The beehive is an important symbol in Freemasonry, holding a prominent place in the lecture of the Master Mason degree, and is a symbol of industry and cooperation.

Likewise, the beehive is considered a symbol of industry in heraldry.

In Wellington, New Zealand, the round building used for Parliamentary offices is known as the “Beehive”.

See also

• Apidictor
• Bee bole

External links and references

• Video on Beehive construction
• John’s Beekeeping Notebook, American Beekeeping History — The Bee Hive
• John’s Beekeeping Notebook, Top Bar Hive Beekeeping
• Beehives — Woodworking plans. BeeSource.Com, 2004.
• Beekeeping Patents of the Past and Present

References

• Small Scale Beekeeping Honey and beeswax are products in any beekeeping project, and their production . thus only limited amounts can be removed or the colony will become weak.
• Free Essay Odyssey and Hubris He faces many challenges on his long journey that lead to his becoming the crew puts beeswax in their ears, thus allowing them to row near the Sirens.
• edison Beeswax, a medium with a natural propensity for capturing aromatic and sonic marks - insights which could become tools of inquiry or aggression.
• Ear Candling Candles Cones Candle Cone Natural Home Remedy Sinus Thus, larger amounts of wax present in a burnt candle usually indicate a The Majority of Ear Candles labeled as "beeswax" are most likely a blend of
• Visions: Economic Thinking Finds a Free Market "Thus," observed Marc Faber, a Hong Kong-based money manager, in a review of that book he sent to clients, "it is probable that honey and beeswax were as
• Gallery - The history of GOSH - About Great Ormond Street Hospital When his father went bankrupt in 1850, he went to work for family friend, James Paget, at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, thus becoming one of the last of the
• A Word to You: Generation of Destiny - Joseph B. Wirthlin In Roman times, sculptors sometimes sought to conceal breaks and cracks in statues with melted beeswax. The purchaser, thus deceived and believing that he
• A lesson in images to learn all about the art of shoe polishing File Format: Shockwave Flash_ only use natural-product based shoe polish, in particular beeswax, J.M. Weston offers you the possibility of becoming the designer of your own shoes.
• UB Reporter: Project reflects spirit of threatened library Poigner, in which Penelope Stewart cast beautiful beeswax doorknobs from the Mead's constituents and thus become an archive of the local community.
• light We, thus, receive the uncreated light and it dwells within us and shines upon our soul. It is up to us to keep it within us. Those that become one with
• Walker Art Center | Beuys Hyperessay | Philosophical Influences Thus, one actually has in wax that which one has in himself, considered as powers or energies. When people in ancient times made beeswax crosses,
• Volume 9, Number 1, January 1991 Beeswax is a unique product with many interesting physical and biological properties. It does not become rancid, is not irritating or sensitizing to the
• Scott E Ebright History of Film Development Though today’s means File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML‘daguerreotype’ was quickly implemented, thus becoming the first commercially used concave glass plates coated with both beeswax and pine sap,
• APIS–Volume 17, Number 1, January 1999 No tolerances are established for coumaphos in either honey or beeswax. The exemption expires January 1, 2000. Thus, it is not permanent and vigorous
• Language Connections File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTMLAll teachers, of course, need not become creative writing teachers in .. Melt it down, and yet remains beeswax. Thus it can be shown
• Why Burn Pheylonian Beeswax? - Pheylonian Production Kohr These toxins become positively charged by static electricity, At Philoxia, we burn our beeswax candles when we cook, do writing and paper work,
• Apparatus for separating honey and beeswax - Patent 4678569 The invention relates to an apparatus of separating honey from beeswax and . As cappings 38 build up they block the openings reducing heat loss, thus
• 190th Fourth of July Celebration in Lititz Springs Park Thus, a cherished, continuing Independence Day tradition was begun. . gives them the yellow glow so easy to the eye), beeswax and other ingredients,
• Cowboy's Place Why Should I Burn Beeswax Our Pure Beeswax Candles are hand-made from 100% Pure Montana Cappings Beeswax (and These toxins become positively charged by static electricity,
• CONDUCTION MECHANISMS LILLIE'S IRON-WIRE MODEL OF NERVE coated with beeswax. Only the tip of the wire was exposed to acid. shallow trap. (for. example,. Fe+). Thus. an electron will become
• Jersey Fresh honey and beeswax candles from E&M Gold Beekeepers that we had been treating for, had become immune to the treatments. Thus A. mellifera was brought into the likely range of V. jacobsoni even before
• 3" x 9" White Beeswax Pillar-Includes S/H Allergens and toxins become positively charged through static electricity Thus cleaning the air of negative ions such as dust, odors, toxins, pollen,
• Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf by Jane H cork perfectly air-tight by coating it with bees wax or paraffine. Heat The rings thus become separated in Magnolia, while in the Beech the first
• DETERMINATION OF ALL PRINCIPAL INDICES OF REFRACTION ON File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTMLbeeswax. Inasmuch as the beeswax is attacked by most immersion media, thus'become practically negligible. ft aho becomes unnecessary

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