Beekeeping | Pros & Cons Of Horizontal Hives? Who Made This?

foreign hey everybody David Burns thanks for joining me today today we're going to take a look at the horizontal Hive I'm going to tell you where I got it who made it for me and I'm going to actually recommend that you consider checking their website out because a horizontal Hive may be just the thing that you need today I'm going to explain some things about horizontal hives we'll talk about it I'm going to try to see if my winter be kinds will fit on here the burns feeders and tell you how I plan on managing it now before I open up this horizontal Hive I had a custom painted for a reason I want you guys to Please Subscribe click on the Bell so you'll be notified each time I make a new video and give me a like thumbs up now let's open her up oh look at that that's pretty cool this window was pretty awesome watching the beads work down in there you can kind of see them working the new frames already get a little smoke in there now as we get started I want to tell you guys this is not a paid promotional video I actually paid for this Hive with my own money they were kind enough to want to offer it to me for free because they follow my YouTube channel but I believe that everyone is worthy of getting paid for their hard work and so I wanted to be able to pay for it myself so I would rather pay for it myself and that way I can give an honest review of it not that some reviews aren't honest but you know somebody gives you something it's hard not to uh kind of really talk nice about it so let's talk about this horizontal Hive configuration first I want to talk about the quality of the workmanship it is superb it's very strong very good construction it's beautiful beautifully hand painted it even has gaskets here like a rubber gasket to seal better the hardware is very professional the top and the hammered top look on this appearance of Copper Top is is really nice again the legs are strong I like the little porch I'll show you that in a minute here you would put a a frame hanger attach it here and the little hangers come out like this I'll put one on there but really really impressed with the quality of the work it's heavy duty now one of the things I'm considering adding to it and actually a one of you guys commented on my YouTube channel when I first unboxed this is adding a strut I think a strut from here down to here would be nice on both ends because if I'm out here working right now and a big strong wind comes look at that parachute that's opened and it very well could either ruin my hinges or pull the whole thing over I think just having a strut across here from top to bottom would help a lot I'm not sure how I can make that work but I'm going to research it if you guys already know how to attach a strut to this leave a comment below so I don't have to do all my research it needs to close all the way but it needs to open and be held by the strut also with the winds out of the North really hard and I got my hand down here it could blow it shut and crush me so adding that adding struts on both sides I think that's going to work all right so who is a company that makes this and let me show you I think it's on the back side of this there it is Tada a lot of you have asked me who made this for you horizontal bees and if you go I'll leave links in the description below they're out of Creston North Carolina Ricky and Ruth actually made this for me like I said they were kind enough to want to offer it free and nope I said I'm gonna pay you any he quite honestly fought me pretty hard not wanting to take money from me they're a very honest family hard-working family and um well I really like doing business with them they are I would say the only thing that I would kind of say that you need to be aware of they're very busy building these so you know if you build one don't expect to get to get it in in a day or two because you know these there's a lot of a lot of time goes into building these so give them plenty of time to get this done especially if you have it hand painted they do hand paint a lot of these now let me close this just for a second without the inner coverage I want to show you something else in the on the other side now one thing's one of the things I noticed you guys can watch the video where I showed you how I uh actually consumed up a langstaff hive that was sitting here and these beads adapted and started flying right into the porch one of the things I think it said this in the instructions but I'm not sure I've got to remove this hinge I think because it's not allowing my porch to sit flush here and I noticed on some other videos that there's not a hinge here so I think I've got to remove that to make that sip flush for a porch you know it's got some nice vents up here it's got entrances with the kind of several things that you can adjust these openings to either let the bees flying in and out of both ends or queen excluder vent only that's pretty cool so one of the things I noticed though is once I put these beads in this horizontal hive they started working three times as hard I'm serious I'm not kidding you guys I'm serious I mean this this Hive is an average size Hive it's it's just like the one over here it's early in the morning it's like 8 8 30 in the morning you know look at that that now this is the strong colony look at the activity see some pollen coming in some foraging but gosh if you look at this they just picked up the pace once I put them in here they really have might be just because the entrance is a little bit smaller but they seem really active and they I just don't know what to say other than I think they love it now I asked Ricky who painted this particular Hive custom painting of the bees and all look at that that's hand painted and I haven't heard back from him I thought his wife did it I think yeah I think that's her here I can't read what that says does it say Melinda I can't read but it I know her name is Ruth so thank you Ruth for a great job of painting this and I really thought the paint job look at that was just really cool I wanted this to be on here just like that that couldn't be any more realistic it's really great and look at that top cover how it's just kind of hammered like that and it did get damaged a little bit in shipping but I'll take my hammer and straighten that out it's not a big deal all right let's let's open her back up and talk about things in here you don't want to forget your inner covers I imagine they'd build comb all up in here all right so here's my Burns feeder let's say I wanted to put it on here and Feed the Bees yeah that that just fits perfect and make sure it closes well oh yeah perfect so this feeder is going to work great but I will have to consider the jar I'll have to use maybe a smaller jar because I'm only going to get this much space so it might be one of those a pine or something but you know that's that's just what it is now I don't think there's any way that my winter be kinds are going to work in here unfortunately because of the top I think they'll fit in here okay yep they'll fit perfectly but my top I can tell already you see and since this fits higher the top isn't going to close let me try that yep it's not going to work so what I have to do is I'm going to design a winter be kind so that it's built where it's recessed so that I can have my team that builds these actually make it so there's a space over here that when this top closes it's going to sit flush and the height this height you see here will be lower for the lid but it will rise up here that'll be an easy adjustment and so we can make these available as soon as we get that figured out but that's going to work out fine for me I have to overwinter with the winter be kind you know that I can't live without my winter be kind this is a test model that has sensors built into it and I run studies on it so what I want to talk to you about with the horizontal Hive is the main feature that I feel that it's best for is that it's best for your back I mean you're not having to lift heavy boxes on and off the hive now this isn't going to work if you're a commercial beekeeper and you have you know langsoft that you're moving across the country pollinating obviously it's not for you but for backyard beekeepers that you know maybe have 10 or less hives I really think this is the way to go I have ran horizontal hives before in the way of top bar hives but I've never successfully over wintered a top bar Hive because I've never been able to figure out how to feed him in the winter but I'll be able to modify my winter be kinds to fit perfectly on here and that's going to be really good the other thing that these horizontal hives are really good for is that you can put in your queen excluders you can you can raise Queens in here you can have little five frame nucleus he sent me a lot of different sizes of inner covers so that you and and follower boards so that you can actually have a stop point you can kind of have it just be a five frame nuke if you want it and block off the rest you you can a lot of adjustments and I like that um but I think the main thing that I like the most about it is it's height I really do most of us that keep bees nowadays um are anywhere from 20 30 40 and on up and any of us that have worked bees a long time that we already know that our backs are suffering let's face it lifting those heavy 50 pounds 60 pound supers and deep surround with honey in them it's a back breaker not just that it's difficult to lift the weight but you know you're holding onto little handles and all now don't get me wrong behind the camera there are 20 plus langstroth hives that I still have to muscle but I'm having fun just thinking about getting more horizontal hives but this is going to be my test horizontal Hive I want to see can I use my techniques that I've employed on my langstroff hives getting them through the winter on a horizontal High I have I don't want to say sound like I'm bragging but I have mastered the art of overwintering langstrave hives by feeding them in the fall with my Burns feeding system and building up bees of winter physiology with this this is available online again if you guys are are wanting to get this and yeah it fits the horizontal Hive now I want to tell you about the burns feeding system here this is something that you have to put on your hive in the fall late summer when you hit a dirt allow two weeks of time to pass let your bees know there's a dearth that they Panic they start raising bees of winter or dearth physiology but without nectar sources the nurse bees Can't Raise a lot and they can't sometimes they lose it what the queen lays they consume it out of protein deprivation but by following my methods I've made a lot of YouTube videos for you guys if you can create a two-week dirt let them know that the flow is over that usually in Illinois is about August just then wait a couple of weeks and then start feeding them heavily through the burns feeding system they'll start raising beads of winter physiology these feeding systems you guys want them so badly they go out of stock so fast so if you need them for the fall you better spend the summer getting them so you'll have them on hand please don't wait until the fall to get those because they'll be out of stock so many people are buying them at one time but they fit on here good so it'll be a test horizontal high for me to see if I can figure out how to overwinter it now a lot of people that have made YouTube videos on the horizontal Hive they live in the south you know they're in Tennessee like Cayman Reynolds shows his and a little bit warmer but when you're up here in Illinois on the prairie 20 mile an hour winds 20 below zero and this thing is up in the air off the ground allowing more wind under it and over it and around it be honest with you I'm a little worried so it's going to be experimental if I lose it the first year I'll just take that data and figure out why I lost it and start making a adjustments like I did years ago when I figured out how to properly overwinter a lane straw pipe and not only over winter but come out of the a winter with a very strong High now those of you that have watched all my videos you have seen me talk about these horizontal hives and how I'm a little worried about them and overwintering because bees overwinter in a tree their native habitat they put all their honey above them in a hollow tree and they put the brood down below and as winter progresses they move up into the honey above them the bees can't really move up here they have to move sideways I'm a little worried that bees have a harder time moving sideways because quite honestly the frames are in the way they have to go in this case with the inner covers on the top they're going to have to go all the way down below the frames or side the side part of the frame to actually move they can't move as a cluster and that's why I feel that horizontal highs may be a challenge in the winter time but we'll see I'm sure that there's plenty of people in the north that overwinter these horizontal hives now another thing that I want to talk about with horizontal hives is where do you put the honey supers what are the honey frames where do you put the brood a lot of discussion about that my personal opinion is that we need to follow what beats you naturally and that is The Brood is near their opening the honey is above them can't do that here it's not going to happen now some people like to actually make the bees in a horizontal high fly in one of the ends and that's typically where you might see your brood and then they would put their honey further back away from the opening that makes a lot of sense to me now when I uh corresponded with Ricky and I said I like the porch the bees are enjoying going into the middle but I said I feel like they need to go in one end and put the brood kind of down there and the Honey back on the other end and he kind of disagreed he said in his work and his studies he's found that that middle spot where the porch is is the best all-around placement for the bees to come and go and yeah they'll put brood in the in that middle section and honey after that so you know who knows I understand what some of you are going to leave comments below and tell me that it's better to make the bees fly in one end but I'm going to leave it in the porch setting for now at Ricky's recommendation and just kind of see how the hive develops using that approach so be sure and check out horizontal bees uh Ricky and Ruth Rorke I want you to check their website out and I know some of you are beekeepers and you're you're really married to langstroth hives like I am I do have a few others like the The appimate Hive over here I got a flow Hive over here that I'm going to have to I'm going to have to change that up I need more bees in there to get that flow Hive super filled up and I've got a nail Hive so I'm trying different highs and basically for you guys and paying for them myself so I want you guys to consider supporting the roork family there they are I think a hard-working family all this stuff here is American American made and everything and I I believe in supporting family businesses you guys are great to support my family business of my online beekeeping courses my B Team Six mentorship program which is still open for a little while so be sure and sign up for that so supporting your uh American beekeepers especially those of us working hard making videos for you guys means the world to us I love you guys so much now if you'd like to see the video of me unboxing this and setting it up take a look at that video it's right over here I'll see guys over there

Channel: David Burns

Views: 39,967

Keywords: Beekeeping, beekeeping 101, Beekeeping tips, beekeeping training, honey bees, how to inspect a hive, smoker, smoker fuel, beekeeping classes, beekeeping basics, beekeeping for beginners, how to start beekeeping, save the bees, lighting a smoker, david burns beekeeping, varroa mite, when to start beekeeping, packages of bees, queen bee, where to buy a queen bee, bee suit, beekeeping business, horizontal hives, horizontal hive review, layens hives

Id: gK6JMjdYdvg

Length: 18min 17sec (1097 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 14 2023