John's review of the Long Hive (with standard Langstroth frames) | Advice from a Beekeeper

do [Music] good afternoon i got a little project i've been working on i kind of wanted to check in with you folks and show you what i'm going to do i'm going to run you through step by step this is a long lane hive so it's a long hive that takes a standard langstroth frame uh been deemed the long lane hive now there there's many options of what you could do with this particular box i'm just going to show you what i've done we started carrying these at central beekeeper supply they kind of sparked my interest i thought well i've got a couple colonies that are in single deep boxes i was going to winter them in them i thought why don't i put place one of them in these and see if i can overwinter a colony in it out there in youtube land i've seen a lot of youtube variations and versions and folks putting bees in these i thought maybe i'd give it a try myself so let me tell you a little bit about what i did when i brought this box home it was literally just the box now these come with a set of legs that you can put on but i had a treated stand that i preferred having it was at a much better height for me um the legs of course you could have modified but but the reality of it is this was easier for me um the head the the covers are not hinged when you get these they have to be modified or they they really don't weigh anything you can take them on and off but for someone who who is doing this to avoid down stacking boxes to work their bees uh it would make sense to me that they would want it hinged that's something that you've you've chosen this because you don't want a bunch of equipment to down stack to check check on your bees and your queen um like i said this one this is a first for me let me show you briefly what i've done so i have uh they come with three entrance ports um i'm going to install one colony of bees there's nine frames of bees inside of this langstroth deep box as you can tell i moved them from where they were originally at brought them here and got them up high enough so that when i make this move they're used to being at this height so they will come in and find the queen and the brood and rest the other bees they won't be displaced for very long and they can work this out that's about a two foot center opening the opening so first of all i brought this thing home and i installed two hinges which makes this where i can just come to the back if you would karen would you follow me around here please and i i installed a handle on it and then the more i got to thinking about having a handle installed on it my next thought went to my girls having friends or i have friends over and and they don't realize say they pull up and they walk around the corner of the building they see this pretty box setting here and it's got a handle on it and what's in what do y'all keep out here in the box and you raise the handling here here you've got thousands of of honeybees now that are exposed to that person so i thought okay well let's let's add a little bit of security to it so i put these latches on and you know you could carry this as far as you want but you have to unlatch it then i made it of course as i told you i put the hinges on it i added safety chains to prevent the lid from going you know 90 degrees or just flopping out of control over when it and that's going to pull weight and want to tip and tilt your box of course every every as these bees grow and this colony gets larger they're they're going to continue to weight the box you saw i've got a couple concrete boxes blocks down here on the face has added stability and it is very fairly rigid um so i've i've showed you what i've done i've put the safety hinges or chains in to take weight off the hinge broke past 90 so i'm not worried about it falling and getting smashing my hands and fingers inside these boxes they have an inner board system the inner board system over the first initial brooding area has holes board in it for ventilation so i'm going to start these bees here and then at some point you actually can exclude the queen with a queen excluder keep her on however many frames you want her to brood on allow your your field force and house beast to come through this and start putting up honey that's when you would open your next port down there so without going into a whole lot of detail right now because as we go we're going to pistol would you run out at me there huh pistol's got him a a blue racer lizard he loves them um without going into a whole lot of detail on and on about the box you're going to see that as we continually film what's happening with these bees so what i want to do right at the moment is go ahead and get this ready this box has been eco treated it is now weatherized it's a hot day today i chose to put these bees in underneath the awning of the shop they will work in and out from under a cover they're on a concrete slab um seems like the the best possible place i could put them we'll we'll find out as we get into this um i think that we're ready to do this install i want to show you one other modification that i made these boxes although they do come with a a queen excluder they do not come with a follower board a follower board does just that as you expand these bees and and and they need frames need frames and you're continuing you've got them into honey production or if you you don't even choose to do that the follower board moves with the expansion of the colony so winter time let's say these bees don't get past 10 11 frames of bees and comb this board will shut down their progress in other words i'll kill this void of empty box beside them so that they're allowed to heat the chamber only that they're in and they're not losing heat over to this void because we will also probably drop in a a styrofoam piece against the follower board and and make this super warm for them these walls are an inch to inch and three quarters thick um just just a a great built box i think it's going to be very well insulated i think the fact that we put them in the shade is going to aid them in staying plenty cool enough i built this where i can now install a feeder and as i do this i'm going to go ahead and fill this feeder up and then install the follower board before i start moving these bees in that way the feed is already in the follicle follower board is in place so this will aid them in the stress of this move as well so let me go ahead and fill their feeder get it installed i'll guess it how much room they're going to have to have because we can like i said we can adjust this to shut them down and we'll start this up so let me get this ready and we will start the install [Music] if you haven't used these this type of feeder before this is very cool so you pour your your sugar sugar water in your pro suite in your liquid feed is in you just snapped the base back on it works the same as a glass jar feeder system with the holes in it once you turn it over it siphons it will fill these these grooves here and level eyes this will pull a vacuum back on top of it so that it does not sit there and overflow makes a great feeder for pro suite especially because it's so thick can you get a shot of how that's holding that it's kind of slowly coming out and filling those feed troughs then i've made this to fit perfectly like that hinge out of the way we should have enough for bees there and we'll adjust as needed all right i think that we are in pretty good shape let's see if we can start this transfer and i'll make sure that we can get this going we we got a good hot day to do this i'm thankful for being able to be in the shade [Music] don't expect to have any trouble from the bees all right [Music] as we work this along we're going to [Music] kind of set the components of the hive [Music] over here [Music] [Music] with the bees [Music] this was the last swarm i caught back in the end of july this could have possibly been the one that you saw jason and i get out of the deer stand i'm not certain about that they haven't done a whole whole lot but they haven't been fed either we're going to kind of mix them up a little bit as we go here try to keep bees and bruise and comb at a good equal ratio imagine these bees will be glad to get that syrup [Music] i noticed a drone out on the porch of this point out those drone cells too the other day what do point out those drone cells that bubble out a lot of times people think that's a queen cell what we have here is all of this in this corner is protruding grown cell male bees being produced here in the corner all of this lower tightly capped is worker bee brewed these sparse ones up at the top more drone cells think of them as a bullet sticking up out of a box of shells that's that's what it is i can see the larva in there beside them i see a little bit of kind of darkening under here but i see some brood also being capped fresh brood and i'll tell you the truth i haven't even been looking for the paying attention to where the queen might be so far on this all i see is capped and hatching brood this is actually i know this was a swarm catch this is on this is a wired wax foundation the old tone i had that i was using for the bait yeah it has a great little population of bees in here very calm gentle bees i'd say that they had had a recent pretty good brood explosion i still have brood yet to come off and right there is mama at my thumb you see her all right pretty little queen all right mama you just lead the rest of these girls right along on with their mission are you thinking about stinging me all right we know that we're starting this endeavor with a good queen plenty of bees not a lot of honey yet definitely living hand to mouth she's just keeping enough brood keeping them rolling however this this frame does have can you see the larva rolled up down in the bottom or am i just seeing them clean i think that's just like sale yeah okay [Laughter] i'm going to say this with some of their some of their work before the nectar ceased and they are true truly living poor aren't they pistol um and mouth august is a terrible time for the honeybee when you experience the lack of rainfall that we've had and this excessive upper heat you know a lot of folks right now probably are realizing they they need to feed all right so really and truly i don't see a reason to put in a queen excluder at this point in time we're not worrying about a honey production we're worrying about getting bees through winter so we're going to go ahead and continue just to load load these girls in here they've got their feeder there that they'll they'll get located shortly pistol will get that blue racer dug out from under that heat and air unit and everybody will go back to having a nice day i kind of think we even can grant if you'll kind of give an idea here what what the folks are seeing um when we put the put the follower boards back up on top of these bees which i can probably go ahead and do now they get this versus a inner cover this this serves as the inner cover yes no come on man okay we're gonna adjust that follower board i told you about i think then it will be super simple to come back in here and find out grin can you can you see what i got going here we're going to adjust the follower board this is its program there's a honeybee just found the uh just found the pro suite so that'll be a that will be something they are going to get with i'm just going to push that right up to the the end bar we've got feeder in place follower board tight they're probably not enjoying me sweating all over them i'm not enjoying sweating by the way and as far as this goes where the bees are at at this very point in time i'm going to leave these boards in in the box we're going to try not to trap bees on this side we know we have the queen installed these bees inside we'll start working this we're going to move this box on back to allow to allow these bees to have a better opportunity that one just figured it out immediately we're going to lean this up right here these are going to come in they've been coming in and coming into here they'll come in now and kind of deadhead they'll work their way around to here once they get to here and bees start coming to the entrance that beat us figured it out as soon as this becomes a obvious action to these bees these bees will all leave this box and they're going to come right out here to the front they may come up here and get fuzzed up these other bees will leave them in uh this will work out just right there's no point it's hot they're they're they're in the shade i'm not gonna stand here and i could stand there and pump smoke on and get them to come out of that box i don't need that box back right now that's not a big deal by dark they will have this worked out i'll grab the box and move it back inside it is super hot today this is probably not any anything that uh you know you if you've got a better choice to do this spring or september even but i wanted to get them in i want to get these built up i didn't think they were just a huge colony but the great thing about it is i've got them in this box now that's over with i'm going to continue to monitor their progress you'll get to see it uh on our channel so i appreciate you watching us i thank you for for each and every subscribe that you all do and every like if you've got questions please post them we'll try to get them answered until we see you again roll that beautiful beef footage thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Central Beekeepers Supply

Views: 36,994

Keywords: beekeeping 101, how to, how to start beekeeping, hive bodies, honeybee, how to keep bees, bee supply, beekeeping supplies, Long hive, long hive construction, box of bees, simple process, long hive in the bee yard, online beekeeping store, beekeeper supply store, entrance feeder, Langstroth frame, advice from a beekeeper

Id: KKXtKsi_Xbc

Length: 26min 55sec (1615 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021