Modern Hives

Dartington   Beehaus   Top bar   Flow   Rose

Dartington Long Deep Hive

The Dartington long deep hive was developed in 1975 by Robin Dartington, an engineer.

The hives are intended for use in gardens and on roof top locations, not for commercial or migratory beekeeping.

They are designed to keep the weight of individual parts below 7kg (16 lbs), which observes the safety guidance issued by the UK Health & Safety Executive. The hive is therefore safe for use by everyone.

The design is derived from classic log hives used around the world where honey is stored by the bees at the back of the cavity away from the entrance. However, the system is very flexible as the brood chamber can be divided to house two or more colonies plus honey boxes may be added above the brood chamber to provide as much honey storage as required.

HIVE DATA	NATIONAL 14×12	DARTINGTON	BEEHAUS
Brood frame	14″ x 12″	14″ x 12″	14″ x 12″
Super frame	14″ x 5½”	14″ x 5½”	14″ x 5½”
Frames / brood box	11	21	22
Cells / brood box	80,000	80,000	80,000
Lug length	1½”	1½”	1½”

The construction uses widely available modern materials such as plywood. Essentially, the hive is a rectangular brood chamber based on the National 14 x 12 frame with top bee space.

The hive holds 21 frames (14” wide x 12” deep) with an insulated dummy board front and back. The body is raised to a convenient working height on long legs and supports four or more honey-boxes above the brood chamber each holding five Manley frames or six National shallow frames (14” x  5½”).

A fifth honey-box is provided to allow exchange of a full box for an empty one or it can be used as a queen mating hive.

Accessories include two carry-boxes, each holding six 14 x 12 frames for winter storage. A carry-box can also be used in summer as a nucleus hive using the fifth cover board as a roof.

The Dartington comes with a division board to split the body into two separate compartments, enabling effective swarm control.

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Dartington   Beehaus   Top bar   Flow   Rose

Beehaus

The Beehaus is based on the same principles as the Dartington hive system but the boxes are manufactured using plastic materials. They are ideal for keeping bees in gardens or on rooftops.

The Beehaus hive system comes complete with all the equipment required to start beekeeping, including four honey boxes, integral mesh floor and varroa inspection tray.

The brood box has entrances at either end and there is enough space to house twenty two 14 x 12 brood frames.

HIVE DATA	NATIONAL 14×12	DARTINGTON	BEEHAUS
Brood frame	14″ x 12″	14″ x 12″	14″ x 12″
Super frame	14″ x 5½”	14″ x 5½”	14″ x 5½”
Frames / brood box	11	21	22
Cells / brood box	80,000	80,000	80,000
Lug length	1½”	1½”	1½”

As with the Dartington hive the colony can be allowed to expand horizontally in the Beehaus and store honey in 14 x 12 frames (ensure your extractor will take this size!). Alternatively the brood chamber can be divided in two to house a second colony such as may be produced during swarm control. After the new queen starts to lay the two colonies can easily be recombined if desired.

Because the bees are on 14” x 12” brood frames (also called Deep Nationals) it should be possible to house a prolific colony on 11 frames i.e. half of the hive. In this case honey storage is provided by the honey boxes being housed above the brood box. Each box is half the size of a National super (and half the weight) and uses National shallow frames.

The Beehaus has a stainless steel entrance block, for temporarily closing the hive, and a wasp guard that enables the bees to defend their valuable winter stores during the autumn.

The lid and honey boxes are securely held in place by a strong cord which is easily hooked in place at each end of the hive.

The inspection tray is located under the mesh floor of the hive. As with most hives the tray can be removed to allow mites to fall to the ground as part of integrated pest management, or the tray may be inserted to make a count of average daily mite drop for varroa monitoring.

We understand that www.omlet.co.uk no longer make these hives, but you may come across a second hand one, which should last for many years.

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Dartington   Beehaus   Top bar   Flow   Rose

Top Bar Hives – Kenyan design

The drawing shows the main features of the original Kenyan top bar hive introduced by the ‘Bees for Development’ programme and designed to be easily constructed with cheap local materials by beekeepers in Kenya and other African countries. The sloping sides mimic the catenary shape of natural comb.

Bees are encouraged to start building their comb in straight lines by providing ridges on the underside of the top bars or sometimes by providing a beeswax strip on the lower edge of the bars. As the comb extends downwards some will be attached to the sides and/or base of the hive and may even curve to cover other top bars. This makes inspecting the hive problematic.

Variations

Top bar hives can be made in all sizes to suit your beekeeping requirements and the materials available in your locality. You could even make the top bars into frames if you wish.

There is also a straight sided version of the top bar hive, called the Tanzanian hive, which retains the simplicity of the design.

Advantages

Advantages claimed for the top bar hive, in addition to simplicity, are:

• reduced weight to lift – only one frame lifted at a time, no heavy boxes to move,
• easy access – one horizontal box at a height convenient for you,
• and the use of naturally built comb – no contamination from foundation wax plus cell size is as the bees want it.

Disadvantages

• The obvious disadvantage is that top bar hives are not designed to be moved. However, inspecting individual combs can be achieved but may entail cutting through sides and base before lifting out. Having a good mentor at the start of your beekeeping career should make things easier as they will be able to demonstrate best practice, for example, how to use a comb holder for lifting comb gently.
• No provision is made for adding extra space should it be required for honey storage. For comparison, the dimensions shown would approximate to 70 litres of comb space, adequate for most colonies and similar to two National brood boxes. Alternative management techniques such as splitting or early harvesting can be employed to overcome space problems.

Harvesting honey

Harvesting honey usually means cutting out comb and either taking the crop as cut comb or crushing and straining. This produces more wax but bees have to build new comb before storing more honey. Honey crops are usually smaller compared to a vertical supered hive as honey is spread across a number of combs still with brood, and more honey is converted to make the additional wax. This is not a disadvantage if the honey is not wanted for human consumption or the beekeeper does not wish to feed for winter stores.

Developments

The basic top bar hive design has been hijacked by amateur beekeepers in many countries who wish to keep bees in ways that are seen as more natural or sustainable. All manner of modifications have been proposed such as legs to maintain the hive at a comfortable working height, observation windows, extra thick wood for better insulation, hinged roof with gas struts, varroa mesh floors, biological sumps, moveable division boards for splitting colonies, … The list goes on!

These hives should be compared to the Warré hive, a top bar hive built vertically. This is a more “natural” hollow tree shape, being relatively tall and thin. It is argued that the Warré configuration is more suited to cooler climates, compared with a design for warmer climates where heat loss may be more desirable than heat retention.

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Dartington   Beehaus   Top bar   Flow   Rose

Flow^© hive

The Flow hive was invented about 10 years ago by Stuart and Cedar Anderson in Australia. Not so much a hive as a way of harvesting honey with less fuss for the beekeeper and less disturbance to the bees. It has been described as the most innovative invention in beekeeping since 1851.

Initially the Flow hive was only developed for Langstroth hives but can now be bought for National hives in the UK. This is how it works.

The bottom part of the hive is a conventional brood box. The National Flow super houses 8 flow frames. The Flow frames are placed above a queen excluder in a standard sized box. Two simple cut-outs in one end of the super allow access for collection and end-frame observation. Honey will be stored in the Flow frames. When the frames are full and capped the harvesting of the honey can begin.

Follow this simple procedure:

1. Remove the key access cap and honey trough cap.
2. Insert honey tube into honey trough opening.
3. Insert Flow^© key into bottom slot.
4. Rotate Flow^© key 90° downwards.

When the honey is fully harvested insert the Flow^© key into the top slot and close the split frames.

How does it work?

The Flow frames are made of plastic with a split down the centre. The bees complete the comb with their own wax then fill the cells with honey, before finally capping the cells. Once capped the honey can be harvested as described above without disturbing the bees as the cappings stay in tact.

You can harvest the whole hive at once or each frame individually. Individual frames could yield about 6lbs honey and will provide the beekeeper some control over separating honey from different sources, showing the variety of colours and flavours present. Take care when lifting. A National Flow super full of capped honey weighs 70lbs (30kg) or more!

Viewing windows

A feature of the Flow hive is the provision of viewing windows. The upper and lower access covers on the frame-end side of the super allow viewing of the bees progress in filling up the frames, while the viewing window of the frame-face is like an observation hive. Between the two windows the beekeeper should get a good idea of how much honey has been stored and capped.

Flow hive management in the UK climate

Bees can be reluctant to move up into plastic frames so how you manage the Flow hive will affect your success in honey production. It is possible to paint or spray the Flow frame surfaces with bees wax to encourage the bees to start building comb. Start with a strong colony in a well stocked brood box so that the bees’ only choice is to move into the plastic frames. Avoid putting your colony anywhere near oil seed rape otherwise there is a danger of the frames being made useless with crystallized honey. Likewise, it is best to avoid ivy nectar late in the year. Australian beekeepers often leave the Flow super on all year round but this may not be advisable in the UK climate because of the risk of crystallisation.

More information

A good place to start would be the UK.Honeyflow.com site which has all the details of the Flow system plus FAQs and teaching videos.

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Dartington   Beehaus   Top bar   Flow   Rose

Rose Hive

Tim Rowe, a commercial beekeeper in County Cork, Ireland, became increasingly concerned about the numerous difficulties and stresses that bees were being subjected to. His approach was to study how bees survive and thrive in the wild and applied his ideas to modern beekeeping. The Rose hive and the Rose method are the outcome of those studies.

The Hive

The Rose hive is made of boxes all of the same size, a one size box system or OSB. The boxes fit with National floors, crown boards, etc, and the frames are 14″ x 7½” with long lugs like the National frame. Two Rose boxes are equivalent to a National ‘brood and a half’. This single walled hive takes 12 self spacing Hoffman frames.

The Method

No queen excluders are used so there is no division into brood boxes and supers. The bees create their nest without restriction, as they would in the wild, and expand the nest as they see fit. Most frames are fitted with foundation but Tim recommends that roughly a quarter of the frames be fitted with wax starter strips, allowing the bees to draw out as much drone brood as they desire.

HIVE DATA	NATIONAL	NATIONAL 14×12	ROSE HIVE	COMMERCIAL
Brood frame	14″ x 8½”	14″ x 12″	14″ x 7½”	16″ x 10″
Super frame	14″ x 5½”	14″ x 5½”	14″ x 7½”	16″ x 6″
Frames / brood box	11	11	12	12
Cells / brood box	54,000	80,000	51,500	80,000
Lug length	1½”	1½”	1½”	5/8″

The amount of comb space in one Rose box is adequate for a modest colony, being slightly less than the National box, but not sufficient for a very prolific colony, where two Rose boxes will be required.

The Rose Year

It is believed that excessive feeding with granulated sugar undermines the the health of colonies, so Rose hive beekeepers tend to overwinter their colonies where ever possible on their natural honey crop. However, it is recognised that there will be occasions when bad weather prevents natural foraging, and some sugar feeding will be required.

Removing old comb

In the spring the old comb is rearranged to be in the upper box, from where it will be worked upwards and removed at the end of the season for recycling. No combs should be more than three years old. This operation is the only stressful intrusion in the whole year, but avoids the even more stressful alternatives of Bailey frame change or shook swarm techniques.

From spring to the the middle of June, when brood nest expansion is at its peak, new boxes of foundation are added to spread the brood nest, either by inserting under the nest or into the middle of the nest. Conventional beekeepers may find this concept rather alien, but the bees accept it and rapidly draw out the foundation.

After mid-June, additional boxes with foundation are added above the brood nest for the bees to store honey.

Advantages of using the Rose method

• First and foremost, simplicity, as all parts are compatible and interchangeable. This makes splitting the hive for queen rearing, swarm control, etc, much simpler. Apart from frames, all other National and Commercial hive parts are compatible.
• Congestion in the brood nest is removed as there is no queen excluder to impede progress. This will help reduce stress.
• Colonies build more rapidly if new boxes are added when and where they are needed.
• Insertion of new boxes into the middle of the brood nest reduces the work the bees would have to do to expand the brood nest. Normally, they would have to remove the cap of honey at the top of the hive.
• Swarming is reduced due to less congestion.
• Starter strips in a quarter of the frames allow the bees to build as much drone comb as they wish.

Disadvantages of the Rose method

• Warning! A full Rose box of sealed honey will weigh c50lbs (22kg).
• The marine plywood used for two sides of the boxes does not have the same durability or insulation as western red cedar. A bee-safe form of wood preservative may be required.
• Some beekeepers claim bees do not overwinter well in Rose hives.
• With no queen excluder the lack of a clear demarcation between brood and stores is often seen as a disadvantage.
• There is narrow spacing throughout which precludes using wide spacing in boxes used as supers.

More information

Devotees of Rose hives would encourage both new and old beekeepers to read Tim Rowe’s book ‘The Rose Hive Method‘, ISBN 978-0-9567026-0-9, and follow the advice to allow your bees the freedom to arrange their affairs as they wish.

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