Do a search Wilfred, there appears to be a few of us doing the long hive thing. I won’t know until next year how successful my design is as it has been a bad year for nectar, as you are aware. Theoretically, there should be no issues.
Yes I did a search here but nowhere could I find anyone who has extolled success.
A lot of difficulty with QE and some very nice hives.
Just wondering.
Yes- and no. My long hive is continuing to do fine- but this year I have not harvested 1 drop of honey from it. However it is in an apiray with 4 other standard hives- and not one drop from any of them yet ether. Worst season in 50+ years apparently… But last year I did manage to make two harvests from my flow frame long hive- even though that year the hive requeened twice. So I havn’t had a good season yet- but I do know it works. I am looking forward to this coming spring- finally we have had good rain- hope it keeps u[p throughout winter…
The colony has always been fine- no disease, etc, and inspecting/using the hive really is a dream. It’s a whole different kettle of fish inspecting a long hive with no lifting and minimal disturbance/agression. I love my long hive and am glad I made it. This winter I will build two more. I alreayd have all the parts ready for assembly.I am considerign selling one if you interested
Bite the bullet, the winters are long down there and you need something to keep you occupied.
I’m the same as the others. My only real question moving forward is around brood space (number of frames). Mine has 20 brood frames with 6 FF. In a good/average flow year they should bring a lot of nectar in. In years like this (poor) I wonder if a smaller number 10-12 brood frames would have been better. I guess that is what the follower board is for…
No issue with the vertical QE for me. I’m going to make another LL with FF and move on my first LL with no FF this winter/year.
Adam
[quote=“SouthEastScarp, post:24, topic:9644”]
you need something to keep you occupied
[/quote]
Maybe when I get a bit older
and feeble, after all I need to get some return on my crane system first.Good to hear the long hives are indeed successful.
Yep- mine isn’t quite as long as yours but has 14 regular frames- this year the bees left around 5 largely empty. In previous years the end opposite the flow frames was 3 or 4 deep with pure honey. In hindisght I should have put my follower board in this season to consolidate the space. The bees have managed to maintain the mpty frames- keeping the combs clean and disease free- but they had no excess to store in them. I will put in the board now just before winter sets in in full force. Then I will try and boost that hive early in spring with soem frames from a donor to give it a kick start. I have high hopes for the coming honey season!
Hello Semaphore
you mention here you might have a kit for sale. I know it was last year but I am interested if a) the design has been a success and b) if you could post a couple of pictures with the activity around your flow frames (I have yet to find a long hive with flow frames being used by the bees).
I’m sure you’ll get a response but I haven’t noticed an issue with bees accessing flow frames in a long Lang. Just like a vertical the brood section and hive overall needs to be bursting with bees. Photo from last season May 19, but a poor nectar flow and no real use. This season, Sept 19, they have been across 4-5 of the frames already, numbers might be a little light because with the small numbers they’ve moved off most of them.
We have had several posts recently on the Facebook Long Langstroth group recently where people have reported and shown success of Flow in a Horizontal hive.
I’ve seen a lot of builds lately with the flow frames being incorporated but none that have been harvested. @Semaphore and others are a little in front of me but there has been some discussion on the number of FF in a LL and their placement.
I only just added two FF’s to my LL the other week.
The girls are working on the frames, but have not started placing honey in them yet. This is not my strongest hive, I think the queen may be getting a bit old as she does not lay a nice brood pattern and I will be re queening as soon as Jack lets me know that one is available, which should be any time soon.