I think you got a point.
And i think that’s why Olivier was mentioning this “Layens Hive” to me, much deeper much better for the winter time. The biggest problem (if i understood well) with this hive is actually that it is difficult to manage the extension of the colony. But it is not a problem with the TBH system. So it might be a right pass.
Hi Adam, I don’t know. The bees will make good use of whatever space we give them. That’s what I’ve always thought anyway. When I saw this bloke building the hive, I thought it would work fantastic for him. Maybe if he had a different colony in it, it might have worked differently for him.
One hive I saw above a ceiling (I only saw the aftermath after the bees had been poisoned & all the honey had collapsed onto the ceiling), went back 4 meters which is over 13 feet. It was between a floor & a ceiling. The cavity was around 400mm wide & 200mm high.
It went between 2 floor joists, which are set at 450mm centers & I’m guessing the joists were 200mm deep.
This was before SHB came into the country. I can only imagine the mess they would have made. It was bad enough for the poor home-owner with the smell of the honey on the ceiling going rancid. She didn’t do anything about it for a long time because it was a large house & the lady (an elderly widow) was on her own. She didn’t go near the room where the smell was.
It’s because of this incident that I always believed that a long Lang hive would work really well.
Hi All, I am putting in Lang frames in for the brood and some honey stores and then a few flow frames for home honey, the main point is to have the bees around and not how many Ks I get out evey year.
One point I don’t know about, is how much depth is there left below a Lang frame to the floor leval???
I would love some help with that if anyone knows. Suses
A deep frame is 9 1/8" and a deep box is 9 1/2" with a 5/8" rebate/rabbet at the top. The frame top bar is 3/8" deep. That means that there 1/4" space above the frame and 1/8" below it in each box.
Hi Suses, I went out & measured one, there’s a 12 mm gap from under the frame to the floor. The bees need that kind of gap I believe, in order to circulate air around.
About 9mm of that gap is because of the risers on the bottom board I’m using in that case. Some beekeepers put the bottom board onto the super & cut the entrance out of the super which only leaves a 3mm gap under the frame. I’m not a fan of that idea.
If your using wax foundation or no foundation at all, the bees will leave the space above the bottom bar they require, if the gap under the bottom bar is too small.
If the gap below the bottom bar is too small for the bees, it could be a problem for them when beekeepers use plastic foundation. I guess the bees still work around it.
So Jeff and I agree. He has 12mm from the frame to his bottom board = 1/2", but 9mm is from the bottom board, so 3mm (= 1/8") is the gap between the bottom of the frame and the bottom of the box. Woo hoo! We agree on something as beekeepers!!! 
Hi Dawn & thank you:) although I do enjoy a good argument, I can’t see the point in being contrary just for the sake of it. Maybe I’m a bit more conciliatory as I get older.
I’ve got a bee job this morning, sorting out a blokes cranky hive:)
What is harder, sorting out a cranky hive, or sorting out a cranky bloke??? 
Hi Dawn, I think the cranky hive is easier to sort out:) I’m about to cancel on account of showers coming through.
Thanks JeffH and Dawn, both so much, I would hate to be the cause of discontent!!!
There is going to be no plastic foundation, so it sounds as if I will have enough space using this free old timber I have.
I am bussy till May but hope to start building then.
Thanks again for all your help.
Suses
So essentially instead of a top bar the bees will be getting Lang frames on which to build?This is really a Lang built horizontally instead of vertically. It’s an attractive design, but I would take out the Lang frames and use top bars.
Anything that gets rid of all those brood boxes and and Lang frames is welcome.
Really like this idea. Have you put this into practice and had any results? Thanks
me too- vertical hives look really interesting for stay in place urban hives- it seems it would be much easier to inspect brood and manage the size of the hive very accurately? Using standard langstroth frames with flow frames as per @WillB 's excellent simple design- looks like a really great and flow hive to build. I want to make one!
Are there any drawbacks using horizontal hives over vertical ones? What are the positives?
@WillB will you have a removable base board and/or bottom screen? Honey will (may) drip out of the flow frames when you extract. You could catch it with a tray if you had access.
WillB
I too am virtually convinced to make my next hive a TBH and this one looks pretty bloody good to me. I am wanting to utilise 6 x Flow frames on mine. What improvements do you think need making ? Incorporating the Langsroth hive box design, I would think to incorporate a bottom entrance landing board would be a good idea with some form of venitlation ???
Any thoughts would be appreciated so that I can get to work ASAP to help me pass away time over the winter period. I always like to do something constructive towards my beekeeping goal for the upcoming Spring season so this will be my next project. I plan to build mine from 25mm (1") marine ply.
@Schnucki one improvement I would make: I would put a viewing window on the front of the flow frames as well as the extraction window at the back. The reason is: in our hive we found it was easier to see how full the flow frames were looking at the front edge rather than the back edge (for whatever reason the bees didn’t fill all the cells in the rearmost row that is visible through the rear window- making the frames look half full- when in fact they were 95% capped). Being able to see both sides will help in judging how the frames are filling without needing to open the hive as often.
If I was to make a flow super box- I would definitely put windows on all four sides! The more information you can get the better- plus the windows are fun! In WillB’s horizontal design you could have windows on three sides- and inspecting the frames from the top would be very convenient and easy as well.
Thanks for your tip Semaphore.
I will surely add it to my plan. I may make a twin lid version but need to plan on waterproofing, one for the super and one for the brood. Your tips gives me something to mull over in the meantime so thanks again.
Max
Instead of using a twin lid design- you could have one lid- but then have ‘cover bars’ over your langstroth frames. I found a great video of a horizontal hive design using langstroth frames. With these cover bars you only have to uncover the specific frames you want to look at- and you can control ventilation, etc.
here is the video
More simply you could just have two covers- roughly one for the brood and one for super- but I sure like Joe’s design!
there is a second video showing an inspection, as you can see there is minimal disturbance to the hive. It seems like it would be great to be able to inspect the brood anytime without removing any super:
I’m SOLD. This is exactly what I will build and how I will build it. I have until Sept to get it ready. I will utilise 6 x Flow frames. I like this idea of individual covers over each frame.
Now to the drawing board.
This is amazing! I am a brand new Top Bar hive person. Waiting for my package for an installation. I had no idea that I could use the flow hive in this way! (I have a traditional flow hive that I plan on using this year) but in the event I like it, now I know I could use them for a Top Bar hive as well.
Nicely done:grinning:
Hi Jakes how do those wire work do they go down through the comb.
Arthur
