anyone know where to get them from? I found wood ones from Italy and China- but nothing locally in Australia.
I have been hearing that plastic excluders damage bees wings so would prefer to get a metal one if I can find one. Only thing is I can’t find any…
mann lake sell metal excluders, although I prefer plastic,
The old punched plastic ones damages wings. The old punched zinc ones damaged wings. The new rounded ones in both plastic and metal probably don’t do any noticeable damage. I don’t know of any vertical ones. I’ve always made my own from the metal ones because of their rigidity
I found this- great as it has adjustable bottom. Price is total deal breaker:
http://www.biredskapsfabriken.se/en/artikel.php?kid=9-61&mall=lista.php&id=1630
Found this but they don’t ship to Australia. Shame as it looks great:
http://www.legaitaly.com/en/catalog/hives/queen-excluder/escludiregina-a-diaframma-misura-d-b-detail
Found these but not sure how they will fit in standard langstroth:
https://www.ts-bee.com/excluders/3-frame-vertical-queen-excluder-kit
Semaphore, I made my own as well, its just a matter of cutting down a large metal one resizing it and then pockrivating the sides on again.
The ‘excluders damage wings’ thing would have to be the favourite among oldschool bee club members. Maybe in the old days when they were made from pressed metal, but the world has moved on.
I run Technoset Bee hives in Australia and they are very good quality. The TS super has ‘rails’ to take various attachments, the vertical excluder being one of them. I have never run their vertical excluder but I am interested what you plan to use it for? Are you running a long langstroth? Or planning to run a hive from a single box?
Can take photos of any of their equipment if you need more details or measurements etc.
I made a vertical excluder out of a metal 10 frame for a long lang at one stage, if I were to do it again I’d definitely use plastic as it would be much easier to work with and cut correctly!
Hello there,
I actually called you on the phone about getting some excluders. Yes I would like to get the exact specs please! Send me a PM. I am also interested in buying some of those ‘lazy’ frames for setting up Nuc hives.
I have designed a horizontal ‘long’ langstroth beehive that takes flow frames and I need a vertical excluder. I am making at least 8 of these hives.
Hi,
It wasn’t me you called, but I’m guessing you spoke with Eric from betterbeehives.com.au
I don’t have a vertical excluder handy but I do have the divider that comes in the NUC/split kit to split hives into 2 x 5 frame nucs. It uses the same ‘rails’ so I expect the dimensions will be the same as the vertical excluder.
I’d usually have plastic frames in there but this is in preparation for nucs this season 
Dimensions are
462mm x 274mm and the bottom of the lug is 26mm from the top of the divider. Photos should explain it.
I’ve built two long langstroths, I find the biggest challenge is the cover over the top of the frames. In a trditional Kenyan top bar the bars are wide and fully seal/close the top. With a long langstroth you need to have a cover over the tops of the frames that is easily removable without exposing too many frames at once (otherwise you lose some of the top bar benefits). I had considered adding timber strips to the top of the langstroth frames the full width of the frame to ‘close’ the top, but it reduces the practicality of the frames when you’re using traditional extractors. Interested to know how you solve this problem.
thanks for that- those seperators are interesting- I will check the measurements on my design to see if they will fit. PM me if you can get a price for the vertical exluders.
For my long hive design I used a variation of this solution to the inner cover - though I didn’t use as many ‘cover bars’ as Joe did. I think Joe’s design is the best I have seen for a long langstroth. It’s brilliant.
My hive is not as long either- and is specially designed to use flow frames- you can also stack standard supers on it… I hope to have the first few built in the next two weeks- I am racing to be on time for swarm season. Noticed more and more bees around adelaide last few days… some of the stone fruit trees are already in blossom.
Definitely one of the best designs I have seen too and he has taken into consideration bee space from top of the bars to the covers which is really nice.
One of the benefits he doesn’t mention is that you can easily run multiple hives in a long langstroth by using follower boards.
As for a price, it would be best to call a shop like BetterBeeHives, I just use the equipment, I don’t sell it. As I mentioned, the vertical divider I have came with a nuc kit, this kit includes 2 x dry/wet top feeders as well which are excellent for feeding sugar water and pollen at the same time.
Here is the same nuc system but 3 way split and includes 2 dividers.
As for the design for putting a traditional super on the long langstroth, this is very similar to the beehaus concept:
Behaus also uses cover boards and a similar follower design but I don’t believe the hive body matches the langstroth dimensions we use in Australia. I haven’t seen one in Australia yet.
It’s funny- I started designing my hive after watching Joe’s video. I looked around for more ideas more and found this very clean functional design from Trev’s Bees in New Zealand which gave me the idea to make my long hive the length of two standard supers so I could stack up if I wanted to and expand vertically:
Then I came up with some names for it- first was ‘The Honey Barn’ but that was too rustic given the mid-century modernist style of my hive- so I made a play on ‘Bauhaus’ and came up with ‘Das Beehaus’. Then I googled and found those Beehaus hives- and they are similar in operation to what I designed! Drats! back to the drawing board for names…
Then- reading about the Beehaus- I came to the Dartington hive upon which the Beehaus is (clearly) based- and it is very similar in operation to how my design came together. Turns out there is nothing new under the sun. The good news is the Dartington hive comes with some good ideas about Swarm control and hive management using long style hives:
It’s good to know that the concepts of long langstroths are really quite well developed- and that most users report there is no real problem with these types of hives- or issues with productivity- beyond their size and the relative difficulty of moving them compared to standard vertical langstroths. Other than this one drawback there are many advantages: the hives can be easily split into multiple hives, you can inspect particular frames without having to uncover all the frames. There is no need to lift heavy boxes to inspect frames (unless you stack in summer). You can expand and contract the colony - and rotate out old frames easily. They would make good ‘queen castles’. They make excellent demonstration/educational hives. Using langstroth frames they are compatible with a lot of existing equipment. I also believe they would be better suited to heat treating for Varroa control… There a lot to like for the hobby beekeeper- and I am hoping- there is a goodly possibility of using these hives in a semi-commercial manner.
There is one thing my hive is optimised for that all the others lack: Flow Frames! Unfortunately there is another possibly unique factor with my hive: high cost! I have spared nothing with the design, plan to hot wax dip all parts in bees wax and gum rosin, and am using premium pine, precision cut- over 15 meters of 290mm planks in each hive! It has become a monster:
I have spent a lot of time looking at alternative hive styles and long (horizontal) Langstroth is definitely appealing. One of the other downsides however is that the brood chamber doesn’t provide heat to the upper supers, but with the supers on top I guess this is resolved. They do become extremely heavy but no worse than a top bar or traditional Langstroth.
I built a prototype about 3 years ago with the intention of always calling it a ‘Longstroth’ and at the time I didn’t find much on the Internet about the concept (but they were definitely around!). Half way through the build some other beekeepers at the time thought I was building myself a coffin so it was quickly nicknamed the ‘bee coffin’. This was about 30 frames long. The most recent attempt was a bit more ambitious (42 frames) but it is just too huge to move… so it’s currently on hold (plan was to put two colonies side by side in it)!
The only feedback I would have on your design (although you probably aren’t after any!) is the surface area of the base of the legs is probably going to be an issue. My 30 frame hive (8 legs) got so heavy that it started sinking into the ground (marshy ground in QLD), and it got down to the height where cane toads were starting to pick off the bees as they came/went!
Photos of 30 frame base style here (this one was slightly shorter than 30):
With frames:
Larger recent version:
Wow yours are huge! I see why they called it a coffin. Mine is exactly the length of two 10 frame boxes so will hold 4 flow frames and around 13 regular frames when full. I plan to not remove the flow frames over winter but to let them be honey stores for the bees over that period.
The base board is pretty robust so I think the weight will be ok- and the legs will need foundations to stop sinking. I am getting eyelets welded to the legs so I can brace them if I have to.
Bee Australian sell vertical queen excluder. Plastic only but looks a lot more rigid than normal excluders.
