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Kristijan Dubravac

Zupanja, Croatia

 Pillar hive

 

As I have worked with Langstroth hives for many years I got tired of taking hives in and out of the van, lifting heavy boxes etc. I wanted to try something new. Since I have had a small trailer with 24 hives I was thinking how to compensate for great space which a Langstroth hive occupies.  

I came up with an idea to make a box for a Langstroth hive shaped as a pillar. That kind of hives should be used for trucks and truck trailers only. It should be made of water resistant chipboard since it is cheap and of good quality. I have used bottom boards made of this chipboard for 10 years, and hey still show no sign of rotting. 

The hive is made in such a way that several colonies or colonies with several queens can be put in one pillar. The colonies can be separated by fiberboards or queen excluders. The advantage of this hive is the extra space, and we all know that the lack of space in a hive causes swarming. If for example the lower colony is too strong, we simply lift the brood frames up into the upper colony and make it stronger. If the whole pillar is filled with bees the colonies need to be relieved so that swarming would not occur.


 

   

It is interesting that we use Langstroth frames and we do not have to lift heavy boxes to get to the brood chamber. The colony is easily controlled by opening the rear side of the hive. Without taking out any frames, we can see whether the colony is about to swarm. When we want to extract honey, frames are simply put in a Langstroth hive and extracted immediately in the trailer or other premises. Different frame heights can be used, so super frames or Farrar frames can be put in the hive. This means that frame height is not important and can be changed if necessary.