Langstroth's Removable Frame

Reverend Lorenzo L. Langstroth made careful measurements inside natural honey bee nests. From his observations, Langstroth described the concept of bee space. He noted that the honey bees always build their nest with precisely spaced aisles between the sheets of beeswax honeycomb. These aisles, where the bees walk, measure between one fourth and three eights of an inch. Honey bees sometimes build their nest with straight, parallel sheets of comb; but, in nature, they often build a nest of twisting, folded sheets of comb. Regardless the shape of the combs, the bee space remains the same, roughly three eights of an inch, enough room for a bee to walk upright or two bees to pass shoulder-to-shoulder. With his concept of bee space, Langstroth designed the modern bee hive in 1851. The heart of the hive is the removable frame which holds the honeycomb. The frame is separated from all other surfaces, top, bottom, sides, and adjacent frames by one bee space of three eights of an inch. Langstroth noted that if there is an opening or crevice in the hive of less than a bee space, the bees will fill it with propolis, bee glue that they make from tree saps and resins. He also noted that spaces in the hive that are greater than a bee space are filled in with honeycomb, either full sheets of comb or oddly shaped burr combs.

The Langstroth bee hive offered such flexibility to the beekeeper that it opened beekeeping as a modern agricultural endeavor. First, the removable frame allowed hive inspectors to examine the hive for brood diseases. Next, numerous hive manipulations became possible for the beekeeper: mechanical harvesting of honey, colony strength balancing, feeding frames of honey and pollen, making colony divisions, and rearing queens. Click on today’s photo to see a frame being removed from the brood nest. Capped cells at the edge hold the pupa stage; empty cells in the center reveal where adult bees recently emerged.
--Richard

Hive Bodies and Supers

The natural home of the honey bee is a cavity in a hollow tree. Honey bees select a storm damaged tree or one that has been hollowed out by birds and termites to move into when they reproduce the colony by swarming. They prefer to find a tree at the edge of the forest with a small, eastern facing knot hole located along the bottom of the cavity. Honey bees like to find a tree with a cavity of about 40 liters in volume. They prefer to have the entrance a considerable height above the ground. Of course, swarming bees do not always find a tree with a cavity fitting all of these desirable bee abode requirements. It is often easier for them to find a house with an opening leading to an inviting space between the interior and exterior walls. The honey bee has no interest in the appearance of its hive. It will gladly live in a dry hive that is freshly painted, unpainted, or old and worn. The walls or a house or the hollow, wooden columns supporting a porch are just as attractive as a modern bee hive to a colony of honey bees.

The modern bee hive is a functional replica of the hollow tree. Designed by Lorenzo L. Langstroth in 1851, it is made of hollow wooden boxes which stack atop one another. The lower boxes contain the frames of comb that hold the queen and brood. Langstroth’s original hive body had a depth of about nine inches. Two deep hive bodies have a volume of 84 liters and comprise the traditional bee hive. Some beekeepers, like us at Peace Bee Farm, find advantages in building bee hives of this same 84 liter capacity using three boxes of about six inches in depth. Above the hive bodies we stack the honey supers, as bees naturally store their honey above their brood nest. As many supers as are needed are superimposed on the hive.
--Richard

The Langstroth Bee Hive

The modern bee hive was designed in 1851 by Philadelphia minister Lorenzo L. Langstroth. He developed the hive after making extensive observations and measurements of natural honey bee nests. Langstroth noticed one detail that had not been described in hundreds of years of man’s handling honey bees. The bees always maintain a space of three eights of an inch between sheets of honeycomb. That’s just enough space for two bees to pass shoulder to shoulder. Langstroth designed a wooden bee hive using the available lumber sizes of the day. The secret to the success of the Langstroth design was a frame to hold the honeycomb which was surrounded on all sides by a space of three eights of an inch. As the frames could be removed from the Langstroth hive, the design became widely accepted. Removable frames enabled hive inspectors to carefully examine hives for brood diseases, especially the highly communicable American foulbrood.

The Langstroth bee hive is actually a working replica of the honey bee’s natural home, a hollow tree. This hive is a series of stacked, hollow wooden boxes arranged vertically like a standing tree. In keeping with the honey bee’s natural design, the bee hive has a small entrance located low on the hive. For protection from the weather, the bee hive has a cover. Bee hives have a bottom board which serves as a floor. There is often a landing board at the entrance, which is similar to a porch on a home. Honey bees select natural cavities in trees which are large enough to have space below the combs of the brood nest. This space serves an important role in protecting the hive from many parasites. Mites which fall from the brood nest are devoured by beneficial ants in this space. The modern screened bottom board, like the one shown in the picture, serves the colony the same way by allowing parasitic mites to fall from the hive to be eaten by ants.
--Richard