The Langstroth hive, part by part

Anne's hive kit arrives in February, and she lays every piece out on the garage floor. Boxes. A flat board with a lip. Two lids that look almost the same. A metal grid. A stack of wooden frames. She has no idea what goes where. So let's build a hive together, from the ground up.

The hive most Ontario beekeepers use is the Langstroth hive, named for Lorenzo Langstroth, who designed it in the eighteen fifties. His big idea was the movable frame. Every comb hangs in its own frame, so you can lift it out and inspect it without cutting anything. In Ontario that isn't just convenient. The law requires movable frames, so that combs can be checked for disease.

At the bottom is the hive stand. It lifts the hive off the damp ground, keeps the wood dry, and saves your back.

On the stand sits the bottom board. It's the floor of the hive, with a landing board at the front where the bees come and go. Set the hive so it tilts slightly forward, so rain runs out of the entrance instead of pooling inside.

Next come the boxes, which beekeepers call hive bodies or brood boxes. This is where the queen lays and the colony raises its young. The full size box, called a deep, is about twenty four centimetres tall. For an Ontario beginner, the usual set up is two deeps for the brood nest, and Ontario's wintering guidance is written around colonies in one or two brood boxes.

Inside each box hang the frames, usually ten. Each frame holds a sheet of foundation, a thin wax or plastic sheet pressed with the shape of cells. The bees build their comb on it. Brood foundation is sturdier, often wired or plastic, because brood comb gets heavy.

Above the brood boxes go the honey supers, the boxes where the bees store the honey you take. Many beekeepers use a shorter box, called a medium, for supers, because a full deep of honey is very heavy. The Ontario Beekeepers' Association notes that a full honey box can weigh up to forty five kilograms.

Between the brood and the supers, some beekeepers add a queen excluder, a grid with gaps big enough for workers but too small for the queen. It keeps her laying down in the brood boxes. It's optional, and some beekeepers call it a honey excluder, because workers can be slow to pass through it.

On top goes the inner cover, a flat board with a hole in the middle. And over that, the outer cover, a lid that telescopes down over the edges and keeps the rain out.

Now let's change one fact. Suppose Anne leaves out the inner cover and puts the outer lid straight on the top box. The bees seal every gap with propolis, a sticky resin they collect from trees. By her next inspection, the lid is glued down hard, and prying it off jars the whole colony. The inner cover is there to stop exactly that.

There are other kinds of hive, like the top bar hive and the Warré hive. They have their fans. But this course teaches the Langstroth, because it meets the movable frame rule, the parts are standard and easy to buy, and Ontario nucleus colonies are sold on Langstroth frames.

The mistake beginners make is mixing sizes. A frame from one box that won't fit another, or a hive that isn't standard Langstroth, means the frames from your nuc won't fit and you can't swap frames between colonies. Buy standard, and buy the same size throughout.

Here is the rule, in one breath. From the ground up: stand, bottom board tilted forward, two deep brood boxes with ten frames each, an optional queen excluder, honey supers, then the inner cover and the outer cover, all standard Langstroth sizes.

Next, the tools and the gear that keep you comfortable and your bees calm.