I’ve been keeping honey bees for nearly 20 years now and last year I decided it was time for a radical change.

When I started beekeeping I joined the local beekeeping association and did a winter beginners course.  For most people on the course one of the first decisions to make was which type of hive they were going to use.  There were various options, with the most commonly used hive in the UK being the Modified National.  As many local beekeepers use Modified Nationals it is easier to obtain nucs of bees, to borrow or lend out equipment, obtain a frame of eggs and larvae if needed to raise a new queen etc.  They are also easier to move than some of the other hives if taking bees to the hive, or moving to another apiary.  I therefore decided to continue with the National hives I inherited when I took over from the beekeeper who was retiring and whose bees I was taking over.

National Hive

For many years I was happy using Nationals.  Most of the time I had been 4 and 8 hives.  For a while I did expand the number of hives I had, but to be honest I discovered the more hives I had the less I enjoyed beekeeping.  Turns out for me it is the fascination of the bees themselves, rather than producing lots of honey, which I really enjoy.  I can watch the bees just as well with a couple of hives.

Somewhere along the way I came across some articles about top bar hives and loved the idea of them.  It was interesting to read honey bees building their own comb tend to build smaller cells for the workers, but also raise more drones, than they do when given foundation to build upon.  Much as I liked the idea, I was concerned about examining fragile combs of honey and so continued on with Modified National hives for another 10 years or so.

Much as I may not like to admit it, I am getting older and started having joint problems which made lifting supers (which can weigh 30 pounds) every time I did an inspection difficult.  Being on the short side also made lifting more than a couple of supers off of a hive a struggle.  Then an accident which had me out of action for most of the summer was the final straw and I decided it was time to make the switch.

I enjoyed doing lots of research into different options and made some decisions:-

I would use long hives which used frames rather than top bar hives.  It seemed that frames would give the combs a bit more stability to inspect than top bars alone.

I’d use 14 x 12 frames.  Using deeper frames would mean that there would be more room in the hive for the queen to lay.  Also when the brood nest contracted downwards in the late summer, and the bees back filled the space with honey, there would be more stores above the cluster for winter.

I wasn’t going to use a queen excluder and would allow the queen the run of the hive.  Given as much room as needed for laying, hopefully the colony wouldn’t decide to start swarm preparations too early in the season.

I wouldn’t use foundation and would allow the bees to build their own comb.  This was the biggest concern though.  Would the bees build the comb within the frame, or would they build as and where they liked.  Hopefully by adding a frame or two at a time the already drawn frames would act as a guide. 

I found some extra long hives, which were divided down the middle and would house two colonies.  Hubby has often said that I only need “2 hives to tinker with” whereas I had always enjoyed having 3 or 4 colonies.  Hmmmmm 2 hives . . . 4 colonies . . . .  perfect, we’d both be happy even if I had deliberately misunderstood what he meant!.

Painting the long hives

Sadly that winter I did have winter losses, which meant I had no bees to transfer into the new hives.  However it did give me the chance to work on the apiary and get everything set up and ready for keeping bees again. 

The next decision was whether to wait and collect a swarm when the opportunity arose, put out a bait hive in the hopes of a swarm moving in, or buy a nuc. In the end I went with a nuc of locally adapted bees from the beekeepers who ran that winter beginners course all those years ago. 

I picked up the nuc at the beginning of May 2024.  After one of the wettest springs, the bees were bursting at the seams and ready to go straight into one of my hives.  That was the start of a steep learning curve.

Nuc of bees waiting to go into their new hive

I think this blog is long enough!  I’m planning some more blogs about beekeeping with the long hives so keep a watch out for them.