Bob Wrote:
 
I noticed you said your side angles were 15 degrees. Do you have
any problems with side comb attachment?
 
Attatchment is not a real problem but will happen on a semiregular
basis.  What this means is that yes they will build small amounts of
attatchment comb to the sides given the write situations.  ie. The hive
is crowded and they are looking for a place to store brood and honey.
This is solved by staying ahead and keeping good volume in the hive.
Even if some attatchment does exist it is manageable.  Simply run the
hive tool along the inside edge of the comb and it will let go.
Attatchement occurs in the brood area not the honey area as a rule of
thumb.  As I said in the last message the hardest part is keeping good
volume in the hive by adding and removing combless top bars.  Try to
never place two empty bars next to each other else you will get 90
degree comb.
 
 
60 degrees (as in a Kenya hive) with 20 inch long top bars.30 bars
1 3/8 in. wide.
 
I read the areas dealing with the Kenya hives as well but also found a
web page dealing with hives a gentleman kept in New Mexico I believe.
He gave an explination of hive voulume as it relates to geographic
location.  It was from this info that I designed my hive.  In doing the
design I also layed out standard sizes so I could use standard lumber
yard 1 x 6, 1 x 8 and 1 x 12 with as little cutting as possible.  The
hives measure (from memory) 30 top bars deep (1 3/8 inch wide), 17.5
inches wide and 10.5 inches deep.  If you keep L hives you should
consider making the length of the top bars so they can be transfered to
a standard bood box.   I have the design on paper if you are interested,
e mail me your address.
 
 
Entrance in the middle of one side.
 
Can't comment directly.  The biggest problem I have is that they keep
the honey above the brood and I have to starve them for space in the
brood section and force them to move honey to the honey seciton.  Right
now I am in the middle of the citrus bloom here in central Florida.  My
hives look like this in composition. Enterance, 1 1/2 frame pollen and
honey, Ten frames brood, Queen excluder, Honey frames.  As you can see
if my hive will hold 30 frames I only have space for 18 honey frames.  I
can manage this due to the shorter flow lengths in Florida.  If you live
in an area with long flows such as clover you are going to need a larger
brood area and hence a larger box.  I can think of pros and cons for
having a central entrance but for the moment will stay with the end
entrance.  The queen excluder is movable as well.  It is made from a
piece of 1/4 inch plywood cut to fit the dimensions of the inside of the
box.  The center has been removed and 1/4 inch galvanized screen is
stapled over the cutout.
 
john