Bee-Folks and Equipment Manufacturers:

According to my limited observations, based mostly on looking at the
pictures of long hives available on the net and reading descriptions
therein, it appears that long hives can be great if they can further
accommodate the following features:

EXPANDABILITY: Could it be expandable from, say, five-nuc-frame holder to
five hundred, if so desired, by a simple “add-on” feature?  The rigidity
of a fixed size *could* be a drawback, for instance, during a heavy flow.
Sure, one can constantly pull out frames, but I am just too lazy, besides
they must be riped, too.

DIVIDER: Could it hold more that one colony with a simple breathable
divider with separate entrances?  Such feature could be bad for disease
propagation but great to winter a weak colony, by putting the trough in
between others: one can stack them up to share the warmth.  This could be
the easiest of the three.

WEIGHT: Since reducing weight is our primary goal here-—to save our back—-
could we not incorporate the Styrofoam hive material?  We have already
talked about this in an earlier thread: plastic [Styrofoam] vs. wooden
hive.

If you can come up with such innovation, I would love to switch, too; in
the meantime, though, I will keep at my elevator-pushups and weight-
training to save my back.


Yoon

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::