This page was last updated
18 February 2012
Quest for the Good Life Welcome to our section on hive parts. We use the National Hive, but the basics are similar for most sorts of frame hive. Also we are about to experiment with a Top Bar Hive and this is also shown below.
Varroa Floor
Starting from the top, the roof is fairly self explanatory. It can have a metal sheet covering or roofing felt to keep the rain and snow from entering the hive. It also has ventilation holes in it, protected by mesh to prevent pests from entering. This is the first thing the bee keeper takes of when visiting the hive.
Next is the Crown Board. A sheet of plywood basically often with holes in it to allow ventilation and fitting of equipment such as feeders. This acts as a lid for whatever the beekeeper needs to use it for.
The Honey Super is a smaller box (compared to the one below) and this has frames in it assembled by the bee keeper containing a wax foundation. The bees use this to create honey comb. This box is where the honey is stored. The queen is prevented from entering this box so no eggs or young are here.
The Queen excluder is a grill (usually metal) which allows the worker bees to pass through but not the queen. This means she cannot get up into the honey super to lay eggs. Only the workers can get up there to store all that lovely honey.
The brood box is larger than the super and holds larger frames. These frames are where the queen lays here eggs and the population of the hive is increased.
The Varroa floor is a special type of floor that contains a metal mesh. Varroa mites are a nuisance. They live on the bees and in with the young causing them to become weak. This floor allows mites to fall through it and perish on the ground beneath.
The stand holds the hive up off the damp ground and gives room for the mites to drop out the bottom. It also raises the hive up so the beekeeper can save his/her back a bit.
This is a very simple view of the hive and it’s parts but it gives a good basic understanding of what’s what. Some bits are moveable and used in different places for different jobs, but above is fairly typical of a frame hive.
Now let’s look at a Top Bar Hive.
A Top Bar Hive is a completely different structure. It basically is a trough. Bars of wood straddle across the top and the bees attach their honey comb to them. They build natural comb in both overall shape and individual cell sizes.
The structure is relatively simple and can be made with basic wood working skills. Getting the correct sizes of wood to make the sides and end is perhaps the most difficult part as you have to glue lengths together to make up the right width.
So you have two sides, two ends, 4 legs a roof and wooden bars and 2 follower boards (dividers basically). Sounds simple, that’s because it is.
The bees build comb horizontally along the hive using up more and more top bars.
This is a real alternative to the traditional frame hive, such as the national, especially for small scale keepers.
You can download more details about this type of hive from www.biobees.com or you can go to our downloads page to go straight to the pdf file.