Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
hives are not quite the same from one manufacturer to another. As a result, the parts of
your hive may not quite fit together if you mix parts from different manufacturers. If
your boxes don't quite match, your bees will adjust. But their best efforts to hold the
hive together in ill-fitting boxes work against your best efforts to take it all apart when
checking on your bees. Sticky, runny, dripping honey from a broken burr comb (a free-
form honeycomb built to bridge a gap between hive parts) makes a mess and will cause
a great deal of excitement for your bees. Bees will weld ill-fitting boxes together (with
a glue called propolis, which they make from plant resins) so that the boxes become in-
separable from adjacent boxes. The lesson: In the beginning, choose a supply company
carefully and stick with it. Your first consideration should not be cost but ease and com-
fort for you and your bees.
Pictured is an eight-frame hive, right out of the box. It has three medium supers, a tele-
scoping cover, a screened bottom board, and a mouse guard in place.
Bee space, shown here, is the space, or gap, between the top bars of frames in a hive. It is
also the distance between the top of the frames and the top edge of the box. Bee space
allows bees to walk about the hive. If the space is too large, the bees fill the space with
honeycomb. If too small, they fill the space with propolis.
