Archive for the ‘Bee Hives’ Category

Bee Hives

Honey bee hives are basically nests for the bees where the young ones grow up. It’s a shelter for them them keep warm and safe from the elements and predators. Honey bee hives are a structure which is enclosed from all sides and which has only one entry and exit point.

The inside structure of a Honey bee hive is a collection of small cells which are closely packed with bees wax also known as the honey comb. These cells are used to store food, which is honey and pollen and it is also a protective shelter for the young ones.

Honey Bees in the wild

In many parts of the world bees use caves and rock cavities to make bee hives. These are their natural nesting sites. The entry of the hive is smoothened with the help of propolis.

Propolis is used to seal the bee hives. The basic architecture of all bee hives is the same. Honey is stored in the hives. Honey is usually stored in the upper part of the hive and pollen in the lower part. The shell for the queen is often made at the lower part of the bee hive.

Then Honey bee hives are designed in such a way that the queen bee is restricted to lay eggs in some parts of the hive only, thus, managing space for storing honey and pollen.

There are different types of Honey bee hives used for bee keeping. Bee keeping is the agriculture of bees to get honey, propolis and royal jelly. Traditional bee hives are ones which has only the external structure and has no internal structure in it.

The bees start building up the internal structure themselves once they start living in it. Nowadays the traditional honey bee hive structure is not used anymore.

Types of Honey bee hives

The following are types of basic traditional Honey bee hives:

• Skeps- With no structure inside, these hives have only an external structure with single entry point. These are made of baskets.
• Hives – These are like long cylinders made with clay and are stacked uniformly in rows.

Modern day Honey bee hives are square in structure and they do not have any ceiling or floors and these are well ventilated. Frames are hung in parallel.

Below are different types of modern day Honey bee hives :

• Langsroth hives – It gives the bee keeper the convenience of pulling and inspecting the hives and also dividing the colony to other hive for better reproduction.
• Top bar hives – The main features of this type of hive is simplicity and low cost. These also have removable frames.