Expanding the Hydrangea Layens Horizontal Hive
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Today we check on our Hydrangea colony to see if they're ready for expansion. When using a Layens hive you should check to see if frames need to be added every two weeks in the nectar flow (Note: This is not an inspection, the last frame is looked at to determine if more frames are required) . Generally if the last frame is filled then more frames are needed.
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Wes - Congrats on swarm #6 and a thriving hydrangea hive! Thanks for sharing!
OK the running water at the start made me have to stop the youtube and come back and watch. Giving them more room gives you more honey in the fall!!!
You just did make it with the expansion! I am wondering why the hive is wider than the frames and divider board. A quick fix would be to cut a piece of 1/4" Luan plywood to the proper dimensions and slip it in, against the back wall, to make up the difference. This addition board will eliminate the extra space and allow the frames to sit securely. I hope this is helpful. Keep up the excellent videos.
Thanks Michael!
That is certainly a good idea, we may do this if the colony ever moves out. I guess if it becomes too much a problem we’ll have no other choice but do it while they’re inside.
You got there just in the nick of time. No comb to clean up and they ahve room now for the population explosion. Good job!
Yes the construction crew was definitely getting ready!
Wow u got a lovely lot of bees there! Was that the one where the swarm arrived straight to it! And loads of propolis... what a healthy colony! Great progress! Very best wishes to you 😀
Thank you Vicky! Yes that was the first main hive we used to catch a colony! They do look very healthy, didn't feel like an inspection was needed based off the last frame. Hope your Bees are doing great!
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees thanks Wes! 😀 very best wishes for the summer! 😀🐝
I'm gonna have to do some major work in my long hive. A swarm moved in and I only had 6 frames in it. It holds 30. 😆 I didn't even want bees in it this season.
Horizontal hives rock! We've seen some good Langstroth versions too.
It seems when you don't want bees, that is exactly when they "move in of their own accord" and give you a nice surprise ...
Beeman At it again!
Running out of time Mr. Freeman?
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees Is it Really.. That Time again?
thanks for another great video. I'm a newbie and have had two Layens Hives made by a local beekeeper. He told me to just fill up the whole thing with frames (20 in each), don't worry about the extra space. So I followed his advice, both hives are going gangbusters, its early days, so they are concentrating on the one end of their hives.
In the fall/winter I obviously will need to scale down for heat.
Do you see any pros/cons to this way of doing it? thanks
So George de Layens actually wrote in his book that at some point he started filling out his hives with frames completely in the Spring and this was to disturb the bees as little as possible. He noted that this worked fine and the Bees generally did very well. Lazutin in "Keeping Bees with a Smile" talks more of our method in the video where we check on the Bees and add frames if necessary. Note that Lazutin lived in Russia so it was much colder and having a bunch of empty space might not be best for the Bees (Layens was in France I believe).
So to sum it up, we think that if you are in a really cold climate that you should probably use our method. However if you aren't afraid of cold snaps then Layens method would work just fine. Both were incredible Beekeepers so their techniques have uses based off the area the Bees are kept.
Hope that helps!
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees thanks, that really does help. My thought is that there may be less chance of swarming if there are more frames than the hive needs at all times. I'm in Nashville, so our warm season is pretty long.
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees -I understand the general rule of inspecting twice a year. How about periodically monitoring the hive and assessing the colony's activity, where you may conclude that certain colonies my need the expansion, and others are fine the way they are? By monitoring, I mean observing without opening.
On a separate note, do you guess or know what kind of bees that make up the swarms you catch, or, is that not necessary?
Thanks for these quick and informative videos. Good job!
It looks like to me, the top bars on several frames are too short and instead of putting shims on the rabbits the frames sit in, I would replace the frames with the short top bars with top bars of the right length. If the hive wall(s) are bowed out, I would consider either making pairs of custom frames to fit properly or rebuild the hive without that bow ... it may stop headaches in the future that are worse than this little headache today ... just my personal opinion ... I am thinking about building a double 21 frame box with a permanent divider in the center for my back yard and also building a couple 14 framers and building 14 frames supers for them, but I'll have to put telescoping lids on those to get the colony expansion I am looking for if needed ...
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah this isn't something we've normally had a problem with. I'm not sure if the hive bowed out but the frames were certainly a little short. Good luck with that hive!
How heavy do you think one of your frames is full of honey??
Around 10 lbs
Dude I just checked my 14 frame layens hive and all frame r full what should I do now all frame r honey on top and brood at the bottom need advice from you please
Sorry for the late response!
I would let them sit until fall for honey extraction!
@@SecureAcresNaturalBees thanks bro I'm not worried about the honey they have no more room to expand if they have no more room won't they swarm out man these girls worked fast
If they are full early in the season, I would pull two or three at most, replace the frames removed with empty frames, extract the honey and check in a few weeks just to see how the empty frames are doing ... I call it a minor inspection and if the colony is that strong, you may need to make an artificial swarm/split into another 14 frame box and consider building a couple 21 frame or larger boxes ...