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Are you jumping into the exciting world of beekeeping? Before your bees arrive, you must consider where they will live. Let’s explore the three most popular beehive designs: Langstroth, top bar, and Warre hives. Each hive type has pros and cons—learn which style is right for you.
Most new beekeepers purchase hive components ready to assemble, but it’s certainly possible to build your own hive. If you do, it is very important to follow the exact measurements for the type of hive you desire. Incorrect hive dimensions result in honeycomb being built where it is not wanted—from the beekeeper’s perspective, at least!
The Langstroth hive (pictured below) is the most common style in use today and a favorite for new beekeepers. Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth patented the design in the mid-19th century. It features removable frames that the bees build comb in. Langstroth hives consist of boxes that stack on top of each other.
Parts of a Langstroth Hive
Outer/Telescoping Cover—This cover keeps the whole hive dry from rain, similar to a roof on a house.
Inner Cover—The inner cover fits between the top hive box and the outer cover. It provides insulation and prevents frames from sticking to the outer cover. It can be used with a bee escape when harvesting honey.
Shallow/Honey Super—Shallow supers are the most commonly used size for honey production.
Queen Excluder—This optional piece of equipment allows only worker bees to pass through, keeping the queen and drones away from the honey. It prevents the queen from laying eggs in the honey collection supers. Not every beekeeper uses an excluder.
Frames—Removable frames (wooden or plastic) fit into the hive boxes. Frames come in different sizes to fit the three different sizes of supers. Bees build honeycomb inside the wooden frames (often using beeswax foundation or plastic foundation as a guide). The comb cells hold young bees, pollen, nectar, and honey.
Foundation—Most beekeepers use sheets of beeswax (or plastic) foundation as a guide inside the frames. This helps to encourage the bees to build straight comb inside the frames.
Brood Chamber (Also called deep super or brood box)—The brood box contains larger frames than the shallow super. Here, the queen lays eggs for the next generation of bees. In this maternity ward, nurse bees care for the young.
Bottom Board—The base of the hive. Bottom boards are available with a solid bottom or a screened bottom.
A Langstroth hive can contain any combination of the three sizes of super boxes: deeps/brood, mediums, or shallows.
2. Top Bar Hive
The top bar hive is the oldest hive design in the world. A horizontal top bar hive features wooden bars laid along the long box’s top. One-piece bars are used instead of the 4-sided wooden frames of the Langstroth design. The honeybees build comb down from the top bars. No foundation is required, but the hive should be lifted off the ground with a stand.
There are several advantages to a top bar hive. In addition to not needing foundation sheets, there are no wooden frames to assemble. Perhaps the biggest draw of the top bar hive: no heavy lifting. Unlike the Langstroth hive, which requires moving several heavy hive boxes, managing a top bar hive is much easier on the beekeeper’s back.
Top bar beekeeping does have a few challenges, however. For example, a centrifugal honey extractor can not be used to remove honey from the natural comb, so the comb and honey must both be removed from the bar. This results in the honey bees having to make new comb each year. In general, top bar hives also require more frequent inspections to prevent overcrowding/swarming.
This type of hive can produce honey, but it is a favorite for beekeepers who want hives solely for pollination.
3. Warre Hive
The Warre (war-RAY) hive, created by Émile Warré in the mid-20th century, is another top-bar design. Instead of being a long horizontal top-bar hive, the Warre hive is called a vertical top-bar hive. Identically sized stacked boxes have no frames or foundation sheets. Bees build honeycomb down from top bars placed within each box.
Beekeepers using the Warre style often “bottom-super” their hives: instead of putting empty boxes on top to give the colony more overhead room, they place empty boxes at the bottom of the stack. They feel this arrangement better mimics bee life in the wild.
These are the three most popular hive designs, but every style has pros and cons! It is up to you to decide which type of beehive best suits your goals and management style. Closely follow plan directions if you choose to build your own bee hive of any style. Improperly built bee hives result in wayward comb, difficult inspections, and angry bees (and, soon, stung beekeepers).
Painting Your Hive
Painting your hive protects the wood and will last longer. Traditionally, most hives are white to reflect the sun. Today, you can find hives in all colors.
Lighter colors are best for hives in Southern climates due to the possibility of overheating in the sun. Any water-based (Latex) paint will do well. Only paint the outside surfaces of the bee hive.
Now that you’ve got your supplies, set up a beehive and know what you’re in for, and learn where to get your bees.
Beekeeping 101: Raising Honey Bees in Your Backyard
Read through our Beekeeping 101 series to get an overview of backyard beekeeping:
Charlotte is a Master Beekeeper though the South Carolina Beekeepers Association. She also teaches a number of online beekeeping classes. Read More from Charlotte Anderson
I have been looking all over the web for a couple of years, I have decided that this is the bee hive I would like to use. Starter Bundle – Flow Hive Classic Araucaria 7 FH Classic ARA 7 Bundle: $868 - now $778 Save $90 Sorry It would not let me put the url in here, but you can put the name in the search bar of your choice, and it should being it up. Does any one have any information on if it is a good hive or not? I think it is a lot of money to put out up front, but I really do not know what it normally costs to get started. I just felt this hive would annoy the bees less! Please give me feed back! Do you feel this would work great or not???
Ive wanted a hive for yrs. My husband bought me 1 when we bought our house. Assembly manual very easy to understand i enjoyed putting it together. Im waiting for my bees to here..
There are alternatives to the Langstroth hive: the Warre Hive or the Horizontal Top Bar Hive, which is gaining popularity with back yard keepers. Both of these alternatives focus on natural beekeeping methods, and on happy, healthy bees rather than maximum honey extraction. I encourage anyone interested in back yard keeping to research these alternative hives. I use both, and love them both.
Good illustration of this type of hive; you might consider also showing how to make a top bar hive, which is much easier and cheaper to build, is more manageable by one person and is closer to what bees do when they live in the wild.
I had a friend in switzerland who made something like this. He said that beekeeping is an awesome hobby. Maybe I should try it too. Thanks for posting the tutorial.