Layens Hive - My two Modifications

You have proven yourself as a near expert, and qualified experimenter. Thanks for informative postings.

I'm located in coastal NC. I'm interested to see how others manage the hotter/humid climate of the South. I'm in the process of building Layens hives. I thing the content is very good and informative.

Thank you for sharing your experience and taking your time explaining everything you are doing.

Excellent,, very informative,, thanks for sharing,🐝 safe

Hi Gene, love your bee channel the best. Just wondering how the peat moss turned out? Thx for all the informative Layens content. Always looking forward to the new ones.

I like the concept of letting the bees expand horizontally, but for me I would love to build a hybrid langstroth /horizontal so I could interchange between the models effectively. blessings & <3 from Jamaica btw!

Great video. Thanks for sharing your tips. Which climate are you in? I’m trying to figure out if it’s going to be better for me to use insulated hive boxes in southern Ontario.

I like how you "harvest" lang side frames to build your extended layens frames. I have wondered if that would work. I have a small 2 frame deep extractor but like the layens frame depth so am using my deep langstroth frames on a 90 deg rotation (standing them up). I can use lang foundation as is. I end up with a "lang/layens hybrid box a little over 20" tall x 11"+ wide and around 29" long. I build my top bars to be 1 3/8 just like the side frames at the top. Thanks for the tip.

I enjoyed this video. In future I am mostly interested in layans hives. Thank you

GENE: I would like to build a Layens hive out of 3/4" plywood versus the heavy 2 x 10's. Any available plans on that concept? Here in Michigan, hoping for a hive to survive a winter is just about nil. So, the heavier 2 x 10 construction to insulate from the cold is useless. Thank you for the GREAT episodes!

Enjoying your videos. Just a thought... if you make a stop dado (groove) you can hide the spline and it would be just as strong. Mark the front and back of the dado blade and add 1/4” to hide the spline. Shorten the spline to fit the dado. Also wondering if lengthening the front and back boards by 3” and shortening the side boards by three inches would make the front appearance cleaner because you would enjoy see end grain from the front. Also, is 14 frames big enough for one hive or should I go bigger (20)? Thanks!

Like your ingenuity!! bees look good!! Question when you made the side bar extensions, did you just glue them? Wondering how you attached them and made them stable. Thanks!!

In my bottom boards 5 & 8 frame equipment I use a large plastic caning jar lid its 3/4" in height. Use a hole saw diameter for lid in the bottom. Place in line with entrance. Put 1/8" hardware cloth inside over hole for bees to chase beetles into lids that has mineral oil in. Put a swing pivot under lid to hold in place you excess lid from bottom of hive. Have built a long lang and layens hives and have put 2 traps in each box. Bee chase beetles in trap as the enter hive. Check trap without having to open hives.

I have a question for you. Do you find that honeybees prefer longer frames to work on? Like those in your Layens hive? I have langstroth hive and I had an idea of glueing one of my deep and shallow boxes together and doing the same for the frames to create a longer frame. What do you think of this idea?

Have you done a followup on these modifications?

Love it. Do you do any treatments for Varroa mites? If so, what /how do you treat for them?

I'll be watching, newbie that has not gotten started, currently reading Dr Leo horizontal hive book. Got a question. I didn't see any ventilation holes in lid?

How often do you clean out the beetle traps?

(QUESTION) thanks for showing a way to attack hive beetles for Layens boxes. I've seen the trays at the bottom of the box as well. Which is better?

Since you've posted this, have you realized any other benefits or downsides to the gaps between frames as compared to having the top bars touch?