Langstroth Beehive complete

01 · WHAT ARRIVES

Assembled, with all 20 frames in place

It turns up assembled and already framed up: there is nothing to nail together. The box holds the floor with its landing board and slotted metal entrance block, the brood box with 10 Hoffman frames, the super with another 10, the wooden-framed crown board with a central hole, and the timber roof clad in sheet metal. The frames come wired at the works with 4 wires and 6 staples. Brood box and super are the same size and interchangeable, so you can run it on double brood when the colony asks for it.

02 · WHICH FLOOR DO I PICK?

Solid keeps it closed; mesh lets you watch the drop

It is the one choice you make when ordering, and it shapes the whole year's handling:

03 · BUILD

Finger-jointed corners and 25 mm pine, not 22

All four corners of every box are finger-jointed: the joint itself carries the load and the nails only close it, which is what holds up when you stack a full super on top. The 25 mm walls, three more than the usual 22, give rigidity against warping and thermal mass against swings in temperature. The timber gets a phytosanitary heat treatment — heat, not chemicals — and is dried to 12 % before it is cut. The roof is clad in galvanised sheet with a deep skirt, which is what really decides how many winters a roof lasts.

04 · MAINTENANCE

Linseed oil is not a varnish

It leaves the works with one coat of linseed oil, and it helps to know what that is and is not: it feeds the timber and gives it that honey tone, but it is neither a waterproof film nor permanent. Out in the weather, untreated pine loses colour and greys within a season or two — that is a surface change, not the wood rotting. To keep the look and stretch the life of the boxes, the usual thing is to go over the outside with linseed oil every season or two, or paint it, always with the hive empty and thoroughly dry before the colony goes in. Never treat the inside: the bees see to that with propolis.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The outfit weighs 24 kg empty, so line up a hand or a sack barrow if you are siting several. The boxes measure 508 × 424 mm outside and 464 × 380 mm inside.