The box
Build a Langstroth stack
The box most Florida keepers open is a Langstroth: stackable wooden chambers with removable frames. Welcome to the Apiary calls it the usual hive body because a keeper can lift a frame without destroying the nest. This page names the parts and lets you stack them. A colony is optional. Yard habitat lives on the habitat page.
The Langstroth hive has become the most popular type of hive body used today. This type consists of stackable boxes with removable frames.
Stack it
Welcome to the Apiary · FDACS
3. Frames
Removable rectangles of comb. Brood toward the center, food toward the edge. Florida registration wants movable frames on a residential hive.
How the parts go together
- Stand the bottom board level, off the soil, entrance toward a flyway barrier if the lot is tight (the Good Neighbor Guidelines, Welcome to the Apiary).
- Set the brood box. Frames in, bee space true.
- When seven of ten frames are drawn, add the next box. The Florida Beekeeping Management Calendar's Central Florida March through May is the swarm-and-super window.
- Add a super when the colony has the population to work it. A super on a starving August hive is an empty room.
- Inner cover, lid, a weight or strap. Keeping Bees in Florida wants ratchet straps or ropes before tropical storms. The floor of the stack is a bottom board. Screened or solid, it still sits off Florida soil. Get this. A strap for the lid before a named storm. Get this.
Questions
Is a hive required to help bees?
No. Plant, water, and skip the spray on habitat. This stack is for people who want a colony.