in a world brimming with complexity few creatures
embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless
precision she dances from bloom to bloom each
motion guided by millennia upon millennia of
instinct each act in service to the whole and
then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards
of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist,
part poet, they move along their hives with the
efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to
the bees' needs as best they can comprehend,
and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the
Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing
like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their
journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Love Beekeeping
presented by our great friends and partners in
beekeeping, Man Lake. By the way, if you haven't
yet, please subscribe to and follow this podcast.
Tell your friends about it and click on over
to BeLoveBeekeeping .com to sign up for our free
newsletter. Today's guest is a beekeeper in British
Columbia, Canada, and we're going to be discussing
his custom designed home -built long -laying
hive. It was even made with wood from a tree
on his own property. First, how about a couple
of feel -good stories from the world of beekeeping.
Here's a headline that happened just a few miles
from where I live. Quote, firefighters save 25
million honey bees stuck on an overheated tractor
trailer on a Utah highway. So what happened is
a semi -truck carrying approximately 480 hives
broke down climbing Parley's Canyon. That's a
high mountain pass near Park City. It was an
unusually hot spring day and the fear was that
the bees were going to die from the heat as the
truck was parked on the side of the highway for
a few hours. But then to the rescue came a fire
truck which pulled up behind the bees and the
firefighters began misting the hives with water
to keep them cool. And it worked. The bees survived
and not a single firefighter was stung. Next
up, have you heard about the fancy new beehive
in the White House's garden? Google it if you
haven't seen it. It looks just like a miniature
version of the White House. Anyway, it's gotten
a lot of press recently with the First Lady showing
it off to King Charles and others, but then last
week something happened. The bees in that hive
decided to swarm. According to a White House
reporter, a huge swarm of bees took over the
North Lawn driveway. She called it a Bee Tornado.
A dense cloud of bees descended on broadcast
tents before relocating to a tree. No injuries
or stings were reported, but social media was
abuzz with videos and jokes about the event.
I'd like to welcome to the show today. Wow, this
is gonna be different today. This is gonna be
fun. I've got Curtis Nielsen here. aka fill in
the blank jack lumber jack lumber jack lumber
yeah so if anybody wants to find him on uh facebook
i don't know are you on other social media too
no that's it just facebook okay look up jack
lumber because we're going to be looking at and
talking about his hive design today And this
is especially unusual that someone who doesn't
have beekeeping experience and wants to jump
in would jump in in such a big way to not only
build their own hive but build a big one, make
modifications. Let's start with this. Jack, what
got you interested in beekeeping in the first
place? To be honest, I'd have to say it would
be the health. side of things with the family
and just the negative effects of sugar and the
positive effects of honey. I wanted to supplement
out the sugar and in with the honey and you know
when you're a small family on a tight budget
sometimes you can only afford one of those kilos
of honey per month and you know that's not quite
enough so I was hoping to be able to build a
hive that would provide me with enough honey
to support the needs of my family. I've actually
been known to tell some beekeepers if you're
only in it for the honey it might be cheaper
to go buy it someplace. I'm learning that, I'm
learning that. Because as a hobby this can get
a little bit expensive but you also put your
talents to use building equipment and stuff so
that that helps a ton. As you were looking at
getting into beekeeping, there are a lot of choices
as to what kind of beehive you're going to use,
right? There's regular Langstroth, there's Top
Bar, there's... Well, I don't even want to start
trying to name all of them, but what got you
interested in doing this kind of a design of
a long Langstroth? So when I first started doing
my research, I ended up talking to a bee supplier,
a slightly local bee supplier. And like he said
with the budget, you know, he was telling me
that I should be budgeting around $1 ,200 to
kind of jump in this season. And I was like,
well, that's great. I got about $700 in the budget
for us. So that's that's where I started thinking
that, hey, I might not be able to afford to hop
in with both feet. So I wonder if I could possibly
build my own hives. Then started researching
that and just looking at this the standard Langstroth
and I don't want to ruffle any feathers But that's
just not a very beautiful system and most standards
aren't you know the standards are they're meant
for? Traveling and and all sorts of things where
obviously this one doesn't this thing's not gonna
move I don't think I can move it if I wanted
to so then I really started thinking like you
know this I hate to say it, but this is a really
ugly beehive to me, you know what I mean? And
it's like, I'm back in crown land. These bees
that I'm trying to catch are coming out of, you
know, like 200 year old furs. So for me to take
them from there and then put them into here,
it just didn't seem right. So I started thinking
like, hey, there's got to be a different, there's
got to be a different hive than the standard
Lange trough. And that's when I found these long
Lange troughs and people were, they're all different.
Every single one was different. And my first
thought was like, this is something that I can
make beautiful, you know what I mean? Not just
for myself, but for the bees. I got a little
farm here and I do the same type of thing with,
you know, I got a nice barn and it's just for
the sheep. They might not appreciate it, but
you got a nice barn, nice home for the sheep,
you get nice milk, you got a nice chicken coop,
you get nice, nice tasting eggs. I figure, you
know, if I give them a nice big bulky house to
live in, that's, I'll get good honey. I like
it. By the way, where do you live? I'm in British
Columbia, Canada in central west on Chilcot and
Plateau. I'm glad you're outside. We can see
that gigantic tree behind you. I can't really
tell what kind it is, though. I can't see it
quite well enough. Is that a ponderosa? It might
just be... It's one of the pines. I'm not sure
which one of the pines. I don't think it's a
dark pine, but one of the pine trees, yeah. For
this hive design and and let me just say this
up front because it's slightly Complicated the
way we do this podcast the majority of our audience
is listening on one of the podcast apps We also
put out the video of our conversation on YouTube
on that video I'll insert a couple of pictures
of your hive so people can see it But let's assume
that the majority of people can't so when we
start talking about What it looks like we're
gonna have to use a lot of descriptive words
My first question for you is do you mill your
own lumber? Yes I do and so when I see the live
edge on the roof That makes sense because you
were able to mill that yourself because that
kind of wood is not that easy to find You're
not gonna get it at home. Do you know absolutely
not? This this whole hive almost the whole hive
came from one eight foot log about 24 inches
in diameter and it was kind of planned out before
it was milled so I could you know I kind of every
slice was going to a certain aspect of this hive
like even like I have a the trays are made out
of a half inch slice of it that's 15 and a half
inches wide you know I mean solid wood not a
single piece of plywood in the whole hive That
is really cool. Before we jump into yours, why
don't we just talk about long layings in general.
Jack, I don't know how much you know about them.
I know you do quite a bit. You did a lot of research,
but for those that aren't familiar, basically
a long laying strath is instead of stacking boxes
up like in a normal laying system, it's as if
you're stacking them side by side. So you would
have what looks like a brood box but it might
be it's going to be three or four feet long instead
of just the width of one box and the idea is
you can then just take frames in a row and just
have instead of ten frames in a box or eight
in a box you can have 30 or whatever number it
is that you choose to do You can put a follower
board. You can do different things. There still
are ways to put queen excluders in. So you have
some of the box that's for honey and some for
not, but it's all horizontal. And for people
that maybe have a hard time lifting really heavy
boxes, it can be a wonderful system because you
shouldn't have to lift anything heavier than
one frame at a time unless your lids heavy. So
that's the general idea. Do you have anything
to add to that? You kind of hit it on the mark
there. It's especially good, and that's what
I found. A lot of the people in this ecosystem
are in it due to the ease of inspecting frame
by frame, lifting frame by frame, rather than
the whole honey super. And that's where it kind
of brings me also to the inline configuration.
Half of this is the inline configuration, which
also goes even beyond just the horizontal ergonomics
and puts those frames directly in front of you.
so that there's no twist motion when you're pulling
them out. Yeah good point. Course you're young
enough that shouldn't be a problem yet, but maybe
one of these. Yeah, correct All right. Let's
talk about your hive design because it's not
a normal long laying either You've made some
modifications Give us an idea how big it is how
long how wide how tall is it on a stand? Explain
the thing. Okay. So like you said, it was made
out of all live dug for live edge dug for all
two inch planks The box is 80 inches long which
allows for me to do two entire inline systems
if I chose to. I chose to keep it as half long
-laying, half inline, just because I've never
really dealt with either ecosystem. So now I'll
be able to work one immediately, work the other,
and really get a handle on my preference of which
one I prefer. Okay, before you move on, I want
us to make sure we understand that. Long -laying
and you said inline? Yeah. you have some frames
going one direction and then there's a great
big divider in the middle as if you have two
hives and then you have some going the other
direction correct so that i got about a divider
a two inch divider in the middle so when i was
researching this hive a lot of the things i was
doing is going through a lot of the the posts
and topics and just trying to find people's problems
and solve the problems within my hive before
building the hive So that's what brought me to
the center divider to completely divide the hive
in half, which because people were having a problem
with cupping their wood cupping because obviously
the inner part of the hive is moist and the outer
part is sitting in the sun. So I really wanted
to firm that up with that center divider because
another big aspect, I guess we can get into two
theories of why I built it this way afterwards.
So go ahead. You were explaining why you're going
to have some frames going. I can't really call
them vertical and horizontal. because everything
is horizontal but you have some where the skinny
end is towards you and somewhere the wide end
is towards you in other words. So the inline
would be the perpendicular ones to the body and
those are two chambers so like with the inline
model you're set with your two chambers. Mine
are 13 because I made them square so that I could
if I wanted to switch it back to inline it's
just a matter of taking out that mounted queen
excluder and it's back to inline. Versatility
was a big plan with this hive. So the inline
system is set up for a 13 frame brood box and
a 13 frame honey box separated by a permanent
queen excluder. Whereas like you were saying
with the long line you have a follower board
and the long line side can be a 6 frame, 8 frame,
10 frame all the way up to the main box is 26
frames on each side. Well you know your stuff
considering you're new at this. I can tell you've
done a lot of research. Let me make sure I also
understand one thing. You're going to use a queen
excluder and you are going to have honey supers
on top of these brood frames or horizontally
next to? Both. So my plan with the main chamber
and I like running on theory I don't know if
it's possible going through a few posts you know
people were saying that in this system about
a 13 frame brood is kind of sufficient you don't
really need to go beyond that otherwise you're
going to start getting honey in your brood my
original intention with the 26 frames was you
know if i could push brood to 18 19 frames which
is what i read that standard long straight tross
do they do about two deep boxes of brood run
in about 80 % so run in 16 to 18 frames of brood
and then they go up into their honey supers so
I was thinking that I could possibly do the same
thing so then that would leave me with about
eight deep frames of honey which I would then
use that for winter storage and then anything
that goes up into the supers is kind of for me
to to harvest because that was another one of
the the magic ratio numbers was for going into
winter with these sealed chambers that I'd want
four open cell frames with about nine honey frames.
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.com, discount code MLBLove10. So that's kind
of my goal is to hit those amount of deep frames
and then anything else goes into the medium frames
for me to harvest and How thick did you say the
walls of this thing are how the original walls
and the floor are two inches thick but then in
order to Make the the whole hive bigger to allow
the lid and allow the supers I added an extra
inch and a quarter on both upper sides the top
Nine inches of the hive is three and a quarter
inches thick That's a lot of insulation. That's
a lot of our value and you know that the little
be Insulated and that's where it kind of comes
to the whole the whole hive is kind of based
off the condensing hive method Why don't you
explain that a little bit for those that aren't
familiar? Okay So the condensing hive method
is basically the research that I found it was
based off of Fellows research up in the Yukon
guy by the name of Tardif He was beekeeping up
there and really wanted to find out what was
going on with his hives, fill them full of sensors.
And what he found was that the sealed chamber,
the only vent being your entrance, was beneficial
to the bees in many ways. So everybody's worried
and like I've seen this in all the beekeeping
groups, you know, when you're building stuff,
it's like everybody's venting, venting, venting,
venting, venting. And according to this guy's
research, there should be zero venting in a climate
like mine, in a northern climate. Absolutely
none. And people worry about, you know, the CO2
buildup and the moisture buildup, and these are
actually, what he is showing, beneficial to the
bees. So the CO2 buildup actually puts them into
a state, I can't remember what it's called, epoxy
or something like that, but basically a hibernation
state. So this hibernation state allows them
to slow down their entire body, to actually you
know kind of go to sleep whereas I find the normal
vented systems that maybe the bees and like these
are the ones that are going through tons of honey
they're not getting to go into that hibernation
state so they're working all winter long when
I seen this research I was like it just clicked
with me I'm like this makes sense like I live
in the forest I've never seen a vented tree in
my life they're not out there so why are we venting
these hives the way that we are and another apparent
benefit to this condensing method is that this
CO2 chamber will kill off the mites. So not only
has you know they get their hibernation state
but you know nature's kind of solved this mite
problem with itself is hey they go hibernate
in this super condensed CO2 chamber and it's
going to kill off the mites that are present.
All right, I need you to send me a link to that
research I have to admit I'm not familiar with
it and I would love to read it because some of
this stuff sounds counter to what a lot of us
have learned but I'm open -minded I would love
to read it and I tell you what you will find
something over the next few years on this beekeeping
journey of yours is that Some things that work
for one person may not work for you. You have
to be willing to adjust and change or you've
got it all figured out already and we'll see
where are the entrances and how big are they
so i have two hive gate entrances at each end
and these entrances are also kind of in line
with this condensing hive method they're really
good for airflow so they're very very small little
entrances and i have two of them for higher flow
and then winter time you break it down to just
one then what these entrances do is allow basically
and this is kind of how they market it is they
allow the bees to open and close the front door
basically and regulate that that one little bit
of air that's coming in they they have a good
chance of being able to block it or open it or
do whatever they need to do with that air to
to regulate the hive. Are the entrances round
or horizontal? They're horizontal and they're
about four inches and they seem to be about the
three eights. Height the bee space at heart.
I also noticed on your Facebook page in one of
the pictures You had a great big drawer on the
bottom that you pulled out Explain what that's
for. So yeah, that was one thing that I was really
unsure about installing in the hive Because that
came in with a screen bottom and when I put in
the screen bottom, you know that to me was like,
okay now I'm making a space in this hive that
the bees cannot get to so if I have a problem
with this space That problem is on me to fix
because the bees aren't able to get there to
clean it or do the business that they need to
do. After talking to more people, I was kind
of put in line that this is more of a treatment
tray than a hive checking tray. So these trays
I will fill with Demataceous Earth. So basically
any any bug or mite or anything that falls down
out of the hive or off the bee or anything is
going to fall down into the tray of demataceous
earth and then I will then find it and kind of
know that hey there's there's some stuff going
on in here that I need to I need to take care
of I can't wait to hear how your first year goes
and I'll tell you what let's make a date right
now five years from now you're going to be back
on the show and you're going to be saying Every
single thing worked or here are the modifications
that I realized I made to make to it. Absolutely
It's gonna be fun to see what kind of stand you
have this on This stand is actually on 18 inch
for rounds. I was planning on building a like
a little crib frame out of logs and I had built
this thing on pallets about four feet from where
it's sitting right now and I just could not figure
out how I was gonna move it onto the stand. So
I brought these rounds that were actually, my
fireplace takes 16s. I accidentally cut these
at 18. I was like, perfect, they're beautiful.
They still got lichen on them. So I brought those
out, placed those on the pad and then very sketchily
pulled the whole hive kind of off the pallets
and the pallets tipped over and it just kind
of landed in place and that's where it's gonna
live. And it just worked. I think it looks great
on the logs. Thank you. Tell me about the roof.
Is that also that two inch or two and a half
inch thick? Yeah, the roof is two inch thick
on the walls. The live edge planks are an inch
and a half. And then there's going to be with
the condensed hive method. The goal is to reach
an R 40 in the roof. So I'm going to be heavily
insulating the roof. And, you know, with these
with these hives, people use like over top of
the inner. inner box, they use blankets or wool
insulation or whatever they need to give them
that R40 and prevent that heat escape coming
up from the chamber. And if you're worried about
condensation, you may want to use something that
would absorb a little bit of that also when you're
talking about blankets or something. Do you have
your bees yet? I do not have my bees yet. I'm
actually I'm setting swarm traps. There's no
apiaries closest apiary and I don't even know
if it's an active apiary is 40 miles from here
but this property that I'm on now I've been here
for five years and it has like the best bee population
I've ever seen and the honeybee showed up about
a week ago. And the numbers of them are growing
every day. Like I just got these little bushes
that are the first to bloom. We've had dandelions
for about a week. And so that the honeybee numbers
are really growing. So I'm hoping that I can
hopefully catch a swarm. I think you will. What
are you using for bait? What kind of sand? I'm
using lemongrass oil and a couple brood frames
that I bought off an old beekeeper. And that's
why I had one box that was one of my four mediums
was an old deep that I bought that I cut down.
You've got it figured out. How many traps did
you say you're putting up? I'm putting up three
and I baited the hive as well because I do believe
that it's like right back here in this in this
crown land. They're flying right by the hive.
I know it's obviously not the right height but
sometimes you get lucky. I've had it happen before.
It's rare but it can certainly happen. Okay this
thing is 80 inches long. It's made of thick wood.
Take a guess on what it weighs. I'd say 500 pounds.
I'd say the lid on it has got to be a hundred
pounds. Before I got the hinges on it, I was
trying to lift it up with the two hands and it
was tough. Yeah, the hinges, I think that could
also be a game changer in this ecosystem because
I've seen a lot of complaints about the heavy
lids on these things and I installed five recycled
hinges from deep freezers, the spring loaded
hinges and they take all the weight of that lid.
You've thought of everything. So how much money
do you have into this? Um you know most of the
money went to the frames to be honest the frames
and the honey excluders the actual hive itself
maybe 150 bucks into the hive itself and then
the rest of the money into quite a bit of frames
to fill it and the honey excluders and stuff
so maybe another four or five hundred bucks on
all all the fun stuff probably not even that
much that is so awesome i wish you all the best
of luck swarm traps Oh man, I wish we could count
on them. They work great. They just don't always
work every single time. We've had people on this
podcast that live down in the south of the U
.S. and they're just catching swarms right and
left, it seems like. Up where I am, if I put
out a half a dozen, I'll catch one or two a year
and that's it. and I've had like one year where
I caught zero so I think you're doing everything
right and I think you deserve to catch a swarm
or two and no commercial beekeepers are going
to beat down your door to buy a hive like this
because it doesn't make sense for them but it
makes so much sense for you and I love how thick
it is and what kind of art value that's going
to give it that is just so important and it's
going to be in many ways like them being in a
tree. or at least a horizontal tree. Yeah that
down rotten log. So in those swarm traps that
lemongrass oil works great as you know there's
also other things that you can buy like swarm
commander that a lot of people swear by. I've
had good luck with lemongrass oil. There is a
sort of a sweet spot between not using enough
and using too much and we don't have a scientific
way to measure that that I know of. but I know
if when you walk by it really smells strong of
lemongrass oil you've probably got too much.
I usually just take a q -tip and put two or three
drops of oil on it stick it in that's all it
needs and then I'll refresh that once a week
or something like that and I'm sure there's people
out there going that's not how I do it that won't
work and Everybody does it different and everything
works different for different people and that's
one thing that you're gonna find about beekeepers
and Beekeeping but hopefully you can also find
somebody up in your neck of the woods that can
be kind of a mentor to you that you can reach
out to When you have questions and stuff if not,
give me a buzz Yeah, definitely will and honestly
that group that I joined on Facebook the long
Langstroth hive group a bunch of amazing guys
I really want to help you get on your feet and
that's kind of what helped me get online beekeepers
are that way They're very helpful and ask nothing
in return and you fit in so much because of your
do -it -yourself attitude and being able to build
this yourself and even change you know design
around from a traditional longling yourself and
that's fantastic. So just enjoy the journey.
Thank you. Jack Lomber is where people can find
you on Facebook and we're going to circle back
in a while and everybody's going to hear how
well this works. Sounds good. Thank you very
much. Thanks again for joining us on Be Love,
Be Keeping presented by Manlike. Another big
thank you goes to V2B Health for their support.
Vita's Varroa Control Ranger products includes
Epistan, Epigard, and now Varroxan Extended Release
Oxalic Acids Trips. Hey thanks a lot guys. And
if you haven't yet, please subscribe to and follow
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remember if you're not just in it for the honey
or the money, you're in it for the love. See
you next week.