The advantages of Langstroth beehives

      The beehives designed according to the Lang's bee road structure and the shape and size of the hive frame are collectively referred to as Lang's beehives. There are many types of Lang's beehives, but according to whether the bottom plate is integrated with the box body, they can be roughly divided into two types: living-bottom Lang's beehives and fixed-bottom Lang's beehives. There are various types of Lang's beehives, such as Lang's eight-frame beehives, Lang's ten-frame beehives, and (Lang's) sixteen-frame horizontal beehives, according to the number of frames each box can accommodate. Box type. The most commonly used Lang's hive is the ten-frame Lang's hive, which is commonly known as the standard hive. Taking Lang's ten-frame fixed-bottom beehive as an example, the shape, structure and size of each component are as follows.

      Since the invention of Lang's beehive in 1851, it has been continuously improved and developed through hundreds of years of beekeeping practice. The Lang's beehive currently used has a center-to-center distance of 35mm, a bee path between the frames, an upper bee path and a front and rear bee path of 8mm, and a lower bee path of 5mm (successive box). Lang's beehive not only meets the requirements of bee biology, but also adapts to modern scientific beekeeping production, and is recognized as the standard beehive for raising Western bees. It is believed that the reason why Lang's ten-frame beehive has become a standard beehive is mainly due to the following points in addition to the correct bee route and appropriate hive frame:

• First, there is sufficient space for spawning and storage of nectar.  The inner frame area (double-sided) of Lang's beehives is 8.6 square decimeters (about 7,000 worker beehives), each nest box has 10 frames, and the total area of the spleen is 86 square decimeters (about 7,000 worker beehives). hive 70,000). The queen bee of Italian honeybee can lay 2500 to 3000 eggs per day and night at the peak of egg laying. According to the calculation of laying 2,500 eggs per day and night, the queen bee needs 52,500 nest eggs in 21 days (a developmental cycle from egg to eclosion). Calculated on the basis of 814 worker honeycomb cells per square decimeter (double-sided) of the nest, the total required area of the nest is 64.5 square decimeters, which is approximately equal to the area of 7.4 Lang's nests. In this way, the spleen in the bottom box of a Lang's ten-frame beehive can not only satisfy the queen bee's egg laying, but also have 2.6 spleen cells for storing honey and pollen.
• Second, it can use the habit of bees to store up honey to produce separate honey and nest honey. The spleen surface of Lang's nest frame is short, and the queen bee with stronger egg laying power often expands the egg circle on the spleen surface to almost full frame at the peak of egg laying. The newly collected honey has to be stored in the successor box, which is beneficial to the reproduction and honey collection of bees, and after adding the king board, pure separated honey or nest honey can be produced.
• Third, can stack beehives to expand the hive. The hive frame used by Lang's beehive is a low-width frame, and the beehive box matched with it is lower and the center of gravity is more stable. When the bottom box cannot meet the needs of bee colony reproduction or honey storage, one or more secondary boxes can be stacked to expand the hive to meet the needs of bee colony reproduction and honey storage.
• Fourth, it is beneficial for the bee colony to overwinter. When the bee colonies raised in Lang's hives overwinter, a feed box is usually added to the box to provide sufficient overwintering feed. In winter, bees often gather at the top of the nest door, 50-75mm away from the upper beam. As the season progresses, the colony moves towards the rear of the hive after the colony has exhausted the feed superimposed on it and reaches the top. As the climate warms, the colony moves down and begins to lay eggs on the empty spleen of the bottom box. In this way, in the coldest period of the year, the bee colonies are located in the upper part of the beehive—the warmes t part, which can not only ensure the safe wintering of the bee colonies, but also reduce the consumption of feed.
• Fifth, it is convenient to lift the spleen for examination. The Lang's beehive adopts a low and wide frame, and the spleen surface is low. It is not easy to squeeze the dead bees when extracting and inserting the spleen, and it is also very convenient to turn the spleen.
• Sixth, it is conducive to the implementation of modern mechanized beekeeping technology. Lang's ten-frame beehives can be used for beekeeping, which is conducive to the use of modern mechanized equipment to complete a series of beekeeping production work. For example, using the following box to collect honey, use a bee blower to remove the bees in the honey box, use a honey cover machine to cut off the wax cover of the honey spleen, and use a large honey separator to separate the whole box of honey, etc.