When mankind first began using honey for culinary and medicinal purposes, the usual method was to hunt for wild hives. In some areas this meant climbing cliff faces to find crevices and caves where honeybees may be living but in Europe and the United States it usually involved finding bee trees where swarms had taken up more permanent residence. In the late 1800s, John Burroughs described using a bee lines to locate these trees using a unique method of luring bees to a honey laced box and then following them back to the bee tree.
Such a technique would surely have been an all day process with only a partial chance of success and eventually humans got a bit wise and decided to stop hunting and start raising bees.
The First Managed Hives
While some bee hunters would cut apart the portion of the tree where the bees were housed and bring these to their homesteads where they could readily harvest honey as needed, not all trees were so easy to disassemble. A hollowed out log could be used as a base for re-inserting hives removed from bee trees while keeping the initial tree intact. Eventually the logs would decompose and the bees may abscond so a new device began being used - the skep.
Skeps are woven domes of willow or similar basketry materials that are open at the bottom. Commonly used in the early American colonies, these hives were small in size and could be easily worked by the women of the house as part of her usual duties. Harvesting the honey from the skep, however, usually involved destroying the colony.
The Birth of the Modern Beehive
While skeps and other constructions made keeping bees a bit easier, the harvesting options left something to be desired. Over the intervening years, there were several attempts at a more manageable hive but it was not until Lorenzo Langstroth's moveable frame hive came along in the 1850s that beekeeping became lucrative.
By discovering that bees require 1/4" to 3/8" around their comb in order to move throughout the hive, Langstroth created a 10-frame box hive using the concept of "bee space." This bee space prevents the honeybees from sealing the entire hive together with wax or propolis and allows the beekeeper to remove and replace individual frames without destroying the colony itself.
The structure of using two or three "hive bodies" for the bees to permanently live in and adding smaller boxes or "supers" for excess honey also promotes the longevity of the colony. Langstroth is considered to be the father of modern beekeeping and although there have been minor improvements to his hive it has remained essentially the same since its introduction.
Hives for Naturalists
While the Langstroth hive is the most suitable to colony management and honey harvest, some naturalists and gardeners have taken to backyard beekeeping using a top bar hive. These have traditionally been used in Africa and are long boxes with an angle to the walls that allows for bees to draw comb as they would in a wild nest.
Using only a slat of wood as a top bar, as opposed to an entire frame, the bees begin to build just as they would if they were building in a hollow tree or from the ceiling of a cave. Bee space is still used in the top bar hive so harvest is possible but there is no real technique for "supering" or allowing for extra honey stores.
In addition, without the support of the frame, the comb is much more likely to break apart as the bars are being moved and lifted into and out of the hive. Some top bar hives are built with a window on the side so that the beekeeper can peer into the colony without disturbing it.
Hives for Hobbyists
For the ultimate view of a hive in action, however, a clear sided observation hive is the best option. Used mostly as a curiosity, these hives are not necessarily manged for honey but are used as a teaching tool.
More and more natural history museums, classrooms and parks are installing these hives. Some beekeepers maintain observation hives or use a very small, portable version that temporarily holds two or three frames from a permanent hive for educational purposes.
Regardless of the type of hive used to raise bees, most management techniques are the same and proper safety equipment should be used.
Beekeeping for Dummies, Howland Blackiston, For Dummies, 2009.
The ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture; Amos Ives Root, et. al., A.I. Root Company, 2006.
Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and Other Papers, John Burroughs, Houghton Mifflin, 1914.
Jessica Ferguson - Jess-of-all-trades! You name it, I'm probably interested in it. 15+ years experience as a gardener and naturalist and all that comes ...
