Choosing a hive

Several hive designs are in use. Every design has to meet one requirement first: the combs must be able to be taken out and inspected. This page sets out that rule, compares the four common types, and gives steps for choosing.

Step 1: Check the rule every hive must meet

The national Australian Honey Bee Industry Biosecurity Code of Practice requires hives that allow “combs to be individually and separately removed from the hive for easy inspection”. BeeAware advises checking the brood and colony at least several times a year in spring, summer and autumn, and removing and checking each brood frame in turn. A hive that does not let you do this cannot be checked for disease.

State and territory rules are set separately:

State	Rule
NSW	The department’s registration page says your bees must be kept in a frame hive.
Tasmania	Bees must be kept in a “standard hive” (a box with vertical frames that can be readily removed so the honeycomb can be examined) or in a hive type approved by the Chief Plant Protection Officer.

Before buying or building any hive other than a standard box-and-frame hive, check your state or territory department’s current apiary rules. Registration is also required: see Registering your hives.

Step 2: Understand why frames lift out

Honey bees leave a small gap, about 6 to 9 mm (roughly a quarter to three-eighths of an inch), between their combs. This is called bee space. Bees seal any gap smaller than this with propolis, a sticky resin, and fill any larger gap with extra comb.

Hives built around bee space keep a gap of this size between frames, between frames and the walls, and between boxes. The bees then leave the frames unglued, so each frame can be lifted out without destroying the comb. The American beekeeper Lorenzo Langstroth built his hive around this gap, and the Langstroth hive is named after him.

Step 3: Compare the four types

	Langstroth	Flow Hive	Top bar	Warré
Layout	Stacked boxes of frames	Langstroth-style boxes with Flow frames in the honey super	One long horizontal box with bars	Stacked boxes of top bars, new boxes added underneath
Taking honey	Frames spun in an extractor, comb reused	Honey drains through a tap	Comb cut from the bars, comb not reused	-
Inspection	Lift out each frame	Brood box inspected like any other hive	Lift out one bar at a time	Limited, by design
Standardised, interchangeable parts	Yes	-	-	-

A dash means no reliable source was found.

The Langstroth hive

A stack of boxes holding removable frames. From the bottom it has a bottom board, a brood box where the queen lays and young bees are raised, an optional queen excluder, honey supers above for surplus honey, and an inner cover under a weatherproof outer cover.

The parts are standardised, so equipment from different makers generally fits together, although slight differences between makers do occur. Extractors spin the honey out of the frames and the empty comb goes back into the hive for reuse.

Widths and depths. Boxes come in two widths: 10-frame and 8-frame. The 8-frame boxes come in the same depths but are narrower and slightly lighter. Frames must match the box, so choose one width and keep to it. Deeper boxes are generally used for the brood, and shallower ones for honey. A full box of honey is heavy, and the deepest boxes are the heaviest, so think about whether you can lift the size you choose, repeatedly, when it is full. Depth names and exact sizes vary, so ask your supplier or local club what they stock and use one size consistently.

The Flow Hive

Invented in Australia by Stuart and Cedar Anderson and launched through a crowdfunding campaign in 2015. It is used like a Langstroth hive: a brood box below and a honey super above, which holds special Flow frames in place of ordinary ones. Flow frames are split vertically, and the bees finish and fill the cells as they would on any frame. To harvest, you turn a handle or crank. This opens channels through the comb and the honey drains out through a tap, without disturbing the bees.

The brood box still needs regular inspection. The manufacturer’s own support page says all Flow Hives must be opened for inspection like regular hives, to check for pests and disease. This matches BeeAware’s advice to inspect the brood several times a year.

The top bar hive

A long, horizontal box with bars resting along the top edge. The bees hang their comb from each bar, usually without foundation or frames. Honey is harvested by cutting the comb from the bars, so the comb cannot be reused as it can with Langstroth frames. It cannot be spun in a centrifuge, and the bees have to rebuild comb after each harvest, so top bar hives are described as giving less honey. Inspection means lifting out one bar at a time.

The Warré hive

Stacked vertically like a Langstroth, but its boxes hold top bars rather than full frames. When the colony needs more room, new boxes are added underneath rather than on top. The design aims for minimal disturbance, so inspections are limited. That makes it important to check your state’s rules before choosing one, because the hive still has to let you examine the comb for disease.

Step 4: Choose

1. Confirm your state’s rule on hive types (Step 1).
2. Ask your local beekeeping club what they use. See Clubs and associations.
3. Decide what you can lift. Full boxes are heavy, so pick a box depth and width you can handle repeatedly.
4. Choose one design and one box size, and keep to it so parts stay interchangeable.
5. Read What you need to start before you buy.

No design is best for everyone. Whichever you choose, it must let you remove and inspect each comb.

Photo credits

• Langstroth hive parts (drawing): Dirk Pons, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
• Warré top-bar comb: shawn caza @ beekeeping.isgood.ca, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.