The reason I haven't switched to Layens is because I have about $1,200 invested in a Maxant extractor and Layens frames won't fit. I'm 72 years old and a relatively new beekeeper, 4 years, and would love to avoid the heavy lifting of the Langstroth boxes. I'm also in Minnesota and the extreme winters are a consideration. I insulate my hives really well and have gotten them through two brutal winters so far.

Thanks for the info! I was curious. I'm in Maine myself our winters can be harsh but it's hit-or-miss. I just built an insulated layens horizontal hive myself and so far I'm happy with it as are the bees, but we'll see how it goes in a couple years. I'm also trying to use foundationless frames and planning to use a press to get the honey. I've heard that way works best for mead too.

The hive is designed so 2" rigid foam insulation slides in the bottom and onto the sides and end. It effectively insulates the hive from all breezes.

It didn't impact extraction at all from what I've seen.

The guy in the NE I'm aware of has patenting a cathedral hive that's inclined. Very different animal. Uses custom built frames and stuff like that. He's been in touch with me for a few years because of stuff I did with the Parkinson Hive which is an inclined hive that uses Langstroth Frames. But ... mine is "open source" :)

It doesn't seem to. When you slide a frame in, it just naturally slides on the the lower wall and then when you get to the top bar on the frame, it shifts up. Once it shifts up the bees can get under it but until then you're just sliding it in and pushing them out of the way like a little snow plow. Pulling a frame what tends to happen is you grab from the top of the frame and slide it out. The back edge of the frame is touching the wall but nothing else is. Again it acts like a little plow pushing bees out of the way. It's very hard to describe with words unfortunately but the short answer is that it's very easy to not squash bees.

​@@AlwaysDoingSomething Thanks, now I 'see' how this goes.

Maybe, but that's a very different concept. With regard to Lazutin, Layens, Voitnot and similar very deep hives, they're all using extremely deep frames to try to give the bees more vertical space in the winter. During protracted cold spells the bees tend to only crawl "up." Once they reach the top of the frame they kind of sit there and either die or it warms up a bit and they shift left or right. The extremely deep hives hedge their bets that the bees won't reach the top during a long cold spell. With a Long Lang, since the frames are so shallow, part of the cluster is almost always at the top of the hive. Anyway, if long frames are your thing, those same extremely large/deep frames can easily be used in a Parkinson Hive if you want. The build manual has a section to convert all dimensions of the hive based on size of the frame being used. So if you're using National, Standard, Dadant, Layens, Lazutin frames, whatever... put in the measurements and build away. Rather than sticking those deep custom built frames in a box type hive which has some drawbacks, you'd put them in the Parkinson hive. That gives you the much deeper frame, but also gives you the benefits of the inclined hive to manage moisture, ventilation and in case they do reach the top of the long frames in a cold spell, they have a sense of "up" and will crawl up the hive to get more honey instead of guessing left or right and potentially guessing wrong. In general the Parkinson Hive was designed for cold areas since I live in growing zone 3. The bees survive the zone 3 cold in the hive quite well. I've had several years of testing internal hive temps to make sure they survive the coldest parts of winter and they've made it through the coldest winters on record. Of course I've screwed up along the way and lost colonies, but that's the point of testing. Some things work... some things not so much ;) So that's a long way of saying, if I were to go with a Lazutin frame, I'd put it in a Parkinson Hive ;)

@@AlwaysDoingSomething Maybe the type of bees for cold climates are the advantage. Italian bees are more of a southern bee in there native home. Russian bees, Carnis ect. Might be better suited for our temperature zone.

Yeah, it's all I can get locally though. Thanks for pointing that out.

Mineral oil doesn't work. Fat Bee Man made a later video stating that, but he leaves that pesky mineral oil video up just to get clicks and earn money. It's a constant source of misinformation in the beekeeping community. I wish he'd just take down that silly video but a buck is a buck I guess. BUT... to your point, Oxylic Acid can be vaporized and blown into the entrance. That's the method that I'm currently recommending until I do more testing on Formic Acid strips.

@@parkinsonhive2372 thanks for the info I’ll be doing more research too.

They're rough cut lumber but cut to nominal 2x6 sizes so they're 5.5 inches.

Bees will indeed regulate the amount of airflow. In my other hive design there's a window screen ventilation frame filled with wood chips and the bees will add and remove propolis to the screen to get the airflow right at different times of the year. I cut all those slots in this hive to see how many they would fill in and if they changed them. They filled in most but left a few of them open and didn't change them for winter. One open slot was right over the brood chamber and the other was more toward the honey. With regard to the larger and deeper frames, there have been many attempts at different frame sizes throughout history. What I'm attempting to do here is leverage the most commonly available equipment. There's certainly some nuanced advantages to certain frame sizes in certain orientations, but that quickly turns to a discussion of building custom frames which is not something the average beekeeper is willing to do especially when taking into consideration honey extraction. For example Dadant insisted that slightly bigger frames were better and a slightly bigger brood box was better. But, in cold climates Dadant hives didn't do as well as Warre which by comparison was relatively small and for some reason does better in cold climates. There's a lot going on inside the hive that I suspect we won't know in our lifetime.

Thanks for the feedback. That was my first thought too. I think I may have a solution. I'm making it so that the lid CAN be converted to a narrow shelf but it's optional.

@@parkinsonhive2372 Ah! A narrow shelf could be useful. But narrow only. So maybe just drop the lid hanging. The utility work shelf is a different feature on its own - disconnected from the lid. Sure, now I am in! Overall I like your hive design and those winter autopsy frames demonstrated how just well the bees were wintering. A healthy cluster should do really well with all the honey above and just slightly at angle (totally fine). If not for the mites, that would be perfect. Thinking of 5-6 frame nucs angled just like that (but sitting on a portable, ground-level, 45-degree angle base).

@@gregw3437 My plan for the "shelf" is to have the lid be double hinged. Hard to describe but imagine the roof is two pieces. The bottom piece is hinged to the box. Then the upper roof piece is hinged to the to bottom roof piece. The top piece hinges down and the bottom piece hinges over as well. The top piece can be locked into a support on the legs, which provides support for the bottom piece which is now a flat surface. When you don't want the surface you just hinge it all the way over and don't block the top piece. It's really hard to describe. Sorry :( If you're on Facebook, join the Parkinson Hive group. I'm going to post a really bad sketch there to get feedback. Thanks so much for all the feedback so far. I really do appreciate it.

It seems that they canted frames would be very beneficial to someone in a wheelchair or with back issues. I am in the latter group so its worth a try. The lid should be easier to leverage up while in two pieces as the design he settled on as the weight stays close in to the pivot point if you flip both pieces up while folded.

You're right about mites. More on that in the next video.

That's fantastic news. Thank you. I'd be really interested in any feedback from the extreme heat this summer in the deep south.

Also be sure to watch the next video that dives more into why the bees died.

@@parkinsonhive2372 Some background: I saw your extreme weather hive video and thought that would be great down here, where we can get temps over 100 in the summer. And I wanted to try a long hive tilted on it's edge to see if the bees liked it better that way. Instead of using 2x6's (to heavy for this old man) I looked the video on the framed Layens hive (kzbin.info/www/bejne/b4OsYahphM2YrMk) and used that method. I have 2"s of insulation throughout (just regular rolled insulation). It was lighter and easier since I don't have a table saw. I built it 50 frames long and was planning a colony at either end. On Apr 23rd I installed to 5 frame nucs (strong local bees) one at either end. I had divider/end boards at the end of the 5 frames. The bees quickly ignored those and started building comb. Around here, we hope the build out comb until the end of May. Every week I checked them and they keep growing and growing. Today, May 22, I just installed the last 6 frames of 50 because they have started comb and honey on all the rest. I am not sure how many bees there are inside, but both colonies seem to be getting along both in the middle of the hive and outside on the landing board. I have pictures but don't know how to get them to you. I have not feed these bees, I haven't actually done anything but add frames. What I plan on changing next spring: the 50 frame is too long. The plywood is warping slightly, probably because I didn't build the frame strong enough. I want to cut it down to 30-35 frames and only have 1 colony. The drilled holes for openings worked great, but I think they may need some more openings. On anther long hive I used 45 degree pvc elbows (1"), pointed downward and that colon really likes those. It might be doable on the extreme hive if I added enough pvc pipe to go through the insulation.

@@GeorgeWestfall I'd like to see pictures. If you are on Facebook, join the Parkinson Hive group and post them there. Otherwise you can e-mail them to me. I don't want to put the e-mail in the comments or I'll get 10,000 messages about things I've won and Russian Brides. But if you go to the About page for this KZbin Channel you can reveal the e-mail there. Otherwise ParkinsonHive is the first part of the e-mail and the second is Gmail.com.

Thanks for the comment! I show the frames in the Autopsy video coming out on 5/12/2022 so stay tuned. As for mites, I treated for mites in the fall and will confirm with several counts on the dead bees. There was no evidence of a big mite problem during the count last fall. If I recall there was one mite in the test group. I treated anyway so there would be no chance of them outbreeding the bees during this winter test. Also I'm doing some follow up analysis to make sure there was no issue with Nosema. Need to eliminate as many options as possible.

These were Carnis. They do a bit better up here.

I have the autopsy video ready. It'll come out on Friday.

@@parkinsonhive2372 great will be watching for it

That's true and a very good thought. I've been rethinking the lid all winter for a couple of reasons. The reason this one hinged up is to provide close access for disabled beekeepers but I think there's a way to incorporate your idea of a work table and downward facing lid as well.

@@AlwaysDoingSomething pleased to be of help. A little more effort (but not much) if a downward opening lid would he cumbersome and get in the way of a person in a wheelchair, then why not open to the sides (left and right) the top edge would still be easily sealed with a overhanging lip. Restrict the distance the lids can fold back and the inside of the lid would make for an area to place frames and tools.

Several reasons. It involves over wintering, giving them more space to move "up" and causing the warm moist exhaust breath of the bees to condense and drip in a controlled way that doesn't affect the cluster. Lots of airflow issues and easy of management too. I'll make a separate video on this because there's too much to type. Thanks for watching. Stay tuned for that video.

Two videos on that coming. First one coming today 5/12 and the next on Sunday 5/15. Spoiler is they made it to spring but mites got them. The mite treatment appears to not be as effective in the tilted hive for reasons I cover in the video.

I have not found a need for a work area. I start on one end, slide them apart, inspect them and put them right back into the hive. When I'm all done, slide them back together. I live in Northern Wisconsin USA. It's growing zone 3 so our summers rarely see 37 deg C or higher. In theory it should do well, but there's no way for me to know. I need someone in a warm climate to give it a test (hint hint).

FYI - I'm redoing the roof and that will add a work area. Stay tuned for updates on that.

@@parkinsonhive2372 cheers for the update. Saw your last video on it and agree with shelf being too big. Another idea. Makes it a little more complicated but would work (I think) Bottom third folds down, top two thirds cut down middle folds out left and right. That could be built so that it seals it's self up when closed. Anyways silly ideas, just sharing.

@@kezzatries It'll be a two piece folding roof. I think it will work really well and thank you so much for the idea of having some kind of work surface.

@@parkinsonhive2372 mate, you're welcome. I believe there a very few "new" ideas. All the rest are just a remix and missh mash of other ideas. Pieces pushed around by many hands, eventually making a picture.

I would expect the drum hives to struggle up here but honestly I don't know.

Never tried. Interesting idea. I don't know how those work or if they would clog up with the syrup mixture. It's worth trying though.

Yes. Long story short, insulation serves two purposes. Control where the condensation is and prevent drafts. In a standard Long Lang, I still got the nasty "cloud of bee haze" across the top of the hive and condensation directly above the cluster. Tired insulation with various media including wood chips, wick boards, etc. Finally quit trying to fight the problem and just decided to fix it ;)

As time permits I may create a build manual. Unfortunately I'm swamped right now.

It's still winter ;) They're still alive. Made it through the -30F days. Now it's just a matter of me managing their food supply until the blooms arrive.

Going through the first winter. They've survived so far, so that means the hive is good for a few days of -30 F winter weather. Now it's a matter of managing the food supply until the flowers bloom. It's still too cold to open it and add anything. Hoping for a 40 degree day in the near future.

It's in growing zone 3b in Northern WI in the U.S. Not as bad as Manitoba but close.