Garden Hives - Keeping your own bees

It’s no secret that without honeybees, we’re all in for a rough road! Honeybees pollinate our crops while producing possibly the single best sweetener available. News headlines tell us they’re dying in massive numbers, with pesticides leading their decline. While this is 100% true, we also need to look inward at how we manage honeybees, much like how a rancher raises cattle or any other stock.

This is where “Keep it Simple” comes into play. You simply need to provide a colony of bees with the right home—a home that mimics their natural habitat. A thin wooden box, or sets of boxes stacked on top of each other, is not mimicking how honeybees live in nature!

Let’s be real - You’re not a commercial beekeeper who needs a system for loading hundreds of boxes onto a semi-truck for processing or shipment across the country.

The Langstroth hive is what you’ve always seen and what I started off using, just like everyone else. After several years of losing bees each winter and never really having any success getting honey, sent me on a path of learning. A journey that thankfully landed me where I am today. It’s become a passion; arguably an obsession. Especially after realizing we’ve all been doing it wrong the entire time.

In fact, I believe in this natural way of beekeeping so strongly that it remains the way I do it today—even knowing it’s the least efficient commercial way of maximizing honey production. The alternative is knowingly weakening the genetics of the bees while accepting high winter mortality rates as "normal". That’s not something I can morally do while knowing I’d be putting business objectives ahead of the lives of the honeybees.

Just to be clear, this style of hive has been around since 1874. This is nothing new, nor is it something I came up with. Georges de Layens, a French beekeeper and scientist gets all the credit!

This style of hive, in my assessment, is a dream come true for anyone wanting to keep bees, observe bees, and/or have a healthier ecosystem in their garden. Of course, you also gain the very sweet benefit of having your own honey from your own garden—100% free of chemicals and mysterious sugar additives (look out for labels that mention “Blend” or “Blended”). You will be enjoying your own pure, wild, raw honey!

Let me start by keeping my promise of Keeping it Simple. For your Garden Hive, you need what’s called a Layens Hive. This is a horizontal hive (long hive) that closely mimics the natural nesting environment of bees. The thick, insulated walls of the Layens hive provide excellent thermal regulation, which is beneficial in all environments. Thermal regulation inside a beehive is critical to the bees survival! It's much like the trunk of a tree that has been their home in nature for over 100 million years! Like all other insects on Earth, they don’t require human intervention to do what they do best. What it comes down to is that "we" benefit by providing minimal management in aiding in their thriving—not just surviving.

It’s seriously Simple, we don’t need to overcomplicate it, as we all tend to do.

You’re going to check on your bees a few times in the spring (you can actually get away with just once). You will pull their excess honey in the fall, tuck them in for the winter, and boom—you’re done. They’ll be happy you haven’t ripped open their nest unnecessarily throughout the year!

I promise you it’s literally that simple. I keep hives in remote areas where I can’t check on them more than twice a year. Would they produce even more honey if I visited a few extra times in the spring? Absolutely! My point is— it’s not a requirement. The bees will be fine! If a colony doesn’t do well or even dies, that’s nature working the way its intended. Weak colonies are supposed to fail, while strong colonies grow, passing on stronger genetics. As long as we the human are not to blame for their demise, this is how nature adapts and strengthens itself against pests, viruses and changing environmental conditions.

Most winter die-offs are more often than not, due to human error. Give our bees a summer cabana, then expecting them to survive several months of winter (when temperatures average 40°F and below) is a bit delusional in my opinion.

This is why so many bee colonies collapse in the winter. Rapid temperature changes create condensation inside a non-insulated hive, this sudden increase in moisture night after night eventually becomes fatal. Think of your own home; nighttime temperatures drop, sometimes drastically, however inside your insulated home temperatures remain consistent without condensation forming on the walls (bees have a limited ability to be their own HVAC system). Now think about camping in a tent, or being inside your car with five friends, windows up and no ventilation running. By morning the windows are fogged up and probably dripping in moister. Now add novice mistakes in beekeeping like improper feeding and poorly designed ventilation, and before you know it (literally) a colony will die. You won’t realize it until spring when you open the hive to find dead bees and mold everywhere. Heartbreaking!

The Layens hive, when built and managed correctly, gives your bees a proper home—a home they'e naturally designed to live in.

Good news for woodworkers and handy DIYers: you can find free plans online to build your own Layens hives. Having made all my own hives each winter, I will say, "it’s a process". It takes some skill and all the right tools. So that’s option one.

Option two is to buy a hive. They’re not easy to find, but I and others do sell well-built, insulated Layens hives. They are heavy, and the shipping isn’t cheap. However! By doing it right the first time, you won’t start a hobby or project that flops and ends up collecting dust in the garage, or end up in the garbage full of dead bees and mold.

You’ll also have an unbelievable sense of purpose and satisfaction each time you look at your hive buzzing with life. Not to mention each fall when you see that golden honey slowly pouring into jars you will soon be enjoying.

Like any new animal acquisition, it’s more than just getting the new animal and giving it a bed. A lot more (as we all know). You’re making a commitment to a colony of honeybees—an average of 50,000 to 80,000 living creatures!

BTW - If that thought just made you shudder, relax. Just don’t recklessly crack open a hive in your swimwear, diving your hand in like a crazed grizzly pawing for honey! 

With a simple beekeeper’s jacket, veil, and gloves, you’ll be fine—even with the sassiest of sassy colonies. 

FYI - remember to zip up your veil ALL THE WAY!

Things You’ll Need:

1. Layens Hive with Internal Frames, End Board(s) and Wax Foundation
2. A Hive Stand
3. Beekeeper’s Jacket & Veil, and Gloves
4. Hive Tool, Bee Brush, and a Smoker
5. Bees—purchased or caught from a wild swarm (preferred)
6. A Plan for Harvesting Honey (Fancy or Rudimentary?)
   • Fancy = Easy and fun: Extractor, Frame Holder, Scraper, Stainless Filter Set with a Honey Bucket and Jars
   • Rudimentary = Sticky, frustrating, and not recommended. Options include Crushing and Straining, Waiting for Gravity to release honey, or just cutting the comb out and eating it like a grizzly. Personally I don't enjoy eating wax...

Have your plan in place before you start. Therefore your success, happiness, and fulfillment will surly be in tow.

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Much respect to you in taking action—it’s one of life’s rare talents.

You can find our available Layens Beehives on our Etsy shop clicking this link: [COMING SOON]  

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