Medium langstroth

[Smokeyred]

Anyone had experiece, good or bad, in extracting from full sized langstroth frames? There is a fair bit of oilseed rape in our area by the way........

I mean full sized and not medium sized as the heading suggests. Apologies.

 

[drstitson]

why are you expecting much difference?

they are the super size used by much of europe.

 

[johnandyrob]

I have not extracted from full depth langstroth frames I use mediums and a full medium super is heavy enough. I believe a langstroth brood frame full of honey weighs 3kg. Are you thinking of using them as supers? if so you are looking at 30kg of honey plus frames wax and the box .

 

[Finman]

Anyone had experiece, good or bad, in extracting from full sized langstroth frames? There is a fair bit of oilseed rape in our area by the way........

I mean full sized and not medium sized as the heading suggests. Apologies.

I have only 45 years experience. I use them mixed. Flexibilyty is most important.
But as ideal I use 3 brood boxes+ 4-6 medium boxes.
Sometimes I have 5 langstroth + 3 medium ...and what ever.

With lanstroths you must be more carefull with extractor speed.
If combs are not used as brood frames, they will be broken easily.
And they do not stand warming because combs become soft.

Bees cap low frames sooner than big ones. Then you can extract honey and you have empty combs again during flow.

Full langstroth has 25 kg honey and medium 16 kg. It is big difference when you handle full boxes.

But of course when you need new brood combs, foundations is better to use first in supers. Bees draw easily combs during main flow and then you have combs for next year.



.

 

[Smokeyred]

JohnandRob
Am yet to buy my hives. Thought one size of box might be easier all round. This led me on to consider whether medium or full size Langsroth might be better. Weight is one issue, extraction is another, and whether it is generally a practical proposition to adopt Langstroth large throughout, i suppose.

I have come across, both on this forum and elsewhere, several beekeepers who use full size Nationals throughout. Full Langstroths are only slightly larger than National brood boxes?. So why not?

 

[Smokeyred]

I have only 45 years experience. I use them mixed. Flexibilyty is most important.
But as ideal I use 3 brood boxes+ 4-6 medium boxes.
Sometimes I have 5 langstroth + 3 medium ...and what ever.

With lanstroths you must be more carefull with extractor speed.
If combs are not used as brood frames, they will be broken easily.
And they do not stand warming because combs become soft.

Bees cap low frames sooner than big ones. Then you can extract honey and you have empty combs again during flow.

Full langstroth has 25 kg honey and medium 16 kg. It is big difference when you handle full boxes.


But of course when you need new brood combs, foundations is better to use first in supers. Bees draw easily combs during main flow and then you have combs for next year

.

Yes, I can see where you are coming from. More flexibility with mixed frame sizes, but also more complicated. There is no easy solution.....life is a compromise!

 

[Black Comb]

If you go down this route make sure that the extractor you purchase will take the frame size.
My first "universal" extractor from Big T would not even accomodate L/S shorts (super frames). They changed it of course.

IMO they will be too heavy when full, of course you may be young, strong and very fit.

 

[drstitson]

My 12 frame giordan takes LS brood radially and jumbos tangentially.

 

[VEG]

I couldnt manage to lift any more than a full national super, bare in mind the height you need to lift them as well.

 

[Finman]

but also more complicated. There is no easy solution.....life is a compromise!

Complicated? What is compilated?? Medium frames are ment to make beekeeping easier, not complicated.


Easy solution is that you pile your boxes to the hive and bees fill combs with nectar. What is compilated or difficult in this?


Only difficulty is to take off 35 kg heavy full langstroth bod from the level of head and then put it back....and do it many times.

That is why there are medium boxes.


Life is compromise....oh dear...

.

 

[Finman]

.

Solutions

* My beekeeping friend, a woman, is not able to lift full langstroth box. It is real problem.

* One friend, a professional beekeeper, has only medium boxes.
He was 30 y old when his back was surged. Since then he had nursed medium hives 40 y.
Now he is 72 and he has 80 hives.

.
* One woman keeps hives so that she has one langstroth brood box and the rest of moxes are medium.

* One man changed his system so that last winter he splitted his boxes and frames with table saw and changed langstroth system to medium.

* I must too use my table saw and I cut more of my poly langstroth to medium size.

I have kep bees since 15 y age. I have injured my back every summer, but now it takes really long time to get back again healthy.


.

 

[Smokeyred]

My 12 frame giordan takes LS brood radially and jumbos tangentially.

That' s impressive. Does your extractor have auto variable speed?

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Anyone had experiece, good or bad, in extracting from full sized langstroth frames? There is a fair bit of oilseed rape in our area by the way........

I mean full sized and not medium sized as the heading suggests. Apologies.

I have swienty poly hives. I added an extra brood box during the OSR as I thought the queen needed extra space to lay. You can guess what happened they decided to full it with OSR (and draw the undrawn frames). The weight of a full box is not great to say the least, I have to carry my boxes across the field without the car or other tools and it was back breaking had to keep stopping, its bad enough with the medium supers let alone full boxes!

That being said the bee's liked it, I believe into the lion's den uses only full size langstroth boxes which I saw on his setup when he opened up an apiary to the association last summer impressive to standaise like that.

I can see why finman promotes medium boxes, in europe they dont seem to be as obsessed with finding the queen as we do so multiple frames and no QX's work well for them.

 

[itma]

...
I mean full sized and not medium sized as the heading suggests. Apologies.

Given the non-standardisation of langstroth frame depths (for the same name) in different places, http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/lang.html it would be helpful clarification for all to make reference to the actual frame depths being discussed.


I would strongly advice anyone considering "buying into" any specific hive type to actually handle a real example, with bees, before investing.
Not only to feel the weights, but also to get the feel of the things themselves - whether it be short lugs, box-side handholds, frame make-up or whatever.

 

[Finman]

.
What is beekeeping:
-
1) to make colonies to foraging condition
2) to try to catch main yield flow

Those colonies, whic are not in foraging condition, I join them for main yield harvesting. Main yield is 4 weeks.

Result from joining I may have 4 langstroth boxes in the hive and 2 mediums.

Then I want to build up one box foundations and I put one langstroth box more to the hive. So I have 5 langstroths and 2 mediums.

The start was 2 false swarms and one box nuc. What ever.

My hives are in woods and I do not care what they look like.

.

 

[Finman]

What is main idea in yearly yield?


The most important in early yeild is that the colony build up continues with maximum speed for main yield.

I do not put brooding in danger for harvesting first kilos of honey.
Bee collect their first honey into brood combs. Later in summer I have time to arrange things so that I can extract the dandelion etc yield.


Last spring I noticed that 10-15 kg honey from autumn rape field is not very important, but 2 langstroth boxes of brood was the main saldo. Then in July those brood gaught over 100 kg honey/hive and I had 7 boxes in hives.

Next spring brood yield as most important and I put my hives in warm places where brood saldo will be best.
Windy places are affull. Mixture of different flowers are too very important, and rural gardens are them more importnat than rape..

At that time hives are weak, and actually early yield is allways weak. Smaller hives make no surplus.

So, I prefer to use langstroth in early yield because main thing is brood.

.



.

 

[Ely]

JohnandRob
Am yet to buy my hives. Thought one size of box might be easier all round. This led me on to consider whether medium or full size Langsroth might be better. Weight is one issue, extraction is another, and whether it is generally a practical proposition to adopt Langstroth large throughout, i suppose.

I have come across, both on this forum and elsewhere, several beekeepers who use full size Nationals throughout. Full Langstroths are only slightly larger than National brood boxes?. So why not?

I also like the idea of using one size box throughout. If it were me after reading a lot on the subject. I would opt mediums, much easier to manage in my opinion.

 

[Norfolk]

I also like the idea of using one size box throughout. If it were me after reading a lot on the subject. I would opt mediums, much easier to manage in my opinion.

I have come to that conclusion too.

 

[Ely]

I have come to that conclusion too.

Is that your current setup?

 

[Finman]

I also like the idea of using one size box throughout. If it were me after reading a lot on the subject. I would opt mediums, much easier to manage in my opinion.

My experience is, that mediums as supers are much more handy . That is why they are used.
The Best is that i may extract honey with higher speed. As I said, white langstroth combs are not nice to extract. They Will Bee Broken easely.