Strout Horizontal Beehive & Double Frames: Design and Operation 

What as great job based on well thought out principles. on the well-being of the bees The only thing you might want to do, is add a blanking strip to your dovetail slot at the bottom of the bottom frame to stop the bee from filling the slot with propolis. Also, the deeper the frames, the greater the risk of crushing bees, greater still if the attached frames slide apart.. Further design can help negate this risk. I love fact that you have actually created your design. Well done again!!

Great improvements! You have just revolutionized the bee industry! I will forever be in your debt. I built a similar hive box last year. Get some florescent tape and wrap it around the middle of your hive tool. Now if you drop it at nite you will find it easier! Quid pro quo!

That is totally awesome! I like the windows! They will be super useful in winter when checking on the bees with out having to open it up to check on feed etc Really hope you post vids on the progress of this hive! Wish you the best of luck! Happy Bee Keeping! "Edit and update comment after watching rest of video" My guess is they will propolis them sliding frames together so you might need to invent a divice to push them apart with out ruining your frames. Like a grove you place the frame in then push the top frame if that makes sense? That is like a Layens Hive on Steroids it really is brilliant! Great work!

Very nice design that you put a lot of thought into. Obviously you are an engineer.

Clever! I’ve got a langstroth that I want to convert into a Layens. This seems to be the best idea.

What fun. Lucky parents to have such an innovative son. Great job.

You did an awesome job !

I absolutely love your design. Thank you for sharing :)

I love the bottom rail with base mesh for summer ventilation. And thankyou.... I was always wondering how a hive works but I didnt quite get what bee keepers were saying... your explanation helped a lot.

Awesome design! I love how you came up with idea of connecting your frames with these dovetail joints. I look forward to seeing more of your processes. Awesome!!!

That's a LOT of hard work! I'm really impressed by your method of fitting to deep frames together because so far, the other option was/is to saw off the "ear" of one frame and tie the two together with tie-wraps. I also like how you set-up the inside in a way to place a single queen excluder on each side. Very clever! Just a few comments (not bashing): there IS a reason for the "double deep" - it has to do with similarity to "wild" bees naturally establishing their colonies in hollow tree trunks. I'm surprised that in your research you didn't come across the Lazutin hive (which is essentially what you re-designed) as you mention Dr. Leo's hive. I know it's now a year later and you have an updated video, but you might want to read Keeping Bees with a Smile by F. Lazutin - most of the footwork has been done and it'll help you take a few leaps ahead.. I'm also wondering about how your bees will fare over winter. Keep up the research and innovation! It's something we don't have enough. You will definitely design a beehive that is perfect for northern North America.

*Hi from a Steelers fan 🙂Awesome design man. I always look for new and innovative ways and I am amazed! Thank you for sharing.*

I am a first time beekeeper and this is genius.

Congratulations

interesting concept........hope it works out.........

Great hive. If you ever consider building a second model, here are few changes I would like. Your hive has no insulation for colder locations. Consider using 2" side walls or a gap between the inter wall and outer wall. Place insulation in the gap. Some us bee keepers practice Dr. Seely's. We have not venting in the bottom and top of our hives. Bees in the wild never have upper vents in their tree hives. Consider having a removable sold bottom board with a removal screen board. Best of both worlds. You need more groves for the queen excluders. One of the reasons bee swarm is the brood area becomes to crowded. With additional groves you can enlarge the brood space.

Brilliant

Lots of ingenious thought and work put into this! I think those double stacked frames are going to be REALLY heavy to pull out of the box after they are loaded with brood and honey though. Just a single frame, full of honey, can be quite heavy.

Love the dovetail adaptation for the Lazutin hive. I hope to see how it works out.

أفكار جديدة وجيدة أخي الكريم شكراً جزيلاً

The dovetail design you use is 'sticky'. In practice, i don't think it would be a simple easy process of separation especially when glued all along with wax. if the lower frame is flush with the upper then a thin strip of metal screwed on the side of the lower frame and attached to the upper by a single screw or latch would suffice - the simpler the better as far as i am concerned. Good effort mind.

excellent idea on frame design. moisture can do funny things to the wood. even with a loose fitting dove tail there will be a few frames that might want to put up a fight lol. i have been building horizontal hives , well hives of all types for a long time, just posted a new design of a double deep. working on a few ideas with frames also, again, very nice design, hope you can do a follow up when its time to harvest some honey to show how your frame design works. my friend over in Italy uses a deep and medium deep hive set up. the cross bar between the two frames is not as wide as the side bar, about 3/16 thinner on both sides, he places wax on that like a starter strip and the bee's put comb all the way down and cover the center bar between both frames.

I wanted to congratulate you on how wonderful all these inventions you have come up with. They are fantastic. I also would like to offer you a tip I have learned with Dr. Leo Shiratshin. He, and several other experts on horizontal and Layens hives, say that if the middle bar of the double deep frames are not really thin, like 2/8" of an inch, the bees have shown that they don't usually go down to the bottom half of the frame. Even though I find your slider idea genius, try shaving a little of the width off and see--just an idea. But boy, you have some mind to come up with an idea like that. I too am trying to think outside of the box. I have two Flow Hives, which are Langstroth Deep boxes, yet I have connected a deep box to a medium box and have built 15 6/8" long frames for them them to have 6 1/2" more space of length on each frame. This way I don't ever need to add another brood box, just my Flow Honey Super. I LOVE IT> And these experts are not proving that longer frames that mimic how they build in nature, and with allowing the bees to build their own comb, which is always smaller than any drawn plastic or wax foundation thus a smaller bee, ensures a better survival rate from winters, better defenses from diseases and mites, and even longer lives of the bees. I'm determined to help them anyway possible. That even means for me Chemical Free all the way. I still treat, but only with Drone Frame Freezes and smoking 4 times a year with Dried Black Walnut Hulls. I wish you the best my young friend.

Love the design. Do you have full built plans ?

You can rub "gulf wax" on the dove tail frame slides.

The double frames are a great idea, but i cant help but think the bees will glue them all up with wax and propolis over time rendering them unworkable

Good day from Aus. What brought you to neighbouring New Zealand? Can you help me understand something about the double deeps... if you have brood in the bottom half and they put honey in the top, you can zip them apart to take the tops for honey extraction, but how do you put the brood back when the tops away? You don't want to shift brood comb arround right - as its clustered and temperature sensitive so that bottom part goes back with a new hanger?? ... please follow up video after a year with lessons learnt so we're not all making same mistakes ♡ cheers

This is a very good idea and I would be interested in seeing some real hive data on this and others experiences as to what the bees do to the joints and if they will propolyze the joints and by doing so they will become near impossible to disassemble without breaking the material. thoughts? great job!

Duża ramka to wielkie utrudnienie dla pszczelarza i pszczół. Wiem bo pracuje na Warszawskiej Poszerzanej.

I like the bigger frame. I do NOT like the bar in the middle since that is where bees initially winter. separating the cluster may be a very bad thing with a winter like we are having this year 2022/2023. Bees are also reluctant to build below that middle bar.

Do the bees Propolize the two frames together? I love the idea of getting deep frames that can be used in extractor.

Moisture content aside, the sticky propolis might make getting those apart difficult. Why not use a Layens frame?

Looks cool, but I am not sure how well it will work when bees will cover those frames with propolyse.

Question for you David. Can you share how you built the hinge roof? What materials you used? Grateful.

now that you had these double-frames for a year: how does the sliding work after a year of propolis production?

would love to buy a copy of the blue prints

How did you solve the hive beetle problem?

I would like to see what has happened now that it's been a year.

have you seen vino farms double frame,how has your worked out?

Hey David, I never heard back from you. Busy? Did you change your mind? Just let me know. I'm still hoping you can help.

Can you please tell me what your internal measurement is? I want to compare it to other measurements. I don’t want to mess up with the bee space when the standard frames are inserted. So I would need the width and depth. Not the long measurement. Thanks

Did those dovetail joints get full of propolis and not come apart easy?

👈🏻👈🏻خاصك دير فيه الزاج لكي ترى النحل هل قاموا بوفر العسل أو لا بدون فتح الخالية فقط تراه عبر الزاج

That dovetail joint will not be easy to slide the 2 frames apart after the bees propalize those frames not to mention they will be very heavy when filled with honey. One frame is heavy enough without being a double. Nice try though. You would be better off attaching them another way only for the young. Each one of your double frames can weigh up to 16 pounds with honey. This is why a single frame is used. Maybe a narrower but deeper frame with the same space would work better. Like turn the regular deep frame vertical instead of horizontal. For harsh winter states like wisconsin, wool insulation and thick walled hives are the only way to go. Good to see a thinker though keep going.

i dont see why you call these "horizontal". if you do not expand horizontally,its just a deeper(longer) hive box. good marketing ploy,tho! but misleading. no offense,i really like much of what ive seen from you. the x2 frames are very nice! i especially like the one with thje dowel,none separable one. i will make them one day,myself.

vino farm

Anyone in Canada overwintering bees successfully in layens??

I hope you patent your frame idea. It could be worth a lot of money.

Ok but you will have to make every frame

I like the design on the frames, but I'm afraid that the bees will seal the joints with propolis and it may be hard to separate them.

Excellent build well done! I take it for $15.00 (way to cheap by the way) American you will email plans minus assembly through email? I am Canadian so I will need to insulate all sides, top and bottom.

Oh, I forgot on last tip David. If you build some thin and small triangles made of wood, and paint them with melted wax, you can glue them to the bottom top board of the bottom half of the double deep and it helps coax the bees to start on the lower half of the frame. (it's that thick bar that stops them most the time.)

over engineered for the purpose of engineering.. by an engineer who enjoys engineering meanwhile the bees ar4e happy in a hollow tree