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Do Honeybees Prefer 5 Frame Bee Hives or 10 Frame?
by Spot
| I have read that bees will make more honey if you build up instead of out. One should use the five frame hive over the ten frame hive. Do you think this is true? Thank you, Spot |
Hi Spot,
That's a very good question. I do see hives build in trees and even house walls which mirror the shape of a 5 frame hive. I think it might depend on the area of the country and local weather. In areas where it's fairly mild it would be easier for the bees to maintain the temperature to their liking. Stacking five frame boxes on top of each other would be less stable than 10 frame boxes.
I suggest that it might be interesting to test the theory by using five frame boxes on one colony and ten on one by its side. Of course this would need to be repeated a number of times since even if everything appears to be identical in two hives, neighboring hives will produce different sizes of honey crop.
I think it's likely that if bees liked the five frame, tall thin shape of hive, they would build in this fashion even inside 10 frame boxes.
The Bee Guy
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