A short History of
Honey Bee Hives ~
Build Your Own Bee Hive ~
Making Bee Hives

Many of you who are starting your own venture into beekeeping are of course interested in making sure you have the correct beekeeping equipment and perhaps wish to build a bee hive.

I have provided you with a link at the bottom of this page which will show you how easy this is to do. But please stick around a while first to read some interesting honey bee hive information.

History tells us these can also be attributed to the very first apiary that has been discovered to date although these Ancient Egyptians were by no means the first ever beekeepers.

Beekeeping has always been popular and probably more so in this day and age due to the trouble we are causing our planet with missing bees!

Long cylindrical hives are still used to this very day in Egypt, these are not the types of hives you would probably want to make yourself as they mix dung in with their mud and straw then line or stack them up neatly in rows.

If only they knew then that their way of extracting honey from these hives would send shivers down a beekeeper today! They would kill the bees to get to the honey by using metal containers which contained sulphur.

There was an exception by beekeepers from Poland; they would do their utmost to protect their bees from bad weather conditions and the bear who of course would be in heaven if he/she ever came across such a delicacy.

A piece of wood would be removed from the entrance and they tended to use similar methods today for honey extraction, that of smoking the bees out a far more humane method for both of them.

Early honey bee hives in Poland were almost always carved into tree trunks often in the form of a human. They would stand these upright forming their own versions of apiaries.

Elsewhere in Europe because of the sacredness of the honey bee these tree trunks would often depict the Virgin Mary.

William Broughton Carr invented a honey bee hive which we often associate with the classic shape. It is known as the WBC after him. It is a box shape with double insulation and has external housing protruding from the bottom of each frame.

It doesn’t appear to be popular anymore because of the inconvenience involved in removing these before they can inspect the inside of the hive.

National Hive is the name given to popular hives in the UK. Square in shape with handles called “lugs”. Because it is quite small modern day beekeepers who still use them often add a “super”, they have renamed these hives as “a brood and a half”

These have increased in size usually to 14” x 12” which gives a honey bee brood a similar area to the famous Langstroth hive and the Commercial hive.

Thomas Wildman in the late 1700s invented a honey bee hive superior to the old “skeps”, he was totally against killing the bees during honey harvest time so he fitted wooden bars across the top.

The honey bees were then able to attach their honeycomb to these which meant easy removal.

He was by no means the first. Pierre Dugat who was a French Trappist Monk designed stackable honey bee hives and so the first sky-scraper was born!

There were thought to be around seven different honey bee queens each with a separate colony or family. An exceptional Hive of Industry going on in those natural bee hives I’m sure you’ll agree!

Honey bee hives have a huge and varied history and it would take a book not just an article for me to explain all the different types of hives there are in use today. They are symbolic often described as a symbol of industry.

Masonic lectures include its symbolism as “Industry and Co-operation” most probably because honey bees work in perfect harmony with each other. Although most pictures depict this dome shape, most honey bee hives which are used now are more equal to a box in shape.

I have done the research for you to save you time and am including these excellent links for honey bee hive plans just in case you would like to build a bee hive.

There are instructions and videos which show you step by step how to build a bee hive.

One very important piece of advice is never, ever, be tempted into using used bee hives. If you see bee hives for sale be exceptionally careful before making a purchase, check out the supplier, only buy new and don’t allow anyone unscrupulous to palm you off with something that will be next to useless!

If you do make your own or you are a beekeeper please share your stories, hints and tips with my readers and I. It is my purpose to help people understand just how important it is today for us all to help save the honey bees.