In this video Laurence Edwards gives a detailed walkthrough of his brand‑new Layens‑style hive from Hyde Hives, explaining how the hive was sourced, its construction, and the specific design tweaks that differentiate it from a classic Layens hive. He describes the high‑quality materials (phenolic‑ply roof, cedar splayed‑leg stand, waterproof entrance boards) and the functional features such as gas‑powered struts and removable floor for varroa treatments. Edwards then examines the internal layout, highlighting the tall, narrow Layens frames, the intentional gap between frames, the central divider, and the overall 20‑frame capacity. He outlines his plan to transfer a standard national nuc into the hive using a cable‑tie strap method and a drilled central hole, and discusses how he will manage the colony as a single unit across both sides. Throughout, he promises a series of follow‑up videos covering colony introduction, swarm control, honey harvesting, and general management of Layens hives, while also offering practical tips for year‑round use and maintenance.
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In this video, I'm going to give you a look around my brand new Layens style hive from Hyde Hives. So first off, massive thanks to Matt and Dean for letting me have a go on this Layens hive. I went down to Bee Tradex, met some people down there, picked it up while I was there, and I brought it back into my apiary. And I'm going to do a full series of videos on this Layens hive in 2022. So Matt and Dean are really keen for me to say this at the beginning of this series, that their Layens hive is a Layens style hive. So the dimensions might not be exactly right. It's not interchangeable with any other units. They've just taken a lot of the design from the standard Layens hive and overlaid that onto their long hive system, just in case anybody looks at something and says that's not what should be on a Layens hive. There's slight tweaks, there's slight modifications to it, but they think they've come up with a really good Layens-style hive that gives you all of the benefits of the standard Layens system made out of cedar that was felled and chopped down in England. So I am so excited. I love the look of this Layens hive. In this video, I'm going to give you a top to bottom look of it. We'll go through all of the details, and then in the next episode in this series, I'm going to show you how to introduce a nuc of bees into the Layens hive. I am going to completely give it away though, and I will give you that tip in this video just in case you've got a nuc coming early in the season and you've already got one of these Layens hives. I'm going to show you how to do that in this video, and I'm going to give you a few clues and tips as to what I'm going to do in the next episode. So let's jump straight into it then. Let's go and take a look at my brand new Layens hive from Hyde Hives. And I have to say, it's iconic again, this design. You can just tell that this is a Hyde Hives beehive. Phenolic ply on the roof, really nice, good quality wood. Love that stand with the splayed legs. I just love the build quality that you get with these hives. So we'll start off at the top then. Like I say, we've got phenolic ply again, so that is ply that has been completely coated and embedded with waterproof resins. That should last for years. I've got no issue with any of my long hives in terms of delamination of the roofs. At the top again, you've got your entrance cones for any stray bees that get stuck in that roof. Down at the front of the hive, and this hive is split into 2, which you'll see in a little bit when I open it up. So this is one entrance over here, and you've got your standard entrance reducer. Nice little alighting board for them there, really nice to watch them on a warm day. And then at the bottom, you've got your standard Cedar splayed leg stand. Little bit of a mouthful, that. Do really like these stands though. As with all of the Hyde Hives beehives, you get these entrance boards made of phenolic ply again, so they're going to last for absolutely ages. They come completely out like that, so you can run it without a floor if you want. Really good for doing varroa treatments, really good for checking the mite drop as well. I have to say, I know Matt and Dean don't like this, but I keep these in all year round. It's just what I do, and I've found the colonies thrive really well in it. To be honest, it makes very little difference though. Keep them in, take them out, do what you want, you've got the option there. Right, let's open it up again. We've got the gas-powered struts, which I just love. It makes it so easy and smooth opening and closing this beehive. You can see at the top, phenolic ply, everything's glued up, polyurethane glue on the seals there. That's going to be perfectly watertight. And then we're into the business. So you can see down here, the Layon's frames are very Tall and narrow. That's the system for the layens. And then when you see the frames here, it looks a little bit strange, doesn't it? It is essentially a top bar hive system, but based upon like a full-size actual frame. So I'm still missing a few frames. They're due to come up in the post. All they do though is they have one on either side with a little hook just to get your first one out. You can see here they keep a gap in here because on a top bar system like this, if you had them all completely butted up with each other and then you put bees in there, you would never ever get them out. They would just completely swell and you'd really be in trouble. So that gap there is actually a really important gap. Got a little bee coming and checking it out. So yeah, bee, you will come into this hive soon, don't worry, just give me a chance to do the review. But taking out those frames, you can see exactly what I mean. So they are really, really long frames. They go all the way down. And just as a reference point, and I told you I was going to give you a little bit of a clue as to how I'm going to transfer my frames into this layon's hive. But this one here is a 14 by 12 frame. It doesn't fit perfectly in, which kind of scuppered my move to put a 14 by 12 frame in here. But a national frame, if you trim a tiny little bit off this lug in here, it fits inside it at a 90-degree angle. And then all I'm going to do is I'm just going to strap it in using cable ties. That's how I'm going to transfer my colony of bees over to the layens hive. But I thought this would give you a really good indication as to kind of how big the frames are. I'd say they're maybe 10 or 15% bigger than a 14 by 12 national frame. So in terms of the number of frames, you've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. That's 10 frames on that side and then 10 frames on that side. This central divider in here is temporarily screwed down, but you can take this out. Without a shadow of a doubt, I am taking this out because for me, a 10-frame 14 by 12 hive is not really going to be big enough, and it's going to really impact the strategy as to how you manage your colony and how you harvest that honey as well. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave this in for the first season, I'm going to drill a hole in the middle there, and I'm going to let the bees move between the two sides. And I'm going to run my lay-on hive here as one single colony on 20 effectively 14 by 12 size frames, but 20 lay-on frames, which is still going to be a little bit touch and go in terms of sizes. We'll cover all of that on future videos though. Talk to you about management, swarm management, honey management, everything to do with lay-on hives and how to get the best out of them. So there you go. That's the first look at the Hyde Hives Layon style hive. I can't wait to get started on this one. The next video won't be long at all. I'm going to take a standard national nuc and I'm going to put that into my Layon's hive and I'm going to show you exactly how to do that. So what do you think? Do you like the look of the Layon's hive? Do you wish you had one for yourself? Any other questions, stick it in the comments. Love to talk about the Layon's hives. If you want to check out some of my other Hyde Hives videos for the long hive and the queen rearing hive, check out this playlist here where there's loads of videos about Hyde Hives long hives.
