Long Hive Review - Why This Beehive Design Is Not For Beginners

A question that I'm often asked in the UK is which hive should I buy from Hyde Hives? I've tried pretty much all of the ones that they do. I've tried the Layens hive, I've tried the 8-nuc long hive, and I've tried the standard long hive. In this video, I'm going to do a little bit of a comparison, talk to you about the bits that I like, talk to you about the bits that I don't like, and I'm going to give you a recommendation if you're interested in buying a long hive. So as always, thanks to the guys at Hyde Hives for giving me these hives to do some reviews. Got them on like a long-term loan, and it's really useful to give me some hands-on experience of different Hive types, and I can tell you what I like and what I don't like. So let's start off with the things that I like. Really good looking. All of the hives, including the Layens hive here in the background, I love the look of them. Far better than any of the other colonies, any of the other beehive styles that I have. They would look lovely in like a stately home or an Edwardian garden or something really fancy. Better than my bog standard out apiaries. There's no denying it. Any single hive you'll get from Hyde Hives is very, very good indeed. Now don't think of this as an advert. There's lots of stuff that I don't like, and I will get onto the stuff that I don't like Other things that I like with these hives is that they are accessible. There's no heavy lifting, no lifting at all really, other than pulling out a frame, which means that if you're struggling to lift things or you're disabled or you can't stand up properly, one of these hives could be very, very good for you. Other things I like, and this is particularly focused on one hive, is in that 8-nuc-long hive. I love the flexibility and I love the versatility of the system. You can run it with 1 colony, you can run it with 2 colonies, you can run it with 8 colonies. You can open up all the boxes, you can chop and change. It's a very easy system for building up nucs to overwinter. I love it. In fact, it's probably one of my favorite beehive styles across all of the beehives that I actually own. Let's go on to some of the things that I don't like as much. Swarm control in a long hive is very, very difficult. It really isn't as easy as doing a Demaray, doing an artificial split. People buy a long hive, in my opinion, because they want a single beehive in their garden. They don't want to have to split it and buy another long hive and then split both of those and buy another 2 long hives. It becomes very expensive very quickly. And I've not found a perfect method yet for actually building those colonies up, getting them to a point where they're not going to swarm, getting a good honey crop from them, and then finishing them down for winter. I think the best possible system that I've got is starting off with one colony in half of a long hive, building it up over the course of the season. Once they get to the point where they want to swarm, do a big split, turn it into 2 colonies, 2 queens, try and get your honey crop out of them that way. And then the big important kicker here is condensing them back down into one colony by taking away one of those queens and overwintering only one of them. And for me, even talking through that now, it's not a nice system because I'd prefer to take 2 colonies through the winter than one. But the problem that you have taking 2 through is that you lose the flexibility to do any swarm manipulation the following year. The 8-nuc long hive gives you so much more flexibility, and I would always vote for that over the standard long hive. Next problem that I have is the use of queen excluders. They just don't work in a horizontal format, which means it's very, very difficult to get yourself like a bumper honey crop. So you're not going to be expecting to take 10 or 12 frames out and get them out in the extractor, you're pretty much restricted to kind of taking a single frame at a time and maybe doing like a crush and strain method, which for some people is a really, really good method. And even doing that can help to reduce the swarming impulse to a certain degree. Another thing I'm not so keen on is the way that you do need to keep up with the kind of preservation and maintenance of these hives. For some people, they might love that— sending things down, oiling them up, keeping them looking pristine. For me, mine have got a little bit mucky, a little bit tainted, a little bit bleached. And some people might like that look, but for me they do look a little bit worn and they're not that old. So if you're gonna get one, just be aware you will need to kind of maintain it, keep it looking good, otherwise it can start to go a little bit gray. And then finally, the reason I actually wanted to do this video is to talk to you about the Lion's Hive. Now I feel a bit bad here, so I am sorry Hide Hives, and I will caveat it with there is an alternative there, but I'm not a fan of the Lion's Hive. Not a fan of the Lion's Hive for a number of reasons. And this isn't even a true Lion's Hive, It's a Layton-style hive, but there are a number of reasons that I'm really not too keen on this hive. So how do you check your bees and how do you feed your bees in winter? Let's take a look and find out how difficult it actually is. So you can see here, Layton's hive's still looking very, very nice, really beautiful. Love to have that in your garden, wouldn't you? No activity today because it's really cold here, but what's nearly impossible to do on this hive is it's impossible to heft it, and that goes the same for all long hives. You can't really get in there, you can't do a heft, so you're kind of shooting a little bit blind. You're thinking, well, have they got enough stores? I'm not really sure. All I know is I didn't take any honey from this one, so I'm hoping they're going to have enough stores to see them through. But then I'm thinking, right, well, let's have a look at the cluster, see what the cluster's looking like. And you go onto the top, and it's these bar systems that I'm really not a massive fan of. So it's this top bar system, and you can see where I've had the insulation board on it and the moisture has kind of condensed down onto it. But I'm shooting blind. I don't know what's going on here. Where's my cluster? No idea. Don't want to pull the frames out. Can't heft. Can't feed. There's no suitable way to feed these either syrup or fondant, even though there's a feeder provided. Not going to be able to do that at this point of the year, and it makes the management of this colony very, very difficult. The only trick I've got in my armory is to look down here and kind of take a look at those boards and see if the bees are working through those stores. Let's have a look at that now, see if there's any bees in there, and then we'll just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best. So as you can see there, hopefully you can see you've got 2 clear distinct lines on the left-hand side there. That's a good indication that the bees are uncapping their stores, and you can see over here they've uncapped a lot of those stores, so it looks like they're moving towards the left-hand side of the hive. From what I can see though, there's only one or 2 frames left, but luckily these are quite deep frames, so hopefully that's going to be enough to see them through. But that's pretty much it, that's all I've got to show you. Can't definitively say if there's any bees in there, I've just got to hope for the best. So I hope that didn't come across as too negative. I've not spoken to the guys at Hyde Hives about this video, but I have had people ringing me up saying they got a Layens hive on the back of my recommendation and they weren't happy with it. And I kind of looked back on the videos and said, well, I never actually recommended that hive. I got it, I did some reviews, I said it was cool, But it wasn't a recommendation. So I just kind of want to formally go on the record and say that I don't recommend the laying style hive from Hyde Hives, but I do completely and utterly endorse the 8-nuc long hive. I've looked at that. I'm probably going to buy myself a couple more of those because that is by far and away the easiest way to make plenty of nucs to overwinter. Really nice format. They share their heat together. It's completely flexible. I can go inside, I can take a look at the colonies. I've got access for feeders. I've got all of the different doors. Doors. It's well built, and it really is the best piece of kit that I've got in my apiary. So if you're interested in going for a long hive, definitely go for that one. I wouldn't go for the layens, I wouldn't go for the standard. Pay that little bit extra and go for the 8-nuc long hive.