Laurence Edwards explains the two ways to orient frames in a National beehive: warm way (parallel to entrance) and cold way (perpendicular). Bees don't care which you choose, but Edwards prefers warm way for 95% of his hives because it lets him inspect with a straight back, reducing strain.
Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping and a super quick Bite-Sized Bees. So in this video today, I'm going to talk to you about frame orientation, the warm way versus the cold way. Now, as you know, with beekeeping, everybody has their own opinion on which is best, and in these videos, I'm not telling you what is best. I'm just showing you both ways so that you can make an informed decision on what suits you best. Now, the warm way versus the cold way is an age-old beekeeping discussion, and obviously everyone has their take on it. My take on it is the bees are not fussed. You look at natural hives in the wild, some of them are the cold way, some of them are the warm way, some of them are 45 degrees, some of them are all over the place. They fit the cavity and they do what works best for them. So if you follow my videos, you will see I reckon 95% of my hives are the warm way. So first off, we're going to take a look at what the warm way is. And the warm way is in relation to how the frames are set up to the entrance at the front. Now, a National hive gives you the ability to turn that 90 degrees. In a Langstroth, you only have one orientation, so the decision is taken out of your hands. On a National hive, you can do it both ways. So this floor here has the entrance at the front. And if you have the frame stacked up like that, so in parallel alignment to the front of the hive, that is called the warm way. With a National, because it's square, you can turn that round and it still fits on. And when you have them at perpendicular angles, so a 90-degree angle to the front like that, that is called the cold way. And I guess it's to do with the way that the air can come in, whereas with the warm way it can't come in. So my take on this is very, very simple. I don't think the bees care, and do what you want to make it easier for you as a beekeeper to inspect your bees. And my personal preference, probably because I do a bit on video, but it's to inspect from behind. So all of the hives you see around here, they're all set up in the warm way, and that is because I'll walk over here like this and I will go to a hive, I'll walk up to it, I'll take the strap off, and I want to be able to inspect like that. And it's the same with this hive here. If I walk up to it, I want to be able to walk up to it from behind, and I want to be able to inspect, i.e., pull the frames out and look at the frames. And obviously this is a little bit high, so it wouldn't normally be this high. I'll look at my frames, I'll go over, everything's fine, no problem. Now for me, the cold weight proves very, very difficult for working from behind. So if you were just to turn that one round 90 degrees, And again, I come up and I walk from the back like this. I find that manipulation really awkward. Personally, I find that really awkward and I find it a lot more work. So it's a simple solution for me, which is the warm way. For me, is by far and away the best method for me because I like to work from behind. Now sometimes there's instances where that's not the case. So if you can imagine, if this is a 4-hive pallet here, And I have my hives set up, I can't have them all set up in the way that I want them to be set up because the entrances don't work. And in that instance, you need to stagger all of the entrances all the way around. So you have an entrance going out that way, entrance that way, entrance that way, and entrance that way. So 4 entrances for the 4 hives on a pallet. So in that setup, I'd have to have the hive like this. And again, I've got the entrance at the front here, but I need to come in from this side now. Because I want to be able to check on my frames. So that is still the warm way. Look at it, nothing's changed. I've just moved that forward. You've got the entrance there and you've got the frames running parallel to where the entrance is. So if I was to say religiously, I think the warm way is best and I'm going to run everything on the warm way, it's really awkward for me here. So when I have 4 hives to a pallet stacked with an entrance in all 4 directions, I just turn them the cold way. And on my first inspection, I'll just split them round, and then I can walk up to where I'm going to inspect the hive, and I'll come in and I'll inspect it the cold way this time round. So I've turned it 90 degrees, the frames are now perpendicular to that entrance, so now the bees are running it in the cold way. And you can chop and change this throughout the season. And that is it, that is the video— cold way versus warm way. I genuinely don't think the bees mind. I don't think they're fussed, and if there is a difference, it's very, very slight. For me, when I'm managing a lot of colonies and I'm going and doing that repeatedly throughout the day, as you can imagine, you walk up to a colony like that and you have to do that movement, and for me, I just find it really bad. Hurts my back. Whereas that movement, I walk up, my hands are straight, my back's nice and straight. I just find that so much easier. And that genuinely is it for the video. I'm not telling you cold way is best, I'm not telling you warm way is best, I'm explaining to you what the cold way is, what the warm way is, why I prefer the warm way 95% of the time, the instances where I use the cold way because it's better for my back because of access issues, and then it's over to you to make up your mind and see what works best for you in each of your respective apiaries and for each of your respective colonies. So I hope you enjoyed that, I hope you found it useful, As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time. Bye.
