page_title: Langstroth hive
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Langstroth hive / Design
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of two wedge top frames (sizes 91/8 inches and 61/4 inches) for a Langstroth style beehive take by Robert Engelhardt. This picture was taken specifically for the Beekeeping Wiki book, but may be used for any purpose for which it is fit.
context_page_description: In modern beekeeping, a Langstroth hive is any vertically modular beehive that has the key features of vertically hung frames, a bottom board with entrance for the bees, boxes containing frames for brood and honey and an inner cover and top cap to provide weather protection. In a Langstroth hive, the bees build honeycomb into frames, which can be moved with ease. The frames are designed to prevent bees from attaching honeycombs where they would either connect adjacent frames, or connect frames to the walls of the hive. The movable frames allow the beekeeper to manage the bees in a way which was formerly impossible.
  The key innovation responsible for the hive's design was the discovery of bee space, a gap size of between 6–9 mm in which bees would not build comb, nor would they close it with propolis.
  Modern Langstroth hives have different dimensions from L. L. Langstroth's beehive that was originally patented in 1852 and manufactured until approximately 1920, but retain the main features of allowing bee space as well as easy access which works well for the bees but also makes management of the beehive easier for the beekeeper.
context_section_description: The original Langstroth hive had a portico entrance, integrated floor and non-removable brood box, a single removable honey box (using the same frame size as the brood box) that sat inside an outer box that extended from the brood box, and a hinged roof.
  Langstroth constructed his hives so that the frames, in which the bees were to make their combs, could easily be separated from all adjacent parts of the hive — the walls of the hive, the floor of the hive, the cover of the hive, and other frames within the hive. To extract a frame from such a hive will not require any comb to be cut. Usually the most trouble a beekeeper encounters in removing a frame from such a hive results from the bees using propolis to bond frames to the brackets they rest upon. Being able to remove and replace combs so easily makes it possible, and practical, for beekeepers to inspect all of their hives on a regular basis. Such inspections, to check for signs of disease and/or parasites, imminent swarming, an aging queen, and other conditions requiring intervention, are essential to successful bee husbandry.
  The Langstroth bee hive is made up from top to bottom of:
  telescoping cover or migratory cover
  inner cover
  one or more hive bodies or honey supers made of wood, polystyrene, or other plastic
  (optional) queen excluder between brood box and honey supers
  eight to ten frames, made of wood or plastic, per hive body or honey super
  (optional) foundation made of wax and wires or plastic
  bottom board, with optional entrance reducer
caption: Langstroth hive frames
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