What makes a complete hive?
A. Hives are essentially an artificial home for bees, designed to appeal to their nest building instincts. They are composed of a few simple elements. A base on which the hive sits – the base has an entrance to allow the bees to come and go and for you to close them in at night if you need to move them or shut them in for a while. Then there is the brood box (a large open ended box where the queen will lay her brood). In the brood box, hang large brood frames where the queen and her young attendants are confined. She lays her eggs here – some honey and pollen are also collected and stored here. Above this sits a queen excluder (or includer). It is a frame holding a mesh of sorts, designed to let smaller worker bees through, but too small to let the queen through. This prevents the queen bee from wandering to the upper levels where the bulk of the honey crop is stored. You don’t want honey, eggs and larvae stored in your honey crop! Above the queen excluder sit the “supers”. The “supers
