After watching the video that explained how to make your own hive, I realized that our big hive was the design that he was describing as the most common. Our hive has two bodies that are deeper than the one that he was making. The hive frames at the school are longer however since his had three stacks there would be about the same amount to surface area and he would be able to move the frames about more easily. The purpose of the design of the frames is so that each frame can be removed with minimal disturbance to the bees and the honey can be extracted easily. There are many opening on the top cover for the bees to be able to com and go freely. There is a bottom board in every Langstroth hive, so I am curious to see whether our bee hive uses a mesh bottom or not. Finally there is a wood covering that goes on the top.
I thought it was interesting that the bees always lay their eggs in the bottom of the hive, and make their honey in the top ones. I saw a lot of similarities to the bigger hive, but I haven't had a chance to look more closely at the smaller one at our school. Since it is smaller I am guessing that the smaller one uses medium hive bodies like his did, but I will look for the design next time we enter the bee hive.
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