The frames run the same direction as the bricks on top do. 21 frames fit into this box. There is a center support on the bottom board and one on the inside of the cover. The bottom support kept the frame that was in that position a bit high.
Turns out those supports were cramping the bees' style. They weren't traveling freely through the whole box, just half of it.
And when we opened the hive at the last inspection, we found a lot of burr comb on top of that one side.
What you see in the pic is only half of the comb. The rest was attached to the lid. They were unhappy when we took it away.
Only honey comb was on the 'wrong side' of the hive. No brood comb at all. And the brood frames were getting smaller because they were getting filled with honey instead of brood.
It's a miracle we didn't find a swarm cell started up. These bees were quickly getting honey bound.
So, we did some remodeling. We popped the center bar out of the lid so they'd have easy access across the tops.
And Eric chiseled the bottom support waaaay down so they'd have bee space across the bottoms. We also opened up another entrance right next to the old one that opens toward the 'wrong side'.
We also checkerboarded the 7 empty frames that they just wouldn't fill up by putting an empty after every two full frames. That spread out the brood into the 'wrong side' and will hopefully get them moving through the whole box where they'll decide to expand the brood.
We love the horizontal hive bodies - so much easier to work than the langs. Eric built this one and now we know how to tweak the design for the next ones.