
Vernon’s Perone hive, showing the brood box (24 inches in length, width and depth), one super and the roof. Construction was of Douglas Fir with the exterior thin-coated with linseed oil. Materials cost about $140 including the concrete footed mounting frame and a sheet of galvanized metal for the roof.
When my first Warre hive was threatening to swarm, I knew I was in trouble. I didn’t want any more hives but I wanted to give it to someone who would really appreciate a prime swarm. I found out about Vernon through the new bee keeping network of Oregon South Coast Beekeepers Association…he had just built a Perone hive. He wanted a swarm rather than package bees. That was me a year ago. The bees swarmed on Mother’s Day, May 12, 2013. We handed him a bucket of bees a day later, but I didn’t want to leave it at that, I had never seen a Perone hive before and wanted to see how big it was…I wanted to make sure our bees had a good home.
He sent me these photos and his details…
The plans I used to construct my hive are on-line:
http://peronehive.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Making-a-Perone-Hive.pdf
The authors are from Chile so the useful dimensions are in metric. Perone insists that the internal dimensions of the brood box be 57 X 57 X 57cm, which is 184.5 liters. Each of his supers is 32.5 liters. Whenever I converted to English units I adjusted the measurements slightly for convenience. My brood box is built of 1 X 6 inch lumber, which of course actually measures 3/4 X 5 1/2 inches.

Stacking 4 boards on edge gave me a brood box 22 inches in height (not including the floor which is 3/4 inch thick). The outside dimensions for length and width were 24 X 24 inches, so the interior dimensions were 22 1/2 X 22 1/2 inches

Scrap lumber sticks placed inside the brood chamber to help support the expected massive comb loads.
The height of my supers is 4 1/2 inches rather than the 4 inches recommended by Perone. I measured my bars in metric (24 cm height and width, which is about 15/16 inches) and cut them on a circular saw from 2 inch cross-section stock.

There were 49 bars: 17 bars for the brood comb spaced 9mm apart, and 16 bars each for the two supers, spaced 10 mm apart.
Perone insists that the brood comb bars be 9mm apart because he feels this helps the bees maintain optimal brood comb temperature to fight infestations. Also, that spacing is preferred by the queen, so an excluder isn’t needed to keep her in the brood box.

Note the lower entry and 2 inch deep landing strip. The metal strip above the entry is a mouse guard. The upper landing strip is also attached to the brood box.

My gabled roof has a 5 1/2 inch peak and the ridge is 31 1/2 inches long. The roofing is made from 1 x 6 inch boards and is covered by galvanized sheet metal.
I asked Vernon if he would consider shooting a video of the bees…
This video was shot on May 23rd about 9 days after installation.










































