Post 7 of 29 in the AZ Hive series

The name is misleading. “AZ” has nothing to do with Arizona. The hive was invented in 1903 in Slovenia — nine years before Arizona was even a state.

It’s properly called the Alberti–Žnideršič hive, after Anton Žnideršič, the Slovenian beekeeper who designed it, and Adolf Alberti, the German beekeeper whose earlier hive design Žnideršič built on. AŽ is the abbreviation. In Slovenian it’s pronounced something like “Ahh Shah” — but in American English most people just say “A-Z.”

What made the design distinctive in 1903 is what makes it appealing today. Frames sit lengthwise in the hive — aligned with the direction the bees fly when they enter — and can be pulled in and out like a book off a library shelf. Multiple frame chambers stack vertically inside a single cabinet. The whole thing is worked from the back. Lift the frame you want, look at it, slide it back in.

Beekeepers liked it. They’ve kept liking it. Today, more than 90% of Slovenian beekeepers use the AŽ. And Slovenia has more beekeepers per capita than any country in the world. When 90% of those beekeepers pick the same hive, that’s a strong vote of confidence in the design.

I set my sights on building something inspired by the AŽ — though sized for Langstroth deep dimensions, since the original was built for European frames.

That meant taking a Slovenian classic and translating it into Langstroth-compatible hardware. That’s where it got interesting.

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Next: Traditional AZ vs. My American AZ — what I changed, and why.