This is what a Thermo Beehive looks like.  Double celled industrial plastic for healthy bees, warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  The bottom box is called the brood box and this is where the queen and her attendants and a lot of the female worker bees are: drawing out wax and feeding the young.  This is also where the greedy boy drones are.  Above this box is the queen excluder which is an internal barrier to the queen moving up to where the honey is stored and laying in the comb that will eventually be extracted from the 'super' boxes above.

The alighting board is helpful to the bees.  They can land with their heavy nectar and pollen loads and then walk into the hive.  The entrance cover is there as shelter from wind and rain.

 And here is one of my girls, coming to investigate the early morning ruccus!  The entrance has a removable block (not seen) that has bee-size holes in it.  This will be inserted later in the summer to help the guard bees defend against wasps as it narrows the area to be protected.