What wood for beehives UK?

[Phil Pascoe]

I kept bees in the mid '80s and never came across a beekeeper who used anything else - there were obviously reasons for using them then. Two were acquaintances who had kept them on a fairly scale (30+ hives) for three or four decades. iIappreciate times change and they wouldn't be number one choice now.

 

[Jameshow]

Nationals and WBCs (William Broughton Carr) are types of hive - the WBC is one you see in old country cottage pictures. A nuke is a nucleus, used to start a new colony.https://www.google.com/search?q=bee+nucleus+for+sale&rlz=1C1VDKB_enGB1049GB1049&oq=bee+nuke&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgEEAAYChiABDIGCAAQRRg5MgkIARAAGAoYgAQyCQgCEAAYChiABDIJCAMQABgKGIAEMgkIBBAAGAoYgAQyCQgFEAAYChiABDIJCAYQABgKGIAEMgkIBxAAGAoYgAQyCQgIEAAYChiABDIJCAkQABgKGIAE0gEJMTA1NzlqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I went into anaphylactic shock from a sting (from one of my own bees). It's not uncommon amongst beekeepers and can happen after many years of not having a problem.

Happened to my dad, had to give it up after 20yrs and up to 10 hives.

Good times!

 

[deema]

Don’t forget to register your hives, and always have tee and biscuits ready for the bee police when they come calling
They are great sources of info as well as advice when they check your bees.

 

[Bluetit]

I'm a keen gardener but keep bees in the sense that you keep birds if you put up a bird box or two. I built 2 Kenyan Top Bar hives from Western Red Cedar in 2016 and there is no sign of rot yet, even at the feet. The roof is also re-sawn Western Red Cedar planks and once the bees sealed it up with propolis, quite watertight enough

 

[Jameshow]

Don’t forget to register your hives, and always have tee and biscuits ready for the bee police when they come calling
They are great sources of info as well as advice when they check your bees.

Who are the bee police!

 

[nickds1]

Who are the bee police!

They are actually very nice people - they are DEFRA/APHA/NBU Bee Inspectors who spend their summer months doing 1 week of Asian/Yellow-Legged Hornet work and then 1 week of inspecting colonies of bees for disease, then back to AH stuff and so on.

Certain diseases are "Notifiable", i.e. if you suspect you have one of these diseases in a colony, e.g. EFB (European Foulbrood), you have to call the APHA and they'll send round your local bee inspector to check your hives.

It can be a nerve-wracking process, as if they discover EFB or AFB the affected colony may have to be killed & burnt, plus all the frames in that hive are burnt and the remaining shell/inside of the hive is seriously blow-torched to kill any lurking bacteria etc. You then have a 6-week movement restriction order on the apiary, after which you are re-inspected to see if the infection has gone. If it has, the order is lifted; if not, more burning and another 6 weeks.
Note that in some circumstances a "shook swarm" may be used instead of burning, but only for VERY low levels of infection.

Our training apiary was inspected on Wednesday this week and thankfully got the all-clear. Stressful, as there is EFB in the area.

 

[spiritburner]

I am thinking of starting beekeeping because I have several fields around me full of wildflowers and beautiful grasses that flower along with the pine trees and olives, Figs, lemon,oranges,and kiwi and they'll never be built on and they are very safe and secure from people stealing from them because they're on steep incline and at least 150 m from the road and nobody comes into our valley unless they live here

Would Pallet would be any good not the one off pallets but the higher quality Euro pallet designed to be reused all the time? I can get these very easily over here in Spain and I have plenty of land. I was thinking I could easily denail them and then put them through the Thicknesser to clean off the top and bottom layers, and then the Jointer to do the sides.

What do you think please because I really don't know whether these pallets are actually impregnated with any chemicals. Don't seem to be when you look at them because a lot of them I've seen have woodworm in the old ones, buying wood in Spain is very expensive so where I can I like to recycle if possible, rain isn't a problem here because it's very rare he does but it can get windy at times, so I'd need to think of some system to hold them down rather than just a rock on top

Many thanks

Neil

 

[DougR]

Modified Nat, in WRC - though my sister swears by the new plastic hives.

Brood and a half (brood plus super below the queen excluder) if you run short of brood space.

 

[cowtown_eric]

I wanna share a message text from a member of a makerspace.

Herein Western Canada we often get temps south of -30C in winter, resulting in many dead bees,

Here's the text of one of his messages.....

he counter-perspective is: The design of the standard stacked-boxes beehive that we’ve all seen hasn’t changed in any noticible way since 1852.


That’s not a typo: it hasn’t changed in any real way in 172 years.

 

[spiritburner]

I wanna share a message text from a member of a makerspace.

Herein Western Canada we often get temps south of -30C in winter, resulting in many dead bees,

Here's the text of one of his messages.....

he counter-perspective is: The design of the standard stacked-boxes beehive that we’ve all seen hasn’t changed in any noticible way since 1852.


That’s not a typo: it hasn’t changed in any real way in 172 years.

I guess it's about time it was updated to allow for the climate change. We have nowadays with colder temperatures and hotter summers. Certainly over here in Spain we get 43°C over the last couple of years as a standard summer temperature when I first came here in 2000 never got hotter than 35. in the winter in the early 2000s we always had a bit of snow now we get nothing nothing perhaps we should be looking at more modern versions with insulation to try and stabilise the temperature inside during those hibernation months

 

[Beanwood]

I wanna share a message text from a member of a makerspace.

Herein Western Canada we often get temps south of -30C in winter, resulting in many dead bees,

Here's the text of one of his messages.....

he counter-perspective is: The design of the standard stacked-boxes beehive that we’ve all seen hasn’t changed in any noticible way since 1852.


That’s not a typo: it hasn’t changed in any real way in 172 years.

Well, that's not quite right surely.

Beespace may not have changed, but box sizes have varied - so we have smith, national, warre, langstroth, 14x12, top bar hives - the list goes on (A little bit)
Material wise - Red Cedar for longevity, but many of the cheaper ones are made from pine, plywood (Especially nucs), and most recently expanded high density polystyrene.

To the OP - just my tuppence worth, but don't even think about making a beehive until you know about bees, and how they 'work'. It's a bit more complex than a four sided box with open top and bottom. They can get very tetchy at different times of the year, for different reasons, and they can actually kill people.... Not something to mess about with on a whim without supervision...