Poly hive musings.

[Neils]

Interesting thoughts and I would like to hear more of your thinking on this subject, but perhaps this isn't the right thread. I've no real experience of poly beyond mating nucs but as my post on the home made mating nuc thread earlier this week showed, even in this area I'm looking towards making my own in wood and will be putting ten into winter alongside eight poly versions. They've already proven themselves as suitable for mating the queens (no difference to the poly boxes) in a rather dreary summer so now it's just a case of how they perform over winter and more importantly next Spring.

To break out of the other thread.

I bought two Paynes 14x12 hives this year, one of which I currently have a colony of bees in. I'm pretty sure I posted my initial thoughts on here, with some pics, at the time.

I know there are other suppliers etc etc but I can only give my thoughts on a summer of using Payne's hive.

I didn't do anything to the hive other than put bees in it and that is possibly my first mistake. Since then here are my thoughts:

Payne's supply a clear plastic sheet as a "crown board" on a bottom bee space hive (made by Bayer ironically enough). This is diffult to put in place without trapping or squishing bees on the top bars. I do now use a standard crown board but this means that the roof is very loose. Paynes do supply a cargo strap with each hive but I find a brick works just as well keeping it in place.

as soon as I put bees in it they started to chew the top of the side walls, they've continued to do this pretty much since day one.

Now they've added propolis to the mix taking the frames out tends to bring some of the poly wall with it.

Generally the poly construction isn't as dense as an apidea and it tends to damage easily as a result. I gather you can treat the hives with varnish? to make them a bit more durable.

On the plus side the bees seem to have done pretty well in them, national kit does fit on fine and, as suppliers go Paynes have been pretty good and the rest of their stuff is pretty top notch.

The proof might well be how they do over winter compared to the cedar hives and I know I'm one of the more southerly "Scottish" beekeepers but I can't say I've ever had a problem overwintering in wood hives.