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Thread: Poly hive musings.

  1. #331
    Senior Member Mellifera Crofter's Avatar
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    Yes, they are - both of them.
    Kitta

  2. #332
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    All Nats are supposed to be BBS I believe.

    I looked at some of my broods I bought two years ago now and the frames are dead level with the walls. I vaguely remember struggling a bit to separate two broods this last season but the hive tool sorted that out a bit quick. All mine are double broods, I tried one colony on three but got a brood of honey which was a bit inconvenient. LOL

    PH

  3. #333

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    Just clocked that the Swienty Nats have had a redesign after reading a little of this thread and looking at the C Wynne Jones page. Is it worth going back a few pages for more discussion of the new design that I missed. My experience is with the old style Denrosa/Swienty Nats. I have about 8 full hives of these - not all in current use. The main attraction to me was they were said to compatible with wooden kit. And they are.....up to a certain point. Some of the flaws in the design I have found are:

    the floor doesn't have full width/length varroa mesh which make mite drop assessments all but pointless;

    the wood/poly compatibility is marginal as please forgive me if my recollection is faulty but I don't think the spaces between the 10 frames in the polys and those in the 11 frame standard wooden nationals line up - talking about standard DN4 top bars here with a dummy at one end of an 11 frame wooden box;

    the poly Ashforth feeder has sloping sides which annoy me and has an entirely flat bottom which is totally stupid and forces me to build a 6mm rim around it to avoid killing bees taking it on and off;

    like Kitta says there are no raised frame runners and to put these in would involve excavating the poly to make a recess and who's going to do that?

    I like that they take seconds to assemble and are light and pretty durable but as I said earlier I'm not seeing any massive benefits to me or the bees over ordinary cedar Nats.

    I'd be interested to hear how the redesign compares to the Denrosa version and if there has been any previous discussion maybe someone could point me to it?
    Last edited by drumgerry; 06-01-2015 at 08:36 PM. Reason: more info on the frame spacing I referred to

  4. #334
    Senior Member fatshark's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by drumgerry View Post
    the wood/poly compatibility is marginal as please forgive me if my recollection is faulty but I don't think the spaces between the 10 frames in the polys and those in the 11 frame standard wooden nationals line up - talking about standard DN4 top bars here with a dummy at one end of an 11 frame wooden box;
    Not faulty recollection drumgerry … spot on. I had exactly this problem last season. I added Swienty and cedar boxes - full of foundationless frames - on top of two standard cedar broods in the same apiary. The out-of-line spacing of the poly on the cedar resulted in this mess:

    oops.jpg

    The cedar box was drawn out correctly i.e. from the top of the frames down, in line

  5. #335
    Senior Member Mellifera Crofter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by drumgerry View Post
    Just clocked that the Swienty Nats have had a redesign ...

    I'd be interested to hear how the redesign compares to the Denrosa version and if there has been any previous discussion maybe someone could point me to it?
    Posts 325 and 327 for my opinion.

    To add to that: I think they've reduced the side walls' thickness quite a bit by creating deep and large recesses for the hand grips and to display their logo. I don't know how much, or if at all, these recesses affect the insulation. The old Swienties only had small sensible recesses for hand grips.
    Kitta

  6. #336
    Senior Member Mellifera Crofter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poly Hive View Post
    ...

    I looked at some of my broods I bought two years ago now and the frames are dead level with the walls. ...
    And they're old design Swienties, PH? Really? Well, let's wait to hear from Gavin as well.
    Kitta

  7. #337
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    Quote Originally Posted by fatshark View Post
    Not faulty recollection drumgerry … spot on. I had exactly this problem last season. I added Swienty and cedar boxes - full of foundationless frames - on top of two standard cedar broods in the same apiary. The out-of-line spacing of the poly on the cedar resulted in this mess:

    oops.jpg

    The cedar box was drawn out correctly i.e. from the top of the frames down, in line
    That's nine frame spacing, can't blame the swienty box for that.

  8. #338
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mellifera Crofter View Post
    Posts 325 and 327 for my opinion.

    To add to that: I think they've reduced the side walls' thickness quite a bit by creating deep and large recesses for the hand grips and to display their logo. I don't know how much, or if at all, these recesses affect the insulation. The old Swienties only had small sensible recesses for hand grips.
    Kitta
    My old style swienty's have the frame top a mil or two under the edge of the box too.
    Last edited by mbc; 07-01-2015 at 11:29 AM. Reason: swelling

  9. #339
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    Why don't you do what I do Kitta ? . I've settled on the old design Swienty B,boxes which I think are still in stock at C.W.J. I then use wooden varroa floors (self made) together with wooden Roofs which are heavy enough and deep enough to not blow off easily. I have had no problems with frame fits in these hives and they are also bottom bee space. I looked at the latest style Swienty boxes and didn't see the point of their deep side recesses - they looked as tho' they had copied the Paynes design for some unknown reason. The new roofs are a joke ! , the rims are so shallow they would not stand up to the sort of winds we experience here, Somebody told me that the new design was because the original boxes were made for "Denrosa" who have withdrawn the moulds. I don't know the validity of this - perhaps Murray could comment. As the brood boxes are externally dimensionally the same as wooden national gear , everything else is interchangeable.

  10. #340
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    No they are new design, the ones with Swienty on the sides and the plastic runners that are a push fit into the wall.

    Poly roofs have a always been shallow for some daft reason. Roofs of course are not blown off by wind they are sucked off. I have been meaning to try routing out a rebate and using 9mm ply as an extension of some 6" to cure it. So saying I put two bricks on my wintering units and it is rare for them to be off.

    PH

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