Polystyrene Hives

[GRIZZLY]

I bought 10 MB nationals last year.As Adam said - there are issues with compatability with wood nationals.The hives are well made but it is difficult to interchange with wood components,You can see my No1 hive in operation on the opening page of the Modern Beekeeping site.I also bought 10 of Murrays poly nationals last autumn.I will keep the MB hives for my home apiary and the "Murray" hives for my out apiary.The murray hives are completely compatible with my wooden equipment.I believe the Paynes poly nationals are also completely compatible also.Good price at the moment in their sale.Theres a good article on the MB site about hive sterilization and cleaning.

[gavin]

Thanks Grizzly.

You can see Murray's (Swienty, also sold by Wynne Jones) polyhives being built in this blog here:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/en...nty-Poly-Hives

I agree with the interchangeability of wooden parts - for example supers and queen excluders. As has been described elsewhere, the poly nationals are bottom bee space hives. This means that the roofs and feeders (which were designed for top space hives) have no bee space. They are lovely hives, very solid and light, but the issue with bee space means that you need a solution. Last year I used a heavy duty polythene sheet in lieu of a crown board, but adding a wooden crown board could be another solution (at the risk of losing some of the advantage of polystyrene hives in the first place). When you have the feeders on (and they can stay on all winter as long as the gales don't blow them off!) they need to sit directly on the box and so directly on the top bars too. A polythene sheet on top allows you to shoogle bees safely out of the way before you put it on but, if you sized the sheet for use under the roof, it could cover the slot the bees use to access the feeder. Folding it back a little gets over this. Not so hard in small colonies but in boxes overflowing with bees it may be harder to avoid squashing bees.

I'm tempted to try affixing polystyrene strips under feeders and inside roofs, but it hardly seems worth the bother and they'd probably get knocked off. The Swienty/Denrosa polyhives do at least share the outer dimensions with the usual wooden Nationals, so exchanging parts is possible.

Do MB polyhives have the bee space issue sorted? And do they have queen excluders? With the Swienty hives you can use a wooden QX if you have such a mind.

I've just noticed on their web site that MB Nationals are top bee space.

Gavin

[Mellifera Crofter]

... As has been described elsewhere, the poly nationals are bottom bee space hives. This means that the roofs and feeders (which were designed for top space hives) have no bee space. ...
Gavin

Gavin,

I'm a bit confused now: aren't the bee spaces just the other way round? Wooden BS Nationals: bottom bee space; and poly hives (or, MB Nationals) top?

I bought the MB medium-frame Langstroths together with the frames sold on their site - but I did not read everything carefully enough. Whereas both poly and wooden Langstroth hives are top bee space, the Langstroth frames sold by MB have thicker lugs, raising them so that the hives become bottom-spaced. I don't have any other kind of Langstroth hive or Langstroth frames, so it doesn't really matter - but I am a bit disappointed that the hives are, as a consequence of my frame choice, now bottom bee-spaced.

Kitta

[gavin]

Hi Kitta


As I understand it:


Modified National – bottom bee space (usually)
Swienty Poly National – bottom bee space (this is what I was referring to above)
MB Poly National – top bee space
Smith – top bee space
Langstroth – top bee space


.. but the Swienty polyhives are matched with top bee space feeders and roofs, so you need to adjust what you do if you want to minimise the crushing of bees.



I don't have much experience with Langstroth frames, although I have seen a warehouse-full of them not so far from here.

[Mellifera Crofter]

... Swienty Poly National – bottom bee space (this is what I was referring to above)

.. but the Swienty polyhives are matched with top bee space feeders and roofs, so you need to adjust what you do if you want to minimise the crushing of bees.

Thanks Gavin, now I understand the problem.

That design problem must be similar to what I now have with my MB Langstroths. They're top bee space, but because of the thick lugs of the MB frames, I have lost that space and now the roofs and feeders sit just about on top of the frames. Yes, that's awkward.

Kitta

[Adam]

The MB hives are top bee space which is OK, a sheet of plywood with a hole in it is ok as a crown board for feeding - with a super or brood box on top as an eke. Or the roof can go on the plywood easily enough.
However there are two dimensional issues that I am not too happy with which you wouldn't notice with just a brood box.
1) With one brood box on another, the bee space between the bottom of the top frame to the top of the lower frame is less than 4 mm which means that you'll squash bees if you slide a top frame across or if you place the top box on the lower one.
2) The size for a queen excluder has to be 5 mm smaller each way than the usual 460 mm (you also have to round off the corners). MB told me that they do cut their excluders down...
3) The bee space between the bottom of a super frame and the top of the box below is 12 mm.
4) The plastic frame runners are tight on the end of the frame so they are difficult to slide. Also there is no space undere the frame where it sits on the frame runner so bees will get squashed there.

Sorry that's 4 dimensional issues. Cue the Spanish Inquisition!

[nemphlar]

CHecking up on the feeding yesterday and. Had to smoke my home made poly hive they were so much more lively Than the wooden hives and on all 12frames. Only one hive but quite impressive I'm reluctant to bin a shed full of smiths gear can anyone recommend a reasonably priced compatable poly to try

[Rosie]

Why do you think it's so good to be more lively? I like mine to be quiet during the winter to give me chance to zap varroa and to reduce food consumption. I think Murray makes a poly Smith if you really want them. He used to anyway when I once had a rush of blood and researched them. In the end I stuck to cedar.

Rosie

[Neils]

I've ordered a couple of the Paynes 14x12s to have a look at them and see how I get on. Still think the lid looks a little flimsy but we'll see. I'm not yet convinced by the whole poly shenanigans, but figure that they're cheap enough to buy a couple and see how they compare to the Cedar hives and it'll be handy to have one for the beginners course later in the month.

[Adam]

Neil,
One thought I've had about the lid - and the 6 frame nuc too is the thickness. My schoolboy science tells me that condensation will form on the coldest part. Therefore the lid needs to be warmer than the sides, consequently the lid needs to be thicker to avoid condensation and I don't think it is.