Northamptonshire Beekeepers' Association (NBKA) Registered Charity No. 295593

A member organisation representing beekeepers in the County of Northamptonshire

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November 2011

Different Ways of Beekeeping Explored

About seven years ago, encouraged by my late father, who had helped grandfather keep bees throughout the war, my wife Christine and I decided to embark on our own beekeeping adventure. We joined the NBKA, and with help from Margaret Holland, Bill Collins and a few others, and a lot of advice from our “resident beekeeper”, we set up our first National Hive in our garden at Ringstead.

We both enjoyed the experience and so, after a couple of years, with one hive, we decided to expand our new hobby by the purchase of more hives and the acquisition of more Nucs. I feel sure that this is how most of our fellow beekeepers embarked upon their hobby – but, we had to be different. I should say, straight away that our house is full of gadgets – in fact, at work my nickname was “professor gadget”. Christine also is addicted to technology, having taught ICT for a number of years.

We had both read learned journals about beekeeping, together with the NBKA publications and were quite fluent in Langstroth, National & NBC, but these were all a bit too common place. Quite by accident, I was watching breakfast television one morning when Bill Turnbull introduced an item about Manchester Beekeepers and something called a Beehouse.

About this time, an article in the NBKA journal by a chap called Roger Hedgecoe took my attention. He is a beekeeper in southern England who was, like myself a keen woodworker as well as a beekeeper. He had designed a revolutionary beehive, which he said overcame many of the shortfalls of the national hive, and, like the Beehaus, he used 14” x 12” frames. I wrote off to him for a set of drawings, and built the hive in my workshop. At the same time, I purchased my first Beehaus (in a charming shade of green) and set them both up in the apiary with the intention of testing each type to determine future direction.

The Hedgecoe hive has proven to be very successful and is still gracing my apiary today, five years on. It was not difficult to construct and has housed the same colony of bees throughout this period. It has a few small design flaws, particularly the entrance and the varoa board, but the bees are very content and produce a good crop of honey every year. It also uses the same size supers and super frames as the National hive and is therefore reasonably economical to maintain. Feeders are built especially for the hive and are included in the comprehensive instructions provided by Roger.

The Egloo hive was set up from the beginning to house two colonies, one in each end. Once again, there were a number of design changes which needed to be made to perfect the product, but Omlet in those early days sent out various kits of parts to rectify problems, and were only too willing to listen to the views of beekeepers and implement their suggestions. This still holds true.

I have now moved on to own three Beehaus’ - green, yellow and purple as well as the Hedgecoe Hive and about five nationals.

So, what would be my advice to potential purchases of other types of hive:-
Think about your apiary and its layout, especially if you are thinking about Beehaus with two colonies. Bees fly out of both ends, so you must leave room to work from the side. Each “half” can be opened separately but it is still a different way of working from the normal National.

Think about your mixture of hardware. 14”x12” frames may give the bees more room, but they are also more difficult to construct, heavier to lift out and more prone to damage from excess temperatures etc. It is hardly worth having one hive using 14”x12” frames, if all the rest are standard Nationals.

Honey extraction is not a problem as all of these hives use standard super frames.

Cost is always a factor, and a Beehaus, complete with frames, supers, Varroa Board and Stand costs about £500. However this will comfortably house 2 colonies of bees – so about £250 per hive, which is comparable with good quality nationals. It is difficult to put a price on the Hedgecoe Hive, but any competent woodworker should be able to build one for around £60-£90.

Hive cleanliness is another factor to be considered. Should you be unfortunate enough to encounter AFB/EFB or something similar, an existing wooden hive can be “sanitised” by scorching, whereas this cannot be said of a Beehaus. However, Omlet have investigated this thoroughly and have assured beekeepers that their hives can be satisfactorily sanitised using commercially available veterinary disinfectant products – although I am unsure at this stage whether it has ever been proven.

Perhaps beekeepers are a little conservative when it comes to new ideas, but, as with any science, (and beekeeping is most definitely a science), improvement and innovation only comes from experimentation. Only in that way can we improve our craft and hopefully ensure a secure future for these tiny industrious creatures which contribute so much to our daily existence. If anyone would like to visit our apiary and see some of these hives in action, we will be happy to accommodate you after May 2012.

Geoff Twell

Straight to the internet for a Google search – nothing. Of course the spelling was wrong, so, after a bit more research, I came up with Beehaus, a plastic hive made by Omlet the same people who make plastic henhouses – Egglu’s to the uninitiated. I trawled through all sorts of sales blurb and articles about this new phenomenon growing more and more excited by the minute.

Basically, the Beehaus comprises a large plastic chamber mounted on steel legs. The complete chamber will hold 22 frames, or it can be divided into two chambers with 11 frames, each with their own entrance. The first problem was the frame size – they are 14”x12” frames – so the area for the bees is much larger, but of course, this means they are not interchangeable with National frames. The “super” frames are identical in size to a national “super” frame so they were not a problem. Several of the learned journals mentioned above extolled the virtue of larger frames, but, I could not decide whether this advice would justify moving to a different system.