Does anyone know if this system is on sale in UK. Th**nes have discontinued them. The manufacturers web site (www.beeosphere.com) is shut down
Bee-O-Pac
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Poly Hive
Queen Bee
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What are they? If they are what I suspect then I am not surprised.
PH
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I had to look these up. Would the bees really fill them up as is shown in the photo? Seems too good to be true, surely?
snoop
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They are made by a Canadian company ,Swienty are selling them .
I have 2 boxes for them with the supers for them to fit into langstroth hive. I have failed to get the bees to draw them , mind you having spoken to other beekeepers in my general area, they tell me it is nearly impossible to get bees to draw sections here , they swarm first. As far as I am concerned the bees use them for parking space.
It may be my own fault , the older guys tell me you have to force the bees into the supers to draw any sections hard to get it right .
When I looked up Bee o pac , the website says the bees will draw those sections directly , other sites are saying to put a bit a wax on the plastic with a paint brush & they work them faster. I am still waiting for either to happen. As well as that I found the plastics frame that clip together seem to pull apart in the hive & the bees go inbetween where they shouldn't
I have 2 boxes for them with the supers for them to fit into langstroth hive. I have failed to get the bees to draw them , mind you having spoken to other beekeepers in my general area, they tell me it is nearly impossible to get bees to draw sections here , they swarm first. As far as I am concerned the bees use them for parking space.
It may be my own fault , the older guys tell me you have to force the bees into the supers to draw any sections hard to get it right .
When I looked up Bee o pac , the website says the bees will draw those sections directly , other sites are saying to put a bit a wax on the plastic with a paint brush & they work them faster. I am still waiting for either to happen. As well as that I found the plastics frame that clip together seem to pull apart in the hive & the bees go inbetween where they shouldn't
Poly Hive
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They are rectangular yes?
Which is why the Ross Rounds were invented and I had considerable success with them on the Heather. I had very poor success with the classic section. However I remember a film in which all the section work was explained very clearly and at the end full supers of sections were displayed. The film would have been 30's I think. Men in brown coats like storemen used to use.
PH
Which is why the Ross Rounds were invented and I had considerable success with them on the Heather. I had very poor success with the classic section. However I remember a film in which all the section work was explained very clearly and at the end full supers of sections were displayed. The film would have been 30's I think. Men in brown coats like storemen used to use.
PH
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I tried them but with limited success. They are not very well made and are very "wobbly". I painted the bottom of each section with wax - which was very time consuming. The bees did draw out the wax but failed to fill most of them with any honey. Probably a combination of bad weather, lack of forage, bad beekeeping and simply not enough bees was to blame.
I suspect in a very strong nectar flow they can be got to work but I found them more trouble than they were worth and of course they are very expensive. In theory, they will pay for themselves many times over if you can get them filled with heather honey - but that is a big "if".
Finally, they were slightly too deep for my Dadant Shallow boxes so the bees tended to stick them down to the frames below.
Just noticied the OP has Nationals and Bee-O-Pacs are Langstroth. There are other systems available for Nationals and as PH suggests the Roos Rounds would be a better bet.
For those in France using Dadant Blatts the French supplier Nicoplast make neat plastic sections which take a sheet of thin foundation. These fit into Dadant-B frames. They could also be addapted to fit other frames if spacers were used. There is a link here: http://www.nicot.fr/PresentationAnglais/GBPageCadre.htm From this page follow the links for "Beekeeper Material" and then "Section".
Nicoplast will send to the UK but there used to be a minimum order value of about a hundred Euros or so - but given the state of the Euro they may be more flexible these days!
I suspect in a very strong nectar flow they can be got to work but I found them more trouble than they were worth and of course they are very expensive. In theory, they will pay for themselves many times over if you can get them filled with heather honey - but that is a big "if".
Finally, they were slightly too deep for my Dadant Shallow boxes so the bees tended to stick them down to the frames below.
Just noticied the OP has Nationals and Bee-O-Pacs are Langstroth. There are other systems available for Nationals and as PH suggests the Roos Rounds would be a better bet.
For those in France using Dadant Blatts the French supplier Nicoplast make neat plastic sections which take a sheet of thin foundation. These fit into Dadant-B frames. They could also be addapted to fit other frames if spacers were used. There is a link here: http://www.nicot.fr/PresentationAnglais/GBPageCadre.htm From this page follow the links for "Beekeeper Material" and then "Section".
Nicoplast will send to the UK but there used to be a minimum order value of about a hundred Euros or so - but given the state of the Euro they may be more flexible these days!
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OP
I purchased a box direct from Canada when they first came on the market, and had some sucess with them, then I lost most of my hives (overwintering) now that I have the numbers back up, I would like to have another go. I never used them as intended in the Langstroth frames but fitted them in National size frames, four back to back as shown in the photo. They were difficult to price as they only hold 120g so how do absorb the cost of production into such a small amount of honey?. They made an ideal gift for long time customers
Hello, we have been selling Bee-O-Pack for several years now with increasing succes. The experience we hear from many customers is that it helps a lot to cover he bottom of the trays with a thin layer of beeswax. But, yes, nothing is perfect and they seem wobbly, but they hold the pressure. What is worse for many of our customers is that they only come in Langstroth size, but there is an easy way around with a conversion board to make the system fit on your hive. Simply cut a sheet of wood in Langstroth size and make a hole for your hive size and put the box on top and another board as top (we sell a starter kit including Langstroth box).
Swienty A/S
Swienty A/S
Poly Hive
Queen Bee
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Great to see your presence here.
PH
PH
