Bee Shed / Hive

[Mike a]

I was trawling though various bee related sites when I came across this site and thought I would share it as it looks interesting.

Taylors Beehouse & External Bee Hive

I've just sent them an email asking for some more information about the external hives. As the information given is:-

The main features and benefits of the hives are:

• Easily manageable and operated by the elderly, children and the disabled - one of the main problems of present day bee keeping is the lifting of "supers"
• To increase honey production - The beehive works on a horizontal plane rather than in present day hives which are vertical. This allows harvesting of honey right from the beginning of the season. These beehives accommodate all the standard size combs available today but we are experimenting with plastic combs and preformed beeswax combs.
• Bee Space - considerable research has taken place into the areas bee prefer most the hives themselves were manufactured to quite tight tolerances.
• Ventilation - one of the problems with the present day beehives is one of ventilation. This hive has been built to allow a through ventilation from the floor upward
• Cleanliness - our structure can be separated from the floor area for a seasonal clean if necessary to gain access to the varoa mesh below, for every day cleaning it has a pull out tray below the mesh.
• Combs - this beehive will accept ten combs in each compartment separated by a queen excluder.

Then further down the page they state:-

The main features this bee hive has is:

• Removable weather proof lid
• External ventilation guarded by mesh - ventilation for our hive works on a vertical mushroom effect, air travels through the hive and then rolls down the inner of the lid reaching a ledge and venting through the side.
• Carrying handles for moving when necessary
• Bee entrance with landing ledge, the entrance itself has a sliding door which can be made as small or large as required.
• Fold down flap, protected from the weather which gains access to the pull out tray, in summer months this can also be left down to increase ventilation helping to control the temperature in the hive.
• Stand - this can be at any height as required.

 

[Ziggymole]

Is it just me or does this look like an adaptation of the Kenyan top bar hive but for use with frames?

 

[Davidwd]

Looks like its built from pine T&G, so should be easy to home build.

 

[alanf]

" based in Finsbury park, London.* It was funded by an agency charged with looking into the countries policy in keeping bees."

From the linked manufacturers web page. So an agency had some money for "looking into the countries policy" so decided to spend it on getting a garden buildings manufacturer to develop a new design of hive. Any beekeepers involved? Not credited if they were. Agencies? Grant money? Break out the flip charts!

 

[Skyhook]

I saw an interesting website about wheels the other day. They were suggesting making them circular, and mounting them on an axle.

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