Cost of beekeeping and poly nucs

[jenkinsbrynmair]

less tasty, pre-sliced branded malt loaf.....

do you mean there is a tasty version out there somewhere?!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Buttered too?

yes funnily enough there is - for some reason SWMBO presented me with a pre buttered individually packaged slice of the stuff last year!

 

[Erichalfbee]

yes funnily enough there is - for some reason SWMBO presented me with a pre buttered individually packaged slice of the stuff last year!

It used to be the hill going ration for Mountain Rescue. I always put a couple of slices in Stans rucksack

 

[Joe Bee]

As a beekeeper in central Ireland I have always used treated red deal or cedar national hives which I have made myself, as an alternative to poly nukes I used either timber 6 frame nukes or a full brood box with a 5 frame block, with good success. I have found over a long number of years that nukes have a far greater chance of survival if they are strong going into the winter and have added brood in the autumn to ensure this. In so far as additional insulation is concerned I have not found it necessary to add external insulation but I bow to the expertise of beekeepers in countries with extremely low winter temperatures for a prolonged period.

 

[Boston Bees]

As a beekeeper in central Ireland I have always used treated red deal or cedar national hives which I have made myself, as an alternative to poly nukes I used either timber 6 frame nukes or a full brood box with a 5 frame block, with good success. I have found over a long number of years that nukes have a far greater chance of survival if they are strong going into the winter and have added brood in the autumn to ensure this. In so far as additional insulation is concerned I have not found it necessary to add external insulation but I bow to the expertise of beekeepers in countries with extremely low winter temperatures for a prolonged period.

Do you call them nukes in Ireland?

 

[pargyle]

It used to be the hill going ration for Mountain Rescue. I always put a couple of slices in Stans rucksack

More calories and nutrition per slice than just about anything on the planet ... My mum used to pack me up a couple of slices when I was a kid in Yorkshire when I went off for a days hiking in the Peak District... one of my favourites alongside sat on tomato and egg sandwiches ! Washed down with a bottle of dandelion and burdock !

 

[Joe Bee]

No that's as a result of dyslexia and dialect, but you know what I mean

 

[Amari]

Abelo old-style 11-frame poly boxes take standard national roofs, or to put it another way, their deep roof goes over wooden national supers just fine
as can be seen from the photos
National Poly Deep Roof - Welcome to Abelo's Beekeeping Supplies

 

[Joe Bee]

I also use deep insulated roofs with ventilation but of the wooden variety, but they seem perfect for the job

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I also use deep insulated roofs with ventilation

why?

 

[mbc]

I think we've run out of the Nuc thread and diverged too far to do a u-turn .... Not much more you can say about Nucs is there ? The cost has risen ... will probably continue to rise ... the options ?

1. Pay the going rate
2. Buy full size boxes and dummy them down
3. Make your own out of timber/Kingspan or a combination of these materials or anything else that works for you and costs less.

End of really !

There's an elephant in the room, bs honeybees article in the latest beefarmer magazine explains the scarcity and lack of options or competition in the UK for eps molding factories, I think if a Chinese factory caught a whiff of the prices we pay for a poly box and the demand, surely tens of thousands of units a season, they could smash the price down. Alternatively someone who's already making good money out of selling poly nucs, (Maisemore or Paynes) set up their very own factories and bring a little competition into the market, surely its not insurmountable.

 

[Newbeeneil]

There's an elephant in the room, bs honeybees article in the latest beefarmer magazine explains the scarcity and lack of options or competition in the UK for eps molding factories, I think if a Chinese factory caught a whiff of the prices we pay for a poly box and the demand, surely tens of thousands of units a season, they could smash the price down. Alternatively someone who's already making good money out of selling poly nucs, (Maisemore or Paynes) set up their very own factories and bring a little competition into the market, surely its not insurmountable.

I also read the article and had the same thoughts initially but then looked at the realty of the situation.
1- I'm pretty sure that the Chinese will have looked at the market and have probably dismissed it as too niche.
2- If it was worth setting up a unit exclusively making poly beekeeping equipment the small company mentioned in the article could have switched its production and not gone bust!
Maybe, just maybe if all the suppliers could agree on a design and agree in one manufacturer it may be worth setting up something but the market is small and to recover the costs of a set up the cost per unit would not be much cheaper IMHO.
Mmmmmmmmm I wonder where I could get EPS moulding machinery? Where's Chelmsford?

 

[madasafish]

I believe there are some people who make their own boxes just out of Kingspan/Celotex or similar, but I'm not really sure I'd want to do that here because it's too easily damaged (and I'm really not sure how it stands up to the weather in the longer term). I have been thinking on the possibility of using both Kingspan/Celotex and wood though. I'm tempted to play about with something like that when I have time, though it's entirely possible it will be too much of a pain to be worth the effort.

James

I have kingspan poly nucs 6 years old still in use. Easy to make, easy to repair. I cover the roof with fibreglass resin to make a bird proof surface - crows and jackdaws like to peck.

But these are Langs and easy to make. Nationals should be as easy if you use double thick end walls to accommodate the longer National lugs.


Lang plans: Styrofoam_Nuc_20100813.pdf

 

[Erichalfbee]

I have kingspan poly nucs 6 years old still in use. Easy to make, easy to repair. I cover the roof with fibreglass resin to make a bird proof surface - crows and jackdaws like to peck.

But these are Langs and easy to make. Nationals should be as easy if you use double thick end walls to accommodate the longer National lugs.


Lang plans: Styrofoam_Nuc_20100813.pdf

Dare I show this to Stan?
No.............Not just yet...................

 

[Newbeeneil]

I tried making nucs like that but with new materials it was very expensive and skip diving for surplus materials of the right size was not alway successful. In the end I made nucs of thin ply that had come from the back of some furniture we were dumping and coated the outside with 50mm PIR and sealed joints with Ali tape.

 

[ericbeaumont]

lack of options or competition in the UK for eps molding factories

looked at the market and have probably dismissed it as too niche.

It is niche, but what weakens the ability to control production price is the fragmented nature of the market: each small company seeks to produce its own version rather than collaborating on a universal design and producing at scale, at which point Chinese production might add up.

For example, BS and Maisemore nucs have the same mould format and parts are interchangeable. Perhaps, at the time, a desire to lock the customer into a particlar brand was seen to be of greater value than unified design and production. Too late, now that a return on expensive and unique moulds must cover investment.

A few years ago poly nucs were a small % of that factory output and production prices went up by 300% at the time, if I recall a Tradex conversation correctly. The nuc retailers clubbed together and resisted some of it, but small fish in a big sea are always going to struggle.

 

[user 20297]

I have kingspan poly nucs 6 years old still in use. Easy to make, easy to repair. I cover the roof with fibreglass resin to make a bird proof surface - crows and jackdaws like to peck.

But these are Langs and easy to make. Nationals should be as easy if you use double thick end walls to accommodate the longer National lugs.


Lang plans: Styrofoam_Nuc_20100813.pdf

Excellent. Thank-you for posting.

 

[Finman]

Picture from Honey Paw 19. 2. 22 Finland.

I looked an English company's nuc hive prices.
£ 67 per nuc hive. How it is possible? A complex apparatus, what if not needed at all.

You split a basic brood box to two. Two nucs.
And make a missing wall from a insulating board.
Lower box is langstroth medium super.

 

[Curly green finger's]

I suspect the production costs of Polly nuc vs full hive are not that different. Once the tooling has been done and molds are made, I suspect both have a simlar number of parts and need a simlar amount of human labor to produce. The material costs between the 2 are probably not that great compared to other factors. So I think the biggest factor in cost between the 2 is physical size for storage and transport.

As others have said, a lot of things are going up in price right now.

In fact I heard that honey is going up in price this season too.....

Wholesale bulk has so I'm finding

 

[Rockape83]

I used trimmed and recycled timber from many sources for all my hive, I keeps me out of mischief in the winter. I have made nucs from recycled poly packaging when I had tools and white goods delivered. I now used them to clad some thinner hives in winter. Looks don't matter to the bees only the warmth retention in the hive. also use rock wool as well covered in dull bin bags