Does anyone on here use Rose hives?

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Jun 8, 2010
Messages
2,373
Reaction score
0
Location
Dartmoor edge, uk
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
5...2 wooden National, 2 poly Nat & 1 poly nuc...bursting at the seams
Just wondered if anyone on here use Rose hives and if so what are they like to use? Weight/lifting is an issue...is it less or more in a Rose? Thanks
 
A Rose hive body is about half way between a National standard depth brood body and a National super in terms of weight.

In the US it is possible to buy 8 frame Langstroth hives, which compared to the standard 10 frame hives are therefore about 80% of the weight for each hive body. Some people use these 8 frame sizes in Medium depth only throughout the hive for even greater weight saving compared toa standard setup.
 
Quite frankly I see no physical difference between the rose hive and a national.
The management is slightly different but the practice of using brood boxes as supers is well established!. My mate always maintained that shallow supers were only for women and weakly specimens of manhood :driving:.
The none use of Queen excluder's has been a hot topic for debate for donkeys' years :boxing_smiley: .
I prefer their deployment as I like to keep comb for honey exclusive .
If the rose system goes like clock-work then honey comb should be no more than a year or two old but the best laid plans of man etc conspire to throw a spanner in the works :banghead:.

John Wilkinson
 
Last edited:
Quite frankly I see no physical difference between the rose hive and a national.
The management is slightly different but the practice of using brood boxes as supers is well established!. My mate always maintained that shallow supers were only for women and weakly specimens of manhood.
John Wilkinson

:smash:Ha! Well, I'm female and I have to agree about the use of brood boxes: I favour a stack of 'em rather than shallow supers. Using a National with no queen excluder. So you end up with something very similar to a Rose hive, but with standard frames, usually overwintering on 2xbb. It's very convenient, esp. if you're after cut comb and don't use an extractor. (Although I've started to favour a 14x12 for the bottom box, but only because my long hive takes 14x12s and it's useful to have the option of swapping occasionally, test frames etc.)

The Rose hive boxes are selling for much less than National bbs (or shallow supers) on a certain well-known supplier's website. This makes them attractive, but then the frames will not be standard, and it's the standardisation of frames which really helps with beekeeping.

More stuff about husbandry is in the thread below this one, I think.
 
My mate always maintained that shallow supers were only for women and weakly specimens of manhood :driving:.
John Wilkinson

I used to be a weekly specimen of manhood, but recently I've become more of a six weekly specimen.
 
The three ages of man
Tri-weekly
Try weekly
Try weakly
 
Quite frankly I see no physical difference between the rose hive and a national.
The management is slightly different but the practice of using brood boxes as supers is well established!. My mate always maintained that shallow supers were only for women and weakly specimens of manhood :driving:.
The none use of Queen excluder's has been a hot topic for debate for donkeys' years :boxing_smiley: .
I prefer their deployment as I like to keep comb for honey exclusive .
If the rose system goes like clock-work then honey comb should be no more than a year or two old but the best laid plans of man etc conspire to throw a spanner in the works :banghead:.

John Wilkinson
Rose boxes are designed to weigh 25kgs when full of capped honey. A National brood box would weigh a lot more. Also, They're as deepa s the can be for the weight - especially for overwintering in a single box.
 
thrice nightly for us welshmen !
 
Rose boxes are designed to weigh 25kgs when full of capped honey. A National brood box would weigh a lot more. Also, They're as deepa s the can be for the weight - especially for overwintering in a single box.
About 5lb more regards just the frames full of honey...then the difference in the material the box is made from.
 
They're all I use aswell, but then if you read the threads you'll already know that:.) I have fibromyalgia which means I generally cant lift as much as I'd like and can never now lift the weights I used to easily before I got the condition (1cwt with ease).

So, why am I using Rose hives, heavier than national supers? Different size boxes always seemed dumb to me and national brood only are heavier. If I'm stuck and unable to lift them, then other half will help, so he tells me.

As far as I'm concerned they work really well and I dont see myself using anything else. The boxes also fit 12 frames easily. As for non standard frames, what does that matter? frames only fit a particular box size anyway and with these you only need 1 size as apposed to super and brood. A simple eke is all you need to intorduce a new nuc on national frames when 1st starting out.
Also not compulsory, as far as I can see to go Q ex-.

So yes, someone, other than Tim, hi Tim:,) does use Rose hives.
 
Your new book looks interesting Tim. At present I am using my Rose Hives with queen excluders. When I did an artificial swarm this year I tried out a Snelgrove board, worked well too, although using such a device may not align with your ideas of how we should keep bees.

See the picture below of one of the hives.
 
Last edited:
Rose boxes are designed to weigh 25kgs when full of capped honey. A National brood box would weigh a lot more. Also, They're as deepa s the can be for the weight - especially for overwintering in a single box.

25kgs is the max weight of the modern bags of cement sold :)
Burly builders are deemed to suffer if bags any heavier :)
Elf an safety

John Wilkinson .
 
25kgs is the max weight of the modern bags of cement sold :)
Burly builders are deemed to suffer if bags any heavier :)
Elf an safety

John Wilkinson .

yep, I've seen plenty of burly ex-builders with knackered backs from lifting the old size of 1 Cwt, (50Kg) bags of cement.
 
I once watched a burly builder pull two of the 50kg bags off the shelf and put one on each shoulder. I tried it with one and fell on the floor with it on top of me. Fortunately it was before the days of CCTV so I think I got away with it.

Steve
 
As kid (during the war) I used to watch men unloading sugar sacks at Sankeys' sugar works . These men were nothing to look at but handled sacks weighing two hundred weight with seeming ease ( probably classified unfit for active service). Lots of it is down to technique ;)
How times have changed.

John Wilkinson
 
Looks great, FenBee. Well done. Can we put that photo up on the wesite?

Admin edit:
Am I being "a little prickly "(see what I did there) or are you trying to tell members you have a website ?
 
Or promoting a product??

Naughty Victor Meldrew and so early in the morning :redface:.

John Wilkinson
 

Latest posts

Back
Top