Maisie's new Poly Hive

[Swarm]

Now why on earth would I want to buy a poly floor? (or any floor for that matter )

Precisely.
I do like the design of this hive though, if it was 460 and not 500 it could have been the perfect answer to poly nats. Shame.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It is a shame got another post today they've also got a poly miller feeder. Compatible with wooden boxes but not wooden roofs

 

[beebot]

One thing I noted about these (and Pains) polys is that the wider walls make avoiding squashing bees harder.

 

[For want of a better word]

Where do you put the matchsticks?

Nos da

 

[user 6228]

One thing I noted about these (and Pains) polys is that the wider walls make avoiding squashing bees harder.

wider walls make for lower thermal conductance.

 

[itma]

The boxes are the same 500x500 dimension as Paynes and BHS, so they should interoperate nicely.
Which means they must compete for sales.

I like the look of the handholds, and their being only on the (fatter) 'rail' walls of the box (like a wooden box).

Screwing together the 4 bits to make each box is interesting, but I suspect many will end up glued together.

There has been a design decision to have all the injection valves, knockout pins and suchlike (that create surface blemishes) on the inside walls of the hive.
Those blemishes being on the mating faces of the Paynes is not good. This way Maisemore get good box/box mating faces and good external appearance. What the bees make of all the internal blemishes is yet to be seen!

Is the poly "frame rail" robust? How is it standing up to real life in the nucs?
Not too sure about the poly entrance block. We'll see!

I can see that I will be after at least some of the supers to try (lifting two full Paynes supers together is no fun at all, due to those tiny fingergrips.)

 

[MuswellMetro]

i have only worked on BHS with plain runners so the casterllations in the supers interested me Do paynes have them

 

[beebot]

wider walls make for lower thermal conductance.

Really!!

 

[pargyle]

i have only worked on BHS with plain runners so the casterllations in the supers interested me Do paynes have them

Yes .. Paynes have a slot in the poly and you can either fit the standard metal runners or castellated strips .. the just drop into the slot - works well.

 

[Madge]

... There has been a design decision to have all the injection valves, knockout pins and suchlike (that create surface blemishes) on the inside walls of the hive.
Those blemishes being on the mating faces of the Paynes is not good. ...

Yes, I suppose those blemishes aren't good. My bees tunnelled an opening in one of my Paynes hives between boxes where two of those button-sized indents (injection valves, I suppose) met. It made me think, however, that bees do like a top entrance in the summer.

 

[itma]

wider walls make for lower thermal conductance.

They are also needed to get the required strength from the poly material.
You do have to be more careful.
And, reassembling a tall stack of heavy supers with poor handholds as the wasps dive in, there may be casualties as one tries to hurry an awkward job.

Better handholds would make the job easier to do better.