Poly roofs

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I know what it means ;)

When you were pushing people to move over to poly all those years ago, I bet they told you not to tinker and you need to KISS? Wood is best, it's what they choose the nest in, you can't scorch the poly etc etc etc...

KISS doesn't mean don't ever try anything new

If I had spent £50 on steel and 10 hours fixing it on perfectly, then your argument would stand

But £1 of glue and some free metal and 5 mins later and the job was complete. Nice and effective.

Doesn't come much more simple than that...

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It's not how it looks, people, its how it performs.

True, but not the eleventh commandment.

Hives in public view ought to be in good nick; I've seen some shockers that would only have given beekeeping a bad name: hives falling apart, bodged together, overgrown, leaking bees from nine entrances. Bees may not mind (or at least, are unable to tell you whether they mind) and if hives are stuck out in the middle of nowhere, who cares? Well, if your aim is to produce honey and maintain strong and healthy colonies, the list above won't really get you there.

That doesn't mean that equipment ought to be pristine, but to get it to do a job for thirty years requires minimising opportunity for damage. Some beekeepers are very good at shortening the life of equipment: they don't care, or don't know why or how to care, or think that working fast is the same as working quickly. End result of damaged equipment is that it costs in time or money or both, and there are enough ways in beekeeping to lose those already.

Here's an idea to protect poly roofs: knock up a waist-high 500mm square metal stand and park it next to a hive; set aside the poly roof; swing the boxes onto the stand; when you're done, move the stand to the next hive. Saves time, saves your back, and the poly roof plays no part. On page 18, Bee Farmer magazine, October 2018 there's a picture of John Bassett (250 colonies in New Zealand) using such a stand. Even if he had only two hives, the investment would make long-term sense.

Any cost-effective idea to save energy or time and look after equipment gets my vote.
 
are we really arguing over a 5mm dent ?
I recall painting a set of Swienty hives and setting them up in a public park; they looked proper. Few days later a hailstorm peppered the lot with 5p dents. I couldn't have cared less, as the damage didn't make the roofs any less effective. What did make them ineffective was the failure of the manufacturer to design a roof that provided insulation where it was most needed.
 
Eric I have polys from Beehive supplies from here in Cornwall, occasionally use the roofs to stand on to help reach high supers, with care, works for me, and I mix and match with cedars. There is inch and half overhang all round with poly boxes and 2.5 inch o/h when used with cedar, helps keep rain from dripping on the sides of the boxes. Roof thickness is about 4 inches min with two sides built up even deeper for strength when using as a stand. After six years still going strong with few scratches in the Weathershield paint.

Was interested to read of the stand to put supers on. Couple of years ago I built one for just that purpose. Mine has a bracket to hang a smoker on and a box in which to put the first frames out of the brood box when inspecting, instead of frame hangers.. I also incorporated a varroa mesh sheet which helps prevent wasps and robbers going up underneath the supers and the roof goes on top for the same reason. The stand is roughly level with the top of the brood box so supers are just lifted across on the same level, certainly helps with the back. I also use a second stand for the top brood box with a double brood setup, the mesh also reduces chance of loosing a queen should she be in that box. Last year at the CBKA BOAD Convention my original "Super stand work station" unexpectedly won first prize in the "Gadget" competition, £25 book voucher from Northern Bee Books, only entered to help make up the numbers. Apart from all that it actually works.
 
Here's an idea to protect poly roofs: knock up a waist-high 500mm square metal stand and park it next to a hive; set aside the poly roof; swing the boxes onto the stand; when you're done, move the stand to the next hive. Saves time, saves your back, and the poly roof plays no part. On page 18, Bee Farmer magazine, October 2018 there's a picture of John Bassett (250 colonies in New Zealand) using such a stand. Even if he had only two hives, the investment would make long-term sense.

Any cost-effective idea to save energy or time and look after equipment gets my vote.

Been using something similar for years. An old single hive stand about 2.5 foot high..
Realised lifting heavy supers from low positions and my back wouldn't get on forever.
Only problem I get is mid flow when it can get a bit unbalanced with 3 or 4 nearly full supers on it....a problem I can happily live with.
 
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Beefriendly, I solved the problem of 4 full supers by splaying the legs to give a wider base and more stability. The last hive I extracted from last season, someone else's, not mine was a WBC which had 6 full supers plus a half full one. Didn't have the nerve to put all seven on the stand though.
 
Beefriendly, I solved the problem of 4 full supers by splaying the legs to give a wider base and more stability. The last hive I extracted from last season, someone else's, not mine was a WBC which had 6 full supers plus a half full one. Didn't have the nerve to put all seven on the stand though.

Thanks Applejack, but it's not the splaying...it's the uneven ground. Everything is wobbly and on a slope...Nowt I can do as too steep to level and they don't want me digging their "orchard" up
Current solution is adjustable legged hive stands.
 
Apart from all that it actually works.
Always a bonus.

BHS poly is good and thick but to achieve that depth it had to sacrifice the National footprint; one is a compromise against the other. Ross Dyter is a mechanical engineer with a specialisation in materials and he chose not to reduce to ten frames and perhaps retain National footprint, but to maintain eleven and lose the freedom to mix'n'match Nationals. Thing is, if one day your non-standard National poly producer decided to close shop and put his or her feet permanently on a Bermudan beach, where would you be? The lack of compatible alternative supply would apply equally to other non-BS National manufacturers; perhaps they could atone by lying together on that Bermudan beach and argue until they come up with one design. Only Mr Abelo could justify sipping his rum in relative peace.

The bottom line is that a standard interchangeable system achieves greatest efficiency at any level of beekeeping, and whoever gets it done to BS spec. will appeal to the biggest slice of that market. As an example, check out the BS Honeybees twinstock poly nucbox: they must have examined the competition, ironed out the faults, based their mods on experience and ended up with the best design on the market. UK standard model? Why not?

John Bassett's stand is three-legged and may be intended to accommodate uneven ground. That principle works on my Japanese tripod ladders, used for tree pruning when I was a full-time gardener, but now essential swarm ladders. The front leg is adjustable in length and can be used on slopes without wobble; you may not believe that a free-standing 12' ladder on a slope can be utterly stable, but it is. The feet have claws, the 8' is good for swarms up to about 12' and I wouldn't collect without them.

Two thoughts on the Applejack Mk1: have you tripped on the splayed legs? Vertical spiked legs would push into the ground and give you a level. Does the mesh base collect robbers? Looks like John Bassett uses the upturned roof of the open hive as a stand base but I reckon your fixed base would free the roof to cover an open box and prevent bee excitement. Maybe John worked out that a stand without a base is lighter to move and cheaper to make, but whether you use it as an open frame or with a worktop, at least this solution avoids the trauma of denting a poly roof.
 
Agree with what you are saying Eric, only wish I could have found BS nucs sooner. Never mind, can't expect to win em all.
My Mk1 legs are only slightly splayed, less than 2 inches past vertical at the base, just a helpful suggestion to Beefriendly but he already has it sussed.
I work my hives from the rear, and the stand to one side and/or between two hives. Plus, my hoofs are only size 9's so not much sticking out there either so no trips.
The stand is made of 2"X 1" off cuts recycled from another project, and varroa mesh again recycled so not much weight to it really. When the supers are on the stand they are completely sealed underneath but with ventilation, and the roof seals in the top during inspections. Haven't had robbers under the mesh but last season wasps were trying their luck unsuccessfully. Only once had a bad case of robbing when doing a prolonged inspection, all hell let loose!! But not any more. As I said in my earlier post I use a second stand on the opposite side should I need it, for the top brood box where I have double brood set up.
I keep a small tub of car body filler to fill/repair any bad dents/cracks etc should it be necessary, both in poly or cedar units and mainly out of season so not much of a problem.
 
Just illustrates the differences that abound.

The adapting of the design for poly nucs to fit two in one box is the thing that rules that make OUT for me. An unnecessary complication as a 2 bar nuc is, in the active season, very soon a 6 bar nuc and a format that is actually 2 x 3 bar ones means you would never be out of the things. In May and early June we make them up with ONE bar of brood, one of stores, and about four weeks or so later they need promoting.

From past experience ANY unit with multiple colonies contained within it give issues that single units don't...........could write a book on it...........one of these things that looks and sounds a good idea but does not really work out quite as well as it should in theory.

In a world where people still think that prewar standards of wooden gear are the pinnacle of excellence there is no way ANY poly hive can be other than a compromise....different makers make their compromises in different ways...so there is NO standard poly in existence.

One of the oddest grumbles I ever got at Stoneleigh was someone who hated the one frame less option........wanted the full size interior...........................then when I saw him a couple of years later was very happy that another brand did what he wanted. He was using one frame less with a dummy board.

With that kind of variability of taste the poor manufacturers stand little chance of ever getting compatibility, far less a standard..
 
With that kind of variability of taste the poor manufacturers stand little chance of ever getting compatibility, far less a standard..

Tail wagging the dog.

A manufacturer that allows the customer to determine the design of equipment is on a loser from the off. They'll get no sympathy from me, and if they carry on producing products that way, they'll remain poor. Feedback is useful, suggestions welcome, ideas accepted, but the design should not follow any but considered and digested processes: function, flexibility, economy. The one-fewer-frame story you tell shows that both parties were expert ditherers, and that the average beekeeper has no interest in the broad benefits of uniform design or the economical use of ergonomics, material or production. Few are able to work up a good idea and if they do, it can be knocked up cheaply in wood; too many of the beginners we see don't even know how to hold a hammer, bless 'em.

At the supply end, you'd think that a manufacturer would go out of its way to adopt a deep and abiding interest in the benefits of uniform and economical use of ergonomics, material and production. Maybe beekeepers aren't best equipped to design equipment? Perhaps handing the job to computer designers is unwise? What persuaded Maisemore to produce a polynuc without beespace between topbars and roof? Why did Swienty make that awful roof? Why did Paynes waste poly and money on extending the porch on their poly floor? Paynes could have saved both had they read page 60 of Manley's Honey Farming, where 54 years ago he dealt bluntly with floor projections. Either they want to lock the customer into their unique system (thereby shutting themselves out of mix'n'match sales to users of significant UK National stock) or they really don't know what they're doing (not out of the question) or they don't trial them for long enough to reveal the drawbacks (that much is obvious), or they think the customer is not skilled enough to notice (often true).

Once the £10k has been spent on a mould it's too late, and when they wake up to the problem, all they can do is offer a workaround or hope to sell enough of a compromised product to enable them to recoup the £10k. That could be many years, given the flock of designs descending on the small field of National corn. As I said, no sympathy from me: if manufacturers let customers determine the product we could end up with a kettle with two spouts or a car with a square steering wheel (been done, in Britain, of course).

Agreed: 2-frame mating nucs are the ultimate: minimal expense and maximum return, and the same lean recipe ought to apply whether coming out of winter with a 10% loss for a 10-hive owner (who may only want to make up the loss, cope with swarming and re-queen a few more) to a 10% loss of 1000 stocks with nuc orders to fill. Still, I reckon that as the third frame would be foundation or comb, the economy of two live frames is maintained, a breathing space is gained, and the beekeeper's bacon is saved. My initial experience of overwintering late queens in these BS 3-frame twinstocks is good, and though autumn wasps might seem to predicate against success, the 3-frames were strong by then, and they ought to be ready for upgrading early this season. That's functional flexibility at a reasonable cost (if bought by the pallet).
 
That's functional flexibility at a reasonable cost (if bought by the pallet).

Eric, whilst I agree with most of what you say...your last sentence puts things into a different perspective.
Your average 2 hive owner isn't big enough, nor does he/she want to negotiate to buy a pallet of anything to get things cheaper..It's just overkill.
Whats required for a business is very different from what most hobbyists need.
 
Your average 2 hive owner isn't big enough, nor does he/she want to negotiate to buy a pallet of anything to get things cheaper..It's just overkill.
Fair point, Nigel, but last year at Epping Forest we bought two pallets of BS boxes at trade discount, and have nearly sold the lot to members at no profit to the association. We did the same with invert syrup from Wyefield - last year three pallets - and other BKAs have the option to do likewise.

I recall a lecture by Jim Ryan, a Co. Tipperary beekeeper, at the National Honey Show a few years ago. Jim gave out a multitude of sound ideas for improving skills, but etched in my memory is his closing comment: Think like a bee.

That apparently slight comment ought to be the pea in every beekeeper's mattress, because with luck it would irritate a host of long-held opinions cherished obstinately up and down the country. Here are three, at random: meet Mr Matchstick, still walking the streets at the age of 249 when he should by now have had a stake driven through his heart. Take Ms No-Honey, who is very keen to keep lovely bees but is not interested in the sticky, and unaware that she is working against the interests of her tiddly stock. What about Mr & Ms Old-School, youngish beekeepers who follow obediently the established practices (Est. 1937) they were taught. Poly hives? Why? Really?

Suppliers prefer a beekeeper to buy individually and without too much understanding of the choice made. If instead we thought like bees, options would be assessed irrespective of tradition and with the aim to maximise return at minimal cost. A bee wouldn't last long if it thought and bought for itself.
 
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