Poly vs wood?

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There is a certain gentlemen who lectures others about his version of 'Sustainable Beekeeping' and who condemns the presence of a few pennyworth of metal in a beehive because of it's harmful ecological footprint. He does so on the Internet whilst communicating via a Pentium-class laptop containing rare-earth capacitors, an N-Gigabyte hard drive, and the services of the global Internet structure - which I suspect may well contain just a little bit of metal, here and there.

A bit like flying to a Global Warming symposium on a 747.
LJ

Of all the uses of plastic, a beehive is one of the most benign. It is for a long lived durable product facilating a renewable resource. a useful lifetime that is longer than nearly all cars,
If one sought to eliminate plastics from ones life this should be one of the last item to go along with the plastic encapsulating your solar panels to make them weather proof. (yes they are sealed to the glass with a heat sealing plastic)
Just because polystyrene is mistakenly used in disposable packaging , other applications should not be tarred with the same brush.
 
If one sought to eliminate plastics from ones life this should be one of the last item to go along with the plastic encapsulating your solar panels to make them weather proof. (yes they are sealed to the glass with a heat sealing plastic)
Just because polystyrene is mistakenly used in disposable packaging , other applications should not be tarred with the same brush.

If you want to eliminate plastic from your life, you cannot have a mobile, use ANY computer, radio,TV,loudspeaker,car, motorbike, train, bus, etc.
And then of course, electricity is carried by copper sheathed in plastic.


Bring back bakelite, all is forgiven - sorry that's plastic as well..

So anyone who wants to get rid of plastic and posts on the internet is a hypocrite ...

As for insulating houses, let alone hives, that's a plastic as well..
 
As for insulating houses, let alone hives, that's a plastic as well..
Fiberglass and wood fiber are the most common insulation materials in houses. They are not normally considered to be "plastic".

Amazing to think that modern plastics trace much of their development to a quest for a replacement for ivory in making billiard balls. The winning formula was a derivative of gun cotton aka smokeless gunpowder. The resulting balls had an annoying habit of exploding if hit altogether too hard.
 
Anyone who lived in the 1960's and was subjected to the wearing of Bri-Nylon shirts knows that plastic isn't suitable for everything ...

A mix of 70% Cotton with 30% Terylene - now that's more like it. :)
LJ
 
I love my polyhive and i have noticed during the past few months the bees in it were active earlier and continued flying later than the two wooden hives next to the poly. There could be other variables obviously but I am convinced it is the hive material. They were just outside a patio door so were great to watch at any hour.
 
Just a couple of points which no doubt have already been covered but there is a limit to what I am willing to plough through these days.

1. Bees prefer poly to wood seen swarms make that decision time after time.

2. You get more honey from poly and the bees over winter better in it.

Used poly now for many many years. Just is better.

PH
 
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Insulation of outer wall of the house

Rough layers

- outer cover of house
- air gap / ventilation and drying of outer cover
- wind barrier
- insulation
- moisture barrier
- room wall surface

.-
What to note:

- the moisture of outer cover conducts water into inner structures
- dew point when warm air moved towards colder wall material
- moisture condensation / mould formation inside the stucture
 
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