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British National Beehives


Based in a small workshop in Tideswell in the Peak District we make Highest Quality British National Beehives out of 1st grade American Western Red Cedar or High Quality Red Deal according to the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) Modified National Hive Plans. Everything we sell we make here in the Peak District. We also stock other items of Beekeeping Supplies including Frames, Foundation Wax and Hive Tools. The driving forces behind peak-hives.co.uk are sustainability and quality workmanship. Sustainability because, well it matters quite a bit we think and quality workmanship because customer satisfaction is paramount.



Cedar Scarcity.

Unfortunately building materials are extremely scarce at the moment and pricing is highly volatile. This goes for Western Red Cedar too. I have decided that until the market settles down I will not be making up any Cedar hives or hive parts. We'll be back in operation once the supply issues have been resolved. Many thanks.

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Want to see your National Hive being made? Here's what's going on in the workshop right now. The image is updated every 10 minutes during working hours. Click to see full size...

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blog...

The rest of the centre column is an ongoing blog of what's new at peak-hives.co.uk and other items of interest...veg garden...renewables etc, but please don't let reading about the allotment distract you from placing your order...:-)




Eat Natural Hives…

As a Winter project I was asked to make the 50 first Eat Natural Hives.  Quite good fun and using recycled pallets the specially designed hive looks a treat…

There’s a video of me making them at

http://eatnatural.co.uk/pollenation

Foundation Wax

After many many requests from our customers I’m pleased to announce that we now stock foundation wax.  British Standard in Deep, Shallow and 14×12.  We can’t hold a full gamut of wax but we’ve selected the most useful sizes of the wired foundation to stock.  Our mainstay is of course National Hives in Cedar and the more economical Red Deal but we want to be able to offer everything you’ll need to get a hive up and running so adding foundation to the Peak Hives product line is a big step forwards for us.

Peak Hives Foundation Wax

Peak Hives Foundation Wax

It can be found near the frames and plastic frame ends lower down the left hand column.

All the best and happy beekeeping for the upcoming season.

Swarm

Got a call today from one of the local Youth Hostels.  They have a healthy colony that for some years has resided in a roof and it had swarmed.  Nick, the manager, called and asked if I could capture the swarm as he was concerned about the youngsters in the hostel.

As quick as I could I got together all the requisite National Hive items and donned my bee suit and headed down there.  Lovely swarm of bees hanging in a tree bough at chest height that was easily pulled down into the hive and snipped off with secateurs.  New colony for our apiary!!!  Tomorrow I’ll be off down to the apiary to put a feeder on and open up the entrance.  With a bit of luck and sugar they’ll build up for the winter and won’t be ‘chasers’.  Last swarm we had were chasing me out of the veg garden.

France hols (2 weeks) beckons and after a busy season we’re all ready for a break.

Bees in the Belfry

What do you get when you cross-pollinate bees and the Church?  A Peak Hives National Hive on top of Manchester Cathedral!

Manchester Cathedral

Manchester Cathedral

 

Adrian (Peak Hives customer and also an Honorary Canon at the Cathedral) emailed me…

‘…The project is beginning to take shape now. Manchester Cathedral is very much a working cathedral – very involved in the city and highly active at a social level.  We have a Volunteer Project – for young people struggling to get a step on the ladder of life. The Cathedral Apiary project is part of that.  We will be training up individuals in beekeeping – but there is a level of involvement beyond that.  We will take the different elements of it – building hives/frames etc, managing the hives, extracting and selling honey, and use of other products of the hive –  as a way of getting people to learn how to start and work up a project and follow it through – so that they can use these skills in other fields.  It will be a rolling programme of development…’

Many thanks Adrian for choosing Peak Hives to supply the project.

Nick & Adriana.

Beautiful Apiary!

A much valued Peak Hives customer has sent me this stunning photo.  It’s two Peak Hives Nationals painted up in white and set in his beautiful garden.  I think the white works really well here and paint is also the best protection for any outside woodwork including hives.

Beautiful Apiary

Beautiful Apiary

 

Aesthetically it very much puts my apiary to shame…but you know what they say… ‘cobbler’s children…’

Flat Pack 14×12 Apiary

Quite a big order this one.  It’s essentially an Apiary in a box.  There’s 2 Flat Pack Cedar 14 x 12 National Hives with Open Mesh Floors and Framed Queen Excluders with 3 National Supers a piece, Standard 4″ National Roof, Crown Boards and National Hive Stands with Landing Boards.

Also on the right is a 14 x 12 Nucleus Hive in Cedar with Varroa Floor.

At the back you can just make out a couple of Ashforth Feeders too.  One for the full sized Hives and one for the Nucleus Hive.

Flat Pack 14x12 Apiary

Flat Pack 14x12 Apiary

I think I’ll advise the customer to buy a BIG pot of glue!!!

Christmas 2010

Christmas comes but once a year and one of our clients has given permission to show this picture of a beautifully wrapped Peak Hives National Hive given as a present.  We were very worried that they might not get it in time for Christmas but as you can see it arrived in time for some luxury wrapping…

Christmas Hive

Christmas Hive

There were a few customers for hives as presents and thankfully we managed to get them all out in time for giving on the big day.

Happy beekeeping!

Tideswell Dale Honey

Now we have a printer that’s working I’ve finally printed up some labels for our Tideswell Dale Honey.  It’s a simple affair and doesn’t precisely conform to the honey labelling regulations etc but we’re only going to sell around 60 of these jars locally.

Tideswell Dale Honey

Tideswell Dale Honey

An inspector calls…

Regional FERA Bee Inspector Tim Roper called round under the FERA free inspection offer (you need to register with Beebase in order to qualify for a free inspection and it’s definitely worth it.  My opinion is that it in these times registration should be obligatory.  Anyway, after looking at Peak Hives 2 colonies he pronounced them in good health.  There was some evidence of chalk brood but not enough to cause too much concern.

The bees are now filling up the new super with drawn comb and there’s the ‘old socks’ smell of Dandelion honey.  Tim says it’s quite nice to eat though.

Fera Bee Inspector Tim Roper Inspecting Peak Hives Apiary

Fera Inspecting Peak Hives Apiary

Monitoring Varroa

We’ve now got two strong looking colonies of British Black Bee (Apis Mellifera Mellifera) in the Peak Hives Apiary. On inspection the other day with our experienced beekeeping friend Carl we popped off a cap from a drone cell and there looking up at us was a fat and annoyingly healthy Varroa Destructor mite. Today I decided to start a monitoring process using the slide out trays on our Varroa floors which will be in the hives for the next seven days. When they are removed the mite drop will be counted and action taken if the mite drop is above certain suggested levels (see the Beebase page on Varroa and the very useful Varroa Calculator).

I read somewhere about putting oil onto the paper laid on the slide out trays to make sure the little buggers can’t get away or don’t blow away and in the photo you can see the two trays that went into the hives today at 4pm. On the right is just plain white paper and on the left the paper has been liberally coated with sunflower oil. I did wonder if the smell from the oil might cause fright to the bees. Perhaps someone with better knowledge could comment on that. Anyway in they went and now to wait for the results.

Varroa Mite Monitoring

Varroa Mite Monitoring