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National Standard FloorAssembled Cedar £24.02 Assembled Red Deal £18.55
Flat Pack Cedar £18.96 Flat Pack Red Deal £15.54 National Varroa FloorComes with slide out tray for Varroa inspection.
Assembled Cedar £27.52 Assembled Red Deal £24.76 National BroodAssembled Cedar £41.52 Assembled Red Deal £27.89
Flat Pack National BroodCedar £33.96Red Deal £18.68 
National SuperAssembled Cedar £30.96 Assembled Red Deal £22.21
Flat Pack National SuperCedar £24.65Red Deal £12.30
National 4" RoofAssembled Cedar £39.97 Assembled Red Deal £26.50
Flat Pack National 4" RoofCedar £30.22Red Deal £20.52 
National Gabled RoofAssembled Cedar £52.60 Assembled Red Deal £39.45
National Stand W Landing BoardAssembled Cedar £21.22 Assembled Red Deal £14.86
Flat Pack National Stand W Landing BoardCedar £15.96Red Deal £12.54 National 14x12 Brood BoxAssembled Cedar £52.87 Assembled Red Deal £34.54
Flat Pack National 14x12 Brood BoxCedar £42.25Red Deal £27.66
National Nucleus HiveSuitable for 5 Hoffman frames with high roof to take liquid feeders. Choose a timber and Assembled (Assm) or Flat Pack (FP)
National Nucleus Hive 14x12As above but 14x12. Choose a timber and Assembled (Assm) or Flat Pack (FP)
Castellated Spacers and Metal Runners
Metal Runners 94p per pairPorter Bee Escapes. 85p 
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British National BeehivesBased in a small workshop in Tideswell in the Peak District we make British National Beehives out of 1st grade Western Red Cedar, high quality Red Deal or, when available, locally sourced Western Red Cedar according to the British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) Modified National Hive Plans. Everything we sell we make here in the Peak District. 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. Flat Pack National Hives
Fully Assembled National Hives
blog...The rest of the centre column is (thanks to Wordpress) 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...:-)Here’s a couple of National Nucleus Hives I’ve finished today. On the left a flat pack National Nuc in Red Deal with a standard floor. On the right a fully assembled Cedar National Nuc with Varroa Floor (with slide out tray). Both take 5 Hoffman DN4 frames with an extra 8mm manipulation space.  National Nucleus Hive Options The first batch of locally sourced Chatsworth Western Red Cedar has been milled up by Simon at Rowsley Sawmill and I’ve just stacked and ’sticked’ it to air dry. Simon’s milled it into 2″ waney edge boards which I can then machine up into either national hive rails or slice down the middle for hive ends/sides. Kiln drying would be too expensive so we’ll stick it cover it to protect it from the rain and wait…  Air Drying Chatworth Western Red Cedar I’ve had quite a few requests to produce top bee space national hives. Got an order finished this morning so just before my lunchbreak I decided to ‘jig up’ for offering top bee space nationals. Basically the difference in machining requires the production of a deeper top rail for supers and brood boxes and a suitable mortice in the brood/super sides to accommodate the deeper rails. Anyway to cut a not very long story shorter here’s a couple of pics showing the standard British National Hive option of bottom bee space and the new optional top bee space…  Bottom Bee Space National Hive  Top Bee Space National Hive I’ll update the site to allow choosing top bee space as an option later tonight. Hi. Rich came up on Wednesday to the Peak Hives workshop and picked up his flat packed national hives. Was good to see him again and Steve who came along too. Rich is an experienced beekeeper so by agreement (and the fact that they wouldn’t fit into his car otherwise) I didn’t seperate them out into individual units. Here’s the kit he took…  Rich's Hives I’m getting plenty of enquiries about making up batches of frames and will endeavour to have a go this weekend (I do have to make a special meal for the oldies though on Saturday as it’s their golden wedding anniversary). The other thing that I need to respond to is enquiries about ‘top bee space’ national hives. It’s technically sorted but I want to have a go at machining some up before offering it as an option. Coming soon, probably tomorrow. Allotment news is that I made some space this afternoon for another fruit tree in the garden…it’s getting tight on space and I’ve another two trees to plant. I wonder if the farmer who owns the field across the road would mind. All the best and as usual, happy beekeeping 2010! Here’s a couple of cedar national hives ready in the workshop for shipping on Monday. Here at Peak Hives we’re busy working away in spite of the cold weather that just doesn’t want to go away. When Spring actually comes I’ll be one happy camper although the local allotment association reckons we’re ‘at least a month behind’ everywhere else…I do wonder if that means I’m going to have a hard time of it keeping bees here in Tideswell…seems likely.  Assembled Cedar National Hives This national hive in western red cedar with a 14×12 brood box, 3 supers and a gabled roof is only going 10 minutes down the road so collection from the Peak-Hives workshop is on the cards.  cedar national hive with gabled roof Our gabled roofs are now made with a single piece cover of galvanized metal sheet providing the same protection as the single piece cover for the standard roofs and our nucleus hive roofs. Now that the big freeze is over (at least for the moment it looks that way) we’re back in production. Here’s a British National Hive with 2 Supers in Red Deal.  British National Hive in Red Deal Here’s to a successful beekeeping 2010. I’m long overdue to start frame making and I’m compiling a list of potential customers for DN4, SN1 etc. Hopefully I’ll be able to get that thin kerf blade in use soon… Allotment news is that I’ve just planted 2 out of 6 trees supplied by Rogers of Pickering. 1 Bramleys Seedling and 1 Spartan apple (recommended by Carl with thanks). I’ve a couple of pear trees to plant next (Buerre Hardy and Conference) and 20 odd raspberry canes along with some plum trees and gooseberry bushes. When we moved here as a family in the early 60s all these things were here and producing fruit. Somehow they’ve been left to grow old and wither…(I blame the supermarkets..grrr). With some luck and cultivation we’ll be back to picking our own fruit in a couple of seasons… Phew. Now that the worst of the big freeze appears to be over I can start working away in the workshop again…Next winter I’ll have dry lined it with kingspan insulation (if the temp goes below 5 deg C then glues don’t set which as things stand pretty much closes the workshop down!!!). Apart from the difficulties that the extreme weather has caused work wise it’s been hard enough just keeping warm at home…Managed thanks to the Husqvarna and a beautiful Jotul 602N. Best thing my Dad ever bought!!! Any road up…here’s a couple of Open Mesh Floors…One for a full size British National Hive and one for a National Nucleus Hive…One in Cedar and the other in Red Deal… I do find the Nuc one cute…there again I need to get out more…  British National Open Mesh Floor with Slide out Tray  British National Nucleus Open Mesh Floor Btw, the jury’s still out for me on the OMF versus Standard Floor… As requested here are the assembly instructions for Peak Hives flat pack National Hive Stand… Happy new year to all Peak Hives customers!!! For new beekeepers (and there’s plenty, including me) I thought it might be worth while suggesting what I would think of buying as a first apiary set up. If you’re good with a hammer, nails, glue, flat surface and *JOINERS SQUARE* then: 2 x Flat Pack of the default national hive configuration you see when you load up this page. Add on a crown board and choose which type of metalwork you require for the brood box and supers (I’d recommend metal runners throughout and then use frame spacers to start off with – this can be changed over later to castellated spacers for the super easily enough should you wish) And then choose which floor you want. Most go for the Varroa Floor with slide out tray but many experienced beekeepers go for a standard floor. Then timber. Cedar is good for two reasons…1. it’s light. A national super full of honey is already heavy enough. 2. Cedar is naturally resistant to rot. Red Deal on the other hand is notably cheaper and will make a robust hive (provided you take care of it, which is easily done. There’s plenty of houses round here built in the victorian era with original Red Deal doors because they’ve been well maintained). That recommendation is to go with 1 nucleus colony. The nucleus goes into hive number 1 and then when (possibly) a month later it swarms you have hive number 2 in which to put the swarm. It’s said that it’s easier to manage two hives than 1. And safer too. 1 Hive + 1 Disaster = No Bees! Of course if you’re not entirely confident about your assembly skills then perhaps choose the same set up but pre-assembled here at Peak Hives. Assembling a hive when you’ve done it lots of times is one thing but doing it for the first time can be a bit daunting. Happy beekeeping 2010! Nick Hi. I thought it might be informative to show the workshop (or the ground floor machining area at least). This is where all our national hives are made. Upstairs there’s an assembly area and shelving for hive parts. As you can see it’s an old building which in it’s time has been a cow shed, a hen shed, a joiner’s workshop, an electricians workshop (The whole of Tideswell was electrified from here), an artists studio, a joiner’s workshop again and now peak-hives. The image is several shots stitched together using ‘hugin’. All the best and happy beekeeping for 2010!  Peak Hives Workshop I’ve just updated the prices/availability regarding the National Hive Gabled Roofs reflecting the fact that we’ve decided not to do them any more in flat pack. The reason is that the roof structure with the top finishing piece is, I think, a weakness (given that its the most exposed part of a hive) and it’s better to have a single one-piece metal roof cover which, thanks to Swift Engineering of Buxton, we can now provide. It means it’s not feasible to send them out as flat pack as the metalwork will get spoiled in transit. We want you to get the best use out of our products for many seasons and this decision was made to ensure that’s the case. My own view is that for practical beekeeping the flat roof might be the better solution as you can turn it upside down and put supers on it etc but I understand the desire for the aesthetics that the gabled roof provides. Feedback, as always, is very welcome. All the best. Nick Quick post while I’m having lunch…Here’s a shot of this morning’s activity. National Hive Nucleus Roofs with the new lock joints. These are for a couple of orders for 14×12 nucs and standard nucs in red deal. back to the workshop…  national hive nucleus roof Just working on orders and there’s a couple of 14×12 nucs in there in red deal so I’m making up a batch of 5. Here’s the brood chamber dry assembled. Back to the workshop now to start on the roofs.  14x12 nucleus hive As a quick break from making up a batch of national nucleus hives today I had the chance to test out my new gear for making lock joints for national roofs. previously I’d been using dovetails (which are perfectly suitable and in my opinion in some ways better) but given that all the big boys use lock joints I felt it necessary to follow suit and so here’s the test pic on a couple of bits of scrap western red cedar…  testing a lock joint for national hive roof construction Assembly Instructions for Peak-Hives Flat Pack National Hive Gabled Roof …here I’m getting too busy now to do a listing every Sunday and Wednesday so it’ll just be Sunday from now on. At least for the time being anyway. Another listing for a national hive super on ebay….here Arrived today. One pricey blade! A quick break from making up orders and stock to perform a test with the new blade. Cuts like a dream. Finishes as if it’s been through a planer. The cut width is a tiny 1.7mm!! This will certainly do the trick of getting the maximum number of National Hive frames out of the timber used. I’ll be making up a batch of frames next week probably starting with DN4 Hoffman’s to be supplied with our brood boxes or sold as flat packs.  Thin Kerf Blade used for making National Hive Frames Not sure how M and T are doing but we’re snowed under with orders. Initially I was working on a just in time ordering system. That’s been binned as I can see that if I don’t have stocked shelves of National Hive parts then I won’t be able to cope. So every order that comes in now is being made up but doubled…one for the customer and one for the shelves… I’m also fretting about delivery times…Adriana is taking charge of running the business as regards that so I shouldn’t be so concerned given that she’s a background in managing businesses very sucessfully… worries gone? not quite but almost… Cheers and here’s to a good beekeeping 2010! Nick We’ve just purchased some tooling to improve upon our National Hive Roof design. Now roofs will be constructed using 1/2″ lock joints. Frames wise I decided that it was worth investing in a thin kerf saw blade for our table saw. Each cut will only waste 1.7mm instead of the usual 3.2mm. When machining up lots and lots of little parts (ie. frame bits) it will be much more economical if each rip through the timber only consumes 1.7mm….that’s the theory anyway and it’s backed up by me getting the plastic out to pay for an expensive saw blade… We hope your bees will be happy in our hives and would welcome feedback in the new season…photos or comments please and we’ll set up a gallery area on the site. All the best Nick Wednesday listing…here here’s the first of perhaps many thousand…a quick bit of jig making and we’re producing Hoffman DN4 frames. More tests to do but the initial test was today and if we can make the Hoffman self spacing frame then the others shouldn’t be a problem. if you’ve a request for a frame type then please mail me.  DN4 Hoffman Frame for National Hive As we want to make everything for the National Hive here in the Peak District we’ve decided to start making frames…it’ll be tedious work (11 frames per brood…9, 10 or 11 frames per super etc etc ad infinitum) but hey, work is work! We’ll be starting off with Hoffman DN4 standard National Brood Frames, then SN1 super frames and as many of the other types that seem to be in demand. More soon… All the best. Nick ebay keeps things ticking over I suppose…getting busy now though so might reduce it to one promo a week… Paul (from Oxfordshire Beekeepers) came up today to pick up 11 Flat Pack Western Red Cedar National Hives comprising standard floor with entrance block, standard brood box, 2 supers in red deal and a 4″ roof with galvanised metal cover. It’s turning into a production line…  flat pack national hives lined up for collection After the excitement of the morning it was back to the workshop to catch up with orders…Here’s a 14×12 National Brood Box in red deal being dry assembled before sending out as a flat pack kit.  14x12 National Brood Chamber in Red Deal Will be working this weekend to get a few orders out… Up early to pick up my brother’s 1 tonne van and 3/4 tonne trailer (thanks Neil!)…then off to Chatsworth. The forresters were already working on the tree when I arrived. Even though Western Red Cedar is a ‘light’ wood…it’s bloomin heavy when it’s wet and in big logs!!! The rough sawn lumber was then transported to be resawn into 2″ waney edge planks. I’ll then stick them for a good while and monitor the moisture levels. Here at Peak-Hives we’re trying our best to source local timbers and once again many thanks to all involved for this timber.  Peak District Western Red Cedar for Peak-Hives  peak district western red cedar for national hives Was this tree planted by Capability Brown?…Now that’d make a National Hive!!! As promised by Dave the Head Forrester at Chatsworth and a day earlier than expected. Our tree has mostly already been felled and will be transported on friday for milling. Then it’ll be put in storage for air drying. The waiting process then begins, checking frequently with the moisture meter for suitability for use in our national hives. The timber will be resawn in 2″ planks at Rowsley Sawmill (thanks to Simon). Here’s a quick shot of one of the logs…  Chatsworth Western Red Cedar for Peak-Hives Many thanks to Dave and all involved. Latest Assembly instructions leaflet in pdf format added to the links on the right and |
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