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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...:-)




Peak Hives Fondant Cosy

Requested by our long standing customer Johan I have just made up a batch of 10 of these ‘Fondant Cosies’. The outer ring is filled with 75mm Kingspan and the centre feed area is designed to take 2.5KG packs of either Fondabee or Ambrosia Fondant. The fondant is laid on top of the super/brood frames and is then covered with a lid filled with 25mm Kingspan. The lid sits on rails that are 50mm up from the base so there’s enough space above the fondant packs for the bees to roam around over the top of the fondant.

Peak Hives Fondant Cosy
Fondant Cosy
Fondant Cosy Kingspan
Kingspan Filling

Tested them with 2.5Kg packs of Fondabee and Ambrosia. I’ve just added them to the Peak Hives product range and they can be found in the left hand column.

Ready Assembled Frames

Ready Assembled Frames
Ready Assembled Frames

Daughter Alexandra isn’t mad about bees but she is about horses and wants to fund her equine hobby. So she’s now the official Peak Hives assembled frames maker. We’re now offering assembled DN4, DN1, SN4 and SN1 frames with foundation wax. Standard frames with wired worker foundation. You can find them in the left hand column on the website. Here’s to bees and horses!

We’ve been so busy during the Covid lockdown and want to thank all our patient customers awaiting their National Hive products from Peak Hives. Stay safe!

Fenland Apiaries

We’ve worked with Helen and Ken from Fenland Apiaries for a number of years now and they have over the years provided Peak Hives customers with the most fantastic Nucleus Colonies. Any enquiry we have for Nucs goes straight to Helen.

They’ve just launched a new website to promote their honey and honey based products.

https://fenlandapiaries.co.uk/

Do visit and purchase.

We do live in strange times. The Covid pandemic has affected so many in so many different ways. Here in sleepy Tideswell we’re very lucky to be out in the countryside. Very lucky!

For Peak Hives it has caused a huge increase in business. I suppose so many people in lockdown are finding time to increase their bee stocks and enter into the world of beekeeping. So to all customers, many thanks and many many thanks for your patience in understanding that we’re a small business making our own National Hive and beekeeping products in a small rural workshop.

Happy beekeeping 2020. And let’s beat Covid!

A Trio of Observation Hives

Peak Hives Observation Hives
Peak Hives Observation Hives

Here’s three National Nucleus size Observation Hives just completed in the Peak Hives workshop. From Left to right, 6 Frame Cedar Standard National Brood with a Brood Lift and a Super Lift on top and a custom laser engraved logo, 6 Frame Oak 14 x 12 Brood Size Main Chamber with a single 14 x 12 Brood Lift and on the right a 6 Frame Cedar Standard National Brood with 2 x Brood lifts.

These are now packed and ready for sending out to our patient customers. At Peak Hives we’re really busy and Covid 19 isn’t impacting on workshop time but it has had some effect on supplies. Those issues are now resolved so I’m spending 7 days a week in the workshop to get on top of the order queue. As ever the majority of orders are for National Hives custom made in our workshop from Finest First Grade Western Red Cedar.

Uncertain times…Take Care out there. Keep Safe.

Covid 19 and Peak Hives

Difficult times call for special measures so we hope all Peak Hives customers remain safe and act in the best interests of all.

As a one person business manufacturing our hives I am continuing working. My commute is around 5 metres so no exposure to nasty viruses. Please feel free to continue ordering from us if you are requiring our top quality National Hives.

There may be some small delays due to my needing to take care of family and others in the community but all orders will be made up and sent as and when possible. And we don’t let valued customers down!

Keep safe!

Nick

Peak Hives on The Albert Hall

Steve from the London Honey Company contacted me a while back and commissioned 4 Cedar Modified Dadant Hives with copper gabled roofs and fancy copper covered porches. They are to go on top of the Royal Albert Hall! Really pleased. Can’t think of a more prestigious location for Peak Hives products. Hoping he’ll send me some photos when the hives are installed with bees.

Albert Hall Hives
Albert Hall Hives

As usual at this time of year the workshop is busy with standard National Hives and we appreciate our customers patience as their order makes it’s way to the top of the queue. I’m also making several Cedar Observation Hives for RHS shows and there’s a Top Bar Hive to start this week. 2020 looks set to be an ‘interesting’ year what with one thing and another so lets hope it’s also going to be a good beekeeping season!

Copper Nucleus and Commercial Brood…

Here’s a couple of items that have recently been completed in the Peak Hives workshop 2020. The first is a National Nucleus Hive in cedar with a custom copper roof.

National Nucleus Hive with Copper Roof
National Nucleus Hive with Copper Roof

Also recently completed is this National Hive in cedar with a Commercial Brood Chamber. Suitable for prolific bee colonies the Commercial Brood Chamber sits perfectly underneath standard National Queen Excluder and supers.

National Hive with Commercial Brood Chamber
Cedar National Hive with Commercial Brood Chamber

We’re getting busier now for the 2020 beekeeping season and thank all customers old and new for their orders. Standard National Hives are our main product but it’s nice every now and then to get special requests like this. Happy Beekeeping!

Helen’s 2020 Nucleus Colonies

We’ve just had an update from Helen the bee breeder we have worked with for many years and her Nucleus Colonies this year are priced at £200.00.

“High quality, strong, healthy nuclei (nucs) comprising; laying queens (marked), 5/6 frames of bees, brood in all stages and stores. These are hardy and hard-working bees which are well-tempered and easy to handle.  They build well in the Spring to make good, large colonies for early honey production.

All in accordance with FERA recommendations. Varroa treated.”

For an agreed price depending on distance she will deliver and install the Nucleus Colony to UK addresses.

We’re very busy with National Hives and one or two special orders so the season is now well under way. Happy beekeeping 2020.

Winner

We have had a fantastic response to the Photo Competition 2019 ‘Pollinators’. Unsurprisingly many of them featured honey bees but there were plenty of unsung heroes submitted including bumbles, butterflies, hover flies and moths. The overall winner though had to be this fantastic macro shot of apis mellifera mellifera. Just a stunning shot!

Click to see the full size picture…

Apis Mellifera Mellifera
Winner 2019 Photo Competition

A Peak Hives 6 Frame Plus Dummy Board Cedar National Nucleus Hive will be manufactured in the workshop and sent out to the winner.

I’ll add a gallery of other entries as soon as I can. Many, many thanks to all who took part.

Copper Roofs

For his Peak Hives Cedar National Hives our long standing client requested deep flat roofs with copper roof metals. I had to commission these specially and I think they have turned out very nice indeed. It took quite some time and effort to get to this point but it’s been worth the wait. What I can confirm is that copper is an expensive material!

Copper Hive Roof Metals

At this time of year I have some interesting projects on the go and they include Top Bar Hives, Observation Hives and I’m just about to start on a double length National with removeable partitions in the extended brood chamber and four entrances. Looking forward to working on that one.

Observation Hive + Logo.

The latest piece out of the Peak Hives workshop is this Oak Observation Hive with engraved logo. Honey bee researcher Craig contacted me with the request for the hive and asked if it would be possible to engrave the University of Aberdeen logo on the brood chamber. I had recently acquired our laser engraver to provide the possibility of engraving security codings such as postcodes, addresses or mobile phone numbers onto our National Hive products so I was very pleased to be able accommodate Craig’s request and engrave the University logo onto the observation hive. See below for the finished product.

Observation Hive with Engraved Logo
Oak Observation Hive
Observation Hives with Engraved Logo
University Logo
Observation Hive with Shutters
Removable Shutters

I’m very pleased with the outcome and will be shipping the hive to Craig later this week.

Laser Engraved Hives…

Having recently acquired a laser engraving machine we’re now able to engrave the Peak Hives logo onto our hand made National Hives and Nucleus Hives. Here’s an example. We’re not going to turn every item into a billboard but a small logo will serve a useful promotional purpose to support the business. What it also means is that we can offer ‘security’ branding. Our customer in the case of this 6 Frame Plus Dummy Board National Cedar Nucleus Hive has chosen to have her Post Code engraved on the Brood Chamber.

Laser Engraved Nucleus Hive
Laser Engraved Hive
Post Code Branding on Nucleus Hive
Post Code Branding

In an ideal world theft wouldn’t happen but unfortunately it does and there’s even been cases of hives full of bees being stolen so we’re happy to offer this security service to our customers. We can engrave your Post Code, Phone Number, Name or anything you prefer as an identifier. I’ll be adding the option to engrave on the Peak Hives website soon but in the meantime if you order and want a security engraving please let me know by email. We’re still very busy with National Hives and I’ve just placed a large order for First Grade Western Red Cedar to deal with Christmas orders.

Happy Beekeeping, Nick.

A Bit of Fun…

Junk Rescue came to Peak Hives. The up-cycling CBeebies program came to the workshop and I converted an old chest of drawers to a National Hive. It was a bit of fun but it was a bit tight in our little workshop with Danny Sebastian and the film crew crammed in there…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0007g97/junk-rescue-series-2-16-bedside-furniture

Now back to standard National Hives in Cedar and Red Deal. I’m also currently working on a couple of observation hives.

An interesting week…

On Monday we had a visit from Neville from Sheffield University who collected the Oak Observation Hive in the picture. It’s to be used in the Department of Computing! Analysis of bee behaviour and how it can be translated into algorithms. Tuesday saw the collection of the other Observation Hive pictured. It is to be used to demonstrate bees in schools. The schools one is a self contained unit just for demonstration and the other has an entrance which will go to the outside of the laboratory so it will be a living and working colony.

Observation Hives
Observation Hives

Also new is that we have propagated Buddleia globosa and are adding these to the pollinator plants for sale.

Buddleia Globosa

And finally we’re now official suppliers to Chatsworth House and I went today to set up two new National Hives in the kitchen gardens to the rear of Chatsworth House. Apparently the Duke insisted on purchasing our hives.

I’m also very busy as per usual at this time of year making in our workshop our National Hives from First Grade Western Red Cedar and thank all our customers for their patience.

Thursday Order Updates

As we’re now in the busy season and Adriana is working very hard for her teaching qualification order acknowledgements will be sent out on Thursdays for the previous week. This means that I can get on with making up our High Quality Cedar National Hives and Hive Parts in the workshop. If you place an order with us you’ll get the standard Paypal receipt and then on Thursday we’ll send out a PH number and an expected date for dispatch. At this stage in the beekeeping calendar it’s always difficult to keep up with orders and we thank our loyal customers for your patience.

Stachys byzantina and Verbena bonariensis

We’re very busy now and thank our customers for their patience in waiting for their Peak Hives National Hive products to arrive. We are also busy in the propagation of pollinator plants and have just added Stachys byzantina (Common name ‘Lambs Ears’) and Verbena bonariensis in the pollinator plants section of the website in the right hand column. Both are super pollinator plants and are now available in 1 and 2 litre pots.

Verbena bonariensis
Verbena bonariensis
Stachys byzantina
Stachys byzantina

Queen Castle

A long standing customer wanted me to undertake this ‘special’ and make him a Queen Castle. It’s basically 4 x 2 frame Nucleus Colonies under a single roof. Each side of the Queen Castle has a unique entrance for one of the colonies. There is enough room in each compartment for two Hoffman Brood Frames and a Dummy Board for manipulation. Hope it works well for H. our loyal customer.

Queen Castle

Queen Castle

Inside Queen Castle

Inside Queen Castle

Queen Castle Inner

Queen Castle Inner

Here’s also a quick shot of the polytunnel. The Veronica Spicata ‘Heidekind’ is in the foreground and the Ceratostigma plumbaginoides (Leadwort) just behind it and the Rudbekia fulgida var. deamii just visible.

Pollinator Plants in Polytunnel

Pollinator Plants in Polytunnel

Meanwhile in the Misting House we have the heated misting bench full of Pollinator Plants looking to go to their new owners. We’re overwintering some plants that have already been sold and will send out to our clients as soon as the weather picks up in the new year. Can’t wait for Spring 2019.

Bee Plants on Misting Bench

Bee Plants on Misting Bench

Apart from the ‘specials’ and polytunnel business we’re busy as usual making the mainstay of the business which is high quality hand made Cedar National Hives. A note here on quality. We only use first grade Canadian Western Red Cedar and don’t use cheaper lower quality cedar which we are aware is available and have been offered. As a business we have opted to keep our quality of materials and workmanship to a high standard on our National Hives.

Observation Hive in Oak…

Our long standing customer Adrian is having a birthday soon and as a present he has had commissioned this observation hive. It is a 6 frame 14×12 Nucleus Hive made from Oak and has the observation window piece above with the optional super frame.

He collected it from the workshop today and was pleased with the piece.

Happy birthday Adrian!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday

incommunicado…

We’re so busy making National Hive products that emails are not currently being answered.  I know it’s not good practice but there’s no way I can handle all the responses needed to the enquiries and also have time to make already ordered items so I hope all customers will understand if emails and calls aren’t replied to as timely as they should be.

All the best

Nick and Adriana.

2017 Cedar.

The first delivery of 1st Grade Western Red Cedar to arrive at Peak Hives this year. Because of steeply rising material prices we have had a choice to make. The options were to continue to make our National Hives using the same First Quality Western Red Cedar or to buy in an inferior Cedar that is currently being offered far cheaper. We have chosen to stick with our high quality material and not to think only of short term profit. Whether it’s Brexit or some other economic factor that has pushed prices up I don’t know but when the latest material invoice arrived I had to sit down and think a while…

Western Red Cedar 2017

Western Red Cedar 2017

Conclusion…

Customer satisfaction comes first.

Happy Beekeeping to all our customers for 2017!

2017 Nucleus Colonies and Courses

Helen our bee breeder has just sent me some updates regarding her super nucleus colonies for the upcoming season and also the courses she runs for new beekeepers.

Click the links below for further information…

Bees for Sale – 2017

Keeping Honey Bees – Course info

As for Peak Hives we’re busy making our Cedar National Hives and the occasional special request and looking forward to a few days off between Christmas and New Year.

Seasons Greetings to all.

 

Peak Hives on the Radio

Melvyn Bragg is currently presenting a radio programme on the history of t’ North…

Our National Hives are the ones Melvyn talks to Adrian about at the start of the Programme.   It was only after completing the hives for the project that I found that the worker bee was the symbol of Manchester.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07synwj

We’re still very busy in the workshop but have afforded ourselves a few days off during the summer and would like to thank our customers for their patience.

An item that will soon be added to the Peak Hives product line is the Top Bar Hive.  They are proving very popular and despite them not being National Hives we will happily add them to the Peak Hives family.

Observation National Hive

Usamah from the East London Mosque sent me this image of their Peak Hives Observation Hive a couple of days ago.  It’s sat in a courtyard in the Mosque.  They seem to have it set up as Brood, Super then Brood.  Must be a reason but it’s looking good anyway.

ELM Observation Hive

ELM Observation Hive

 

We are very busy at the moment as it’s the height of the season and we get frequent calls of the nature ‘…help I have a swarm and need….’.  We do our best to help but with us being a small business it’s hard to keep up with demand sometimes and we definitely don’t like to mess with the order queue for our National Hives.

PH as Featured in the FT…

A month or so ago I was asked if we’d like to be in the FT in an article based around Artisans…

Here’s a link to the article.

https://next.ft.com/content/911e8538-1856-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e

I’ll write more on this later but for now must get back to the workshop to make up some hives…

Nick

Peach Blossom

Not directly bee related I know but I do like to put a thing or two about our allotment and polytunnel in the blog every now and then. Peach trees blossom very early in the year even before they get leaves and before bees and other pollinating insects are around. So, a tickle with a sable paint brush around all the flowers is the way to spread the pollen and hopefully get a good crop. This is the second year for our peach trees in the polytunnel and they are doing superbly. Last year even though they were only planted the Autumn/Winter before they produced several of the most juicy and surprisingly large and tasty fruit. This year the trees are covered in blossom so it looks like we might be in for a bumper crop.

Peach Blossom

Peach Blossom

We’re very busy as usual at this time of year and have sent many Cedar National Hives out to customers. It’s very gratifying to see so many repeat customers. We’ve also sent several of our hives to Europe. Last week a Peak Hives Top Bar Hive found it’s way to the Mosel Region of Germany.  Our 6 Frame plus a Dummy Board Nucleus Hives are also selling well…must remember to put up the prices…;-)

New Blades…

At the start of every beekeeping season I invest in new blades for all my machines. It’s not always so urgent because Cedar is a very forgiving timber to work and doesn’t cause too much wear on the TCT on a blade. But it’s more or less become a tradition in the Peak Hives workshop and it is nice when the new blades cut for the first time…hot knives through butter!!!

New Blades

New Blades

We’re now busy with our standard National Hive products so I can’t take on any ‘specials’ until the back end of this season…but I do like the odd Observation Hive or Top Bar. Nice to make a variety of things.

New Apiary…

Our customer is returning to beekeeping after a period of some years away from the hobby. Now that she has opportunity again she said she’s really looking forward to getting back into it and has ordered enough National Hives and Nucleus equipment to see her through at least the first season. There’s two full National Hives in Cedar and a Nucleus Hive also in Western Red Cedar.

The customer also bought Ashforth feeders for the full sized hives and the Nucleus.

National Hive Apiary

National Hive Apiary

I think it’s also time for me to cut a path to my hives kept in my parents garden. They were put out of the way from my father who, when a few years ago was suffering with early stage Parkinsons, would stand right next to them to show his interest. So my bees had to be hidden away from him in the bushes where they’ve remained until now. A machete may be required to beat a new path to their door.

We are getting busy again now and it’s looking like a full on beekeeping/hive making season ahead. So head down and fire up the machines for National Hive making. I do the odd special request every now and again too as can be seen from the blog entries…

 

Palmer Style Double Nucleus Hive

In amongst the standard National Hives in Cedar it’s nice to get the odd request for something different. Our client asked for a Palmer Style Double Nucleus Hive in 14×12 size. It took a bit of head scratching and figuring out but here’s the result. The main brood chamber is split into two with two mesh floors pointing in opposite directions so the bees know which entrance is theirs. The brood then has two 14×12 height but half width ‘supers’ on top which each have their own crown board with ventialtion holes and porter bee escapes. This is then topped off with a 6 inch roof. I hope our client Simon has a great season with it and we’ll be shipping it out today.

Palmer Style Nucleus Hive

Palmer Style Nucleus Hive

Of course our bread and butter standard product is the top quality National Hive and it’s so nice to see that we already have plenty of repeat customers placing orders for this beekeeping season.

Here’s to a successful 2016!