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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.

webcam...

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 will be making national hive frames

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

DN4 Hoffman Frame for National Hive

National Hive Frames coming soon…

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

another cedar national super on ebay…

ebay keeps things ticking over I suppose…getting busy now though so might reduce it to one promo a week…

flat pack cedar national super

national hive production line…

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

flat pack national hives lined up for collection

14×12 National Brood Box Flat Pack Dry Assembly

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

14x12 National Brood Chamber in Red Deal

Will be working this weekend to get a few orders out…

Peak District Western Red Cedar, National Hives

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 Peak-Hives

peak district western red cedar for national hive

peak district western red cedar for national hives

Was this tree planted by Capability Brown?…Now that’d make a National Hive!!!

Chatsworth Western Red Cedar for Peak 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

Chatsworth Western Red Cedar for Peak-Hives

Many thanks to Dave and all involved.

six well used tools…

here at Peak-Hives we take hive making seriously.  whether it be ripping and planing timber down to size, tenoning top and bottom rails, putting just the right bevel onto bottom rails, morticing out our national brood box and super ends everything is done with precision and care.  In the picture you can see 6 well used items from the workshop…getting things square is as you can see very important and that was the main idea behind the photo…but up in the top left you can see the other little tool that has edged it’s way into the shot and deserves a mention…without that calculator there’d have been many a costly mistake it has to be said…trusty little fella has aided me many a time…

six-well-used-tools

squares and calculator used in national hive making

26th november…Peak District Western Red Cedar!

just a quick reminder that on the 26th November we’ll be milling up about 1 1/2 square metres of Peak District sourced Western Red Cedar for use in our national hives (thanks to the Peak Park ‘live and work rural’ team and Adele in particular.  between cutting down, resawing, natural air drying and other tasks related to preparing the timber it’ll be some time before we can use the timber for our hive ‘micro’ production line but will keep the blog posted with how the timber is preparing itself for use as bee houses (nationals of course)…if you’re interested in having a hive constructed from this premium material then please register your interest by mailing me at nicholas@localhost

I suppose it’ll be done on a first come first served basis…

…now where’s that moisture meter?

cedar national super on ebay…

keeping up with the wednesday/sunday promotional postings on ebay we’ve just listed another fully assembled national hive super in western red cedar…

cedar national super

national super dry assembly…

got a big order on for flat packed mixed national hives…part cedar and part red deal…here’s a picture of one of the red deal supers being dry assembled to test for square and fit…

testing national hive super for square

testing national hive super for square

tomorrow, sunday…lots of national roofs and nucleus hives to work on…and perhaps a bit of a rest in the afternoon…

national hive rails day…

quite a few orders on despite the inclement weather for bees…people must be preparing for next season and planning on making up a few flat packs over the christmas break…so here’s a few national hive rails in cedar and red deal ready to go into flat pack beehive kits…

british national hive top and bottom rails

british national hive top and bottom rails

was stood at the tennoning machine most of the afternoon…

national hive rails in progress…

busy bee in the workshop…british national hive rails half made up.  then split into 4 piles.  1 cedar for bottom rails.  1 red deal for the same.  1 cedar for top rails and 1 red deal for the same…more machining to do tomorrow…bevels and rebates…

making national hive rails

making national hive rails

one hive – two timbers…

mix and match your british national hive parts in cedar and red deal.

we’ve noticed that quite a lot of customers like to buy certain parts of their national hives in western red cedar and other parts in red deal.  typically those parts that are out all year round (stand, floor, brood box and roof) are supplied in western red cedar but national supers are supplied in red deal as they are often taken in during the winter and so receive less harsh treatment.  this seems to make sense so we’ll be updating the site to allow the purchase of a complete and flat pack national hive but made up of the different timbers.  in the meantime if you’d like to place such an order then mail us at nicholas@localhost

peak-hives on ebay…

seems that if you’re running a small business it’s good policy to also have an ebay thing going…so our ebay user id is ‘peak-hives’

I’ll try to put a product up there every wednesday and sunday to help spread the word.  to be honest though given the way people spend spend spend on ebay it’s probably cheaper to purchase national hive products off this site.

all the best

nick

recently left the workshop…

nice gabled roof hive with a 14×12 brood box in red deal…

national hive with gabled roof and 14x12 brood chamber

national hive with gabled roof and 14x12 brood chamber

the 14×12 certainly give alot more space in the brood box.  be interesting to calculate the volume sizes comparing standard brood with 14×12…one day will get the calculator out.  I think in our apiary setup next year we’ll go with one standard and one 14×12 to compare.

weekend working

two complete assembled national hives finished this weekend. 1 standard in cedar with brood box, 2 supers, varroa floor, stand with landing board, crown board and standard roof. 1 in red deal with 14×12 brood box, varroa floor, 2 supers, gabled roof. now for the packing and arrange delivery. could do with a packing department! they should be with their owners by wednesday latest. this weeks orders so far include 11 x flat pack nationals and various supers and brood boxes. busy bee!

locally sourced western red cedar!

arranged to pick up locally sourced western red cedar in november.  couldn’t contain myself and had to hop on the bike to go and see the tree and here’s a picture  (location carefully disguised).  now to find a kiln and a resaw facility…hopefully the folks at ashopton sawmill might be able to help out with the resawing and my contacts have put me in touch with someone who has a kiln.  the warning that keeps getting repeated though is ‘watch out for your costs’ as the ferrying about of timber is costly in itself and time as they say is money.  anyway, with a bit of luck and care we’ll soon be machining up national hive parts made from peak district grown western red cedar.  cool!  we’ll certainly beekeeping  (sorry, couldn’t resist) one of those for the colonies in our veg garden apiary.

western red cedar for national hives

western red cedar for national hives

bait hives…

In the veg plot here in the peak district we’re planning on putting out a couple of bait hives just to see if it’s possible to attract a swarm (or two if we’re lucky) .  Don’t hold out too much hope though as the local BKA (Chesterfield) has apparently had a bait hive out there for the last decade and not attracted anything apart from a dead mouse and plenty of wax moth so we’re told.  But one of the goals here is not to turn beekeepers by the  strength of our wallet and seeing as how the main suppliers are, in 2010, going to be charging £200 plus for a nuc then there can’t be any harm in trying a couple of hives in the spring.  Wondering if there’s any benefit from the swarm lures you can buy…but in the meantime here’s a useful information resource provided by the BBKA…

bait hives

open mesh floor assembly instructions

here’s a pdf of the assembly instructions for the standard national hive open mesh floor.

Open Mesh Floor

national roof to follow…

national hive brood box and super assembly instructions

assembly instructions for our flat pack national brood chambers and national supers…will upload the rest later and make a right sidebar widget for them to permanently reside there…

Brood Box and Super

local authority backs peak-hives.co.uk

‘live and work’ rural from the peak park visited our workshop today and offered it’s support to peak-hives.  it looks like there’ll be two main ways that assistance may be offered to support the business.  firstly and most importantly for peak-hives is locating sources of locally grown timber.  seems like local sawmills cutting local timber are as rare as hens teeth!  however, with the inside knowledge of the peak park it’s likely that national beehives constructed from locally sourced western red cedar isn’t such a pipe dream after all.  secondly there’s the ‘environmental quality mark’ which is a certification or award given to eco-friendly businesses.  all in all it was a very interesting visit.  more later.

flat pack national roof kit…

another flat pack part is ready to go…national roof.  with a bit of luck today I should have the paypal checkout system up and running.  please let me know if you experience any problems with it from a customer point of view…nicholas@localhost

national_roof_flat-pack

flat pack national hives

peak hives are now producing flat pack national hive parts…so if you need a brood box or a super or any part of a national hive then we can deliver from stock to the UK.  All parts are machined by us for assembly and come with everything you need except glue.  So grab a pot of waterproof PVA woodglue and a hammer and you’re away…it could even make a nice Christmas holiday project…assembling an entire hive.

national_super_flat-pack

these are the same parts we use to make our hives and are machined according to BBKA specifications.

the laughing bee

…orchid

beeorchid2

nucleus hives

just been making up some national nucleus hives.  standard deep brood with spacing for 5 hoffman frames.  next to do some 14×12 brood boxes and 14×12 nucleus boxes.  piccys coming soon as well as some sort of purchasing system for seperate parts as I’ve had quite a few requests for individual supers, brood boxes etc.

nick

co-operative society plan bee campaign

the co-op’s always been a sound organisation and once again they’re leading the way with their ‘plan bee’ campaign…

http://vanishingbees.co.uk/

peak-hives on youtube…

just a quick graphic to show what’s included with every national hive we make.  national stand, national varroa floor, national brood box, 2 supers, national crown board with porter bee escapes and a national roof with a galvanized cover.  all you need are some bees and frames and you’re away.  (Update- this is now a bit out of date as we now have the beehive configuration options in the centre column)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po0Wlizfc_Y[/youtube]

Da Vinci was into bees!

turns out Leonardo was into his bees too…

“The men of experiment are like the ant; they only collect and use. But the bee . . . gathers its materials from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own”

email server working…

after much faffing about managed to get the email server working… got proper email address ‘nicholas@localhost’  many thanks to ameldridge from the beekeeping forum for the heads up about Google Apps.

now, off to jig up for some Langstroths.

national hive number 1 better pic.

here’s a better pic of national hive number 1.  should be able to click on it to see a bigger version.

national_hive_number_1-010

next to finish off the first batch of 5 nationals and then make up some national nucs and 14×12 brood boxes.

strange but true…

just brought national hive number one from the workshop to take some photos.  parked the car outside the workshop, opened up the workshop and loaded the hive into the car, get into the car to set off and what should appear from inside the hive…a honey bee!!!

hive hadn’t ever been out of the workshop and didn’t have any frames in so it can’t have been a scout out looking for a suitable place for a swarm.  perhaps just a good omen.  hope so.

hive number 1

national hive number 1 completed in western red cedar…yay!

very pleased with the result and will be sorry to see it go…but this is supposed to be a hive making (micro) business so go it has to.  probably through ebay just to kick things off.  anyone interested in purchasing direct please phone nicholas on 07594 583 151

first hive in western red cedar

first hive in western red cedar

built strictly to BBKA plans and comes complete with…national stand with landing board, varroa open mesh floor, entrance block, brood box, 2 supers, crown board for porter bee escapes, national roof with galvanized metal cover.

setting up the workshop

hi

here’s a photo of the very first hive produced in the workshop…

the very very first hive produced at peak-hives.co.uk

the very first hive produced at peak-hives.co.uk

made out of standard joinery red deal in order to set up the workshop jigs etc.  following the BBKA plans for the modified national hive.  once this one is finished with all the components:  varroa floor, entrance block, brood box, super, crown board and roof I should have all the jigs set up nicely to produce national hives in batches of 5 or 10 at  a time.  next one will be a hive in western red cedar to test out the jigs just made.