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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...:-)




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.

National Hive Standard Floor Assembly Instructions

Latest Assembly instructions leaflet in pdf format added to the links on the right and

here

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

national hive super on ebay…

Sunday listing…

flat pack cedar national super

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?

assembled cedar national hive brood box on ebay…

have to keep pluggin away with the old fleabay wednesday sunday thing…

assembled cedar national hive brood box

visit to Mike Ashford’s apiary…

I needed a 14×12 frame today and Mike kindly offered to lend me one.  Whilst I was there I was given a tour of his apiary with several National Hives and a very nicely put together Dartington.  Thanks for the frame and the tour Mike.  See you at the December CBKA meet.

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…

testing national hive rails for fit…

time to check all those national rails for fit to a brood and super…here’s a cedar national super and a cedar national bottom rail being put together in a dry fit…

national hive bottom rail and national hive super tested for fit

national hive bottom rail and national hive super tested for fit

tomorrow is national hive standard floor day…making up about 30. had a big order and all with standard floors.

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…

ebay – national hive super fully assembled…

auction to promote the business…every wednesday and sunday a british national hive item will go for auction…

fully assembled national hive super

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

british national hive super on ebay

…ebay has it’s place I suppose.

flat pack national super in western red cedar

flat pack national hive super on ebay

flat pack national hive super on ebay

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

bbc r4 food programme on honey bees

interesting report on beekeeping by the food programme on radio 4.  visit to the national honey show.

here

visit by lrbka members…

had a visit to the workshop today by some senior members of the

Leicestershire & Rutland Bee Keepers Association

and gave a guided tour of Peak Hives.  They made some great suggestions as to modifications particularly to crown board design which are going to be incorporated into the standard Peak Hives crown board.  Any other bka’s are more than welcome to pay us a visit in Tideswell.

All the best and thanks to the lrbka for the visit.

Nick

a little bit of national hive history…

talking of ebay…I couldn’t resist.  given that peak-hives is all about providing everything for national hives I bought this on an ebay auction a couple of days ago.  it’s the 1961 ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food advisory leaflet 367.

here’s a pdf of the entire document…

leaflet 367b

and here’s a page with all the text and images…

leaflet 367

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!