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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...:-)




Order Queue

Managed to get on top of the order queue.  With 6 large orders going today it means I can mostly concentrate on a huge order that doesn’t need delivering until Jan 2013 and fit in a little time for my own projects…

National Hives aren’t the only thing made from Western Red Cedar.  It’s a bit off topic for a National Hive maker but here’s how our Freedom 15′ Cedar Strip Canadian canoe is shaping up.

Canadian Cedar Strip Canoe

Canadian Cedar Strip Canoe

I’ve been grabbing 20 mins here and there to do work on it now for over a year but now that the high season madness has subsided I can fit in a bit more time along with my son James (part of the idea is that he sees the value in taking time over – and finishing – a project).  We’ve just done fibreglassing and epoxy…When finished I’ll pop some ‘on the water’ piccys on the Peak Hives blog.

I’ve also updated the order turnaround time in the right hand column and it’s now approx 2 weeks from order to delivery for one of our Cedar or Red Deal National Hive products.

Double Brood Nucleus Hive

We’re back from our annual family trip to the Vendee and back into the workshop.

This client likes to use a double brood chamber on his nucleus colonies and asked if we could make up an extra brood chamber in nucleus size.  We’re always keen on custom orders and here’s the result…

Double Brood Nuc

Double Brood Nuc

As with all Peak Hives products it is manufactured to National Hive standard dimensions.  But we do our Nucleus Hives for 6 frames plus a dummy board (supplied) for easier manipulation.

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.