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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...:-)




66 National Hives – One Order!

On Monday I delivered Peak Hives biggest order to date for our Cedar National Hives to our customer in South Wales.  They are involved in a transnational project regarding bees and biodiversity and a part of the project involved running apiaries and educational workshops in their area.  For sensible reasons I won’t say exactly where they are.  They had already taken a delivery last season from us for 33 hives and were happy to then go on to order another larger order.

Many thanks to Rob, Gareth and all involved in the project for placing your orders with Peak Hives.

It’s been a big job for a small business like ours but I finished off the last Varroa Floors on Friday and can now get back to the standard order queue.  Thanks to all Peak Hives customers for your orders and your patience.

School Apiary

Here’s the latest order being checked over in the workshop.  A complete Apiary for a school in Shropshire.  Comprising 3 fully assembled National Hives in Cedar each with a Varroa Floor, 2 Supers, 14 x 12 brood chamber, Framed Queen Excluder, Apiguard Crown Board with Porter Bee Escapes and a Gabled Roof.  PLus there’s a couple of our popular Nucleus Hives which come with Varroa Floors and a dummy board and will take up to 6 frames of bees.

School Apiary

School Apiary

We get alot of orders from schools and it’s nice to think of our products being used in educating potential future beekeepers.  Given the size of the order I’ll be putting these hives into our van and delivering in person tomorrow.

 

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.

Beautiful Apiary!

A much valued Peak Hives customer has sent me this stunning photo.  It’s two Peak Hives Nationals painted up in white and set in his beautiful garden.  I think the white works really well here and paint is also the best protection for any outside woodwork including hives.

Beautiful Apiary

Beautiful Apiary

 

Aesthetically it very much puts my apiary to shame…but you know what they say… ‘cobbler’s children…’

Tideswell Dale Honey

Now we have a printer that’s working I’ve finally printed up some labels for our Tideswell Dale Honey.  It’s a simple affair and doesn’t precisely conform to the honey labelling regulations etc but we’re only going to sell around 60 of these jars locally.

Tideswell Dale Honey

Tideswell Dale Honey

An inspector calls…

Regional FERA Bee Inspector Tim Roper called round under the FERA free inspection offer (you need to register with Beebase in order to qualify for a free inspection and it’s definitely worth it.  My opinion is that it in these times registration should be obligatory.  Anyway, after looking at Peak Hives 2 colonies he pronounced them in good health.  There was some evidence of chalk brood but not enough to cause too much concern.

The bees are now filling up the new super with drawn comb and there’s the ‘old socks’ smell of Dandelion honey.  Tim says it’s quite nice to eat though.

Fera Bee Inspector Tim Roper Inspecting Peak Hives Apiary

Fera Inspecting Peak Hives Apiary

Monitoring Varroa

We’ve now got two strong looking colonies of British Black Bee (Apis Mellifera Mellifera) in the Peak Hives Apiary. On inspection the other day with our experienced beekeeping friend Carl we popped off a cap from a drone cell and there looking up at us was a fat and annoyingly healthy Varroa Destructor mite. Today I decided to start a monitoring process using the slide out trays on our Varroa floors which will be in the hives for the next seven days. When they are removed the mite drop will be counted and action taken if the mite drop is above certain suggested levels (see the Beebase page on Varroa and the very useful Varroa Calculator).

I read somewhere about putting oil onto the paper laid on the slide out trays to make sure the little buggers can’t get away or don’t blow away and in the photo you can see the two trays that went into the hives today at 4pm. On the right is just plain white paper and on the left the paper has been liberally coated with sunflower oil. I did wonder if the smell from the oil might cause fright to the bees. Perhaps someone with better knowledge could comment on that. Anyway in they went and now to wait for the results.

Varroa Mite Monitoring

Varroa Mite Monitoring