National 2 in 1 Poly Hive (14x12)

British National 2 in 1 High Density Polystyrene Hive (no supers)
Suitable for 14 x 12 National Deep Frames

Contents:
1 x Telescopic Poly Roof
1 x Multipurpose Crownboard
1 x 14x12 Brood Box with 14x12 Divider (No frames)
1 x Double Entrance Floor with 2 entrances, 2 mesh peices, affixing screws & Varroa monitoring tray.

BS Honey Bees is owned and run by Daniel Bates and Tristan Sawczuk, we are both full time bee farmers with 27 years combined experience in queen rearing, breeding bees and honey production. We have worked both in the UK and Australia managing large numbers of colonies, using a wide range of hive and NUC designs from different manufacturers. This real world experience has led to frustration with certain aspects of design, that we felt could be improved upon, to benefit the bees and the bee keeper.

Following years of development and testing, in late 2017 we launched our 2 in 1 Poly Nuc. This has been well received by hobby bee keepers and professional bee farmers alike. Since then we have constantly been asked “when will you be releasing a full hive?”, which is something that has been in development before our first NUC box was even sold.

We decided not to rush in to releasing a second product before being confident in the manufacture process and receiving valuable customer feedback. This has resulted in some small improvements to our NUC design for the 2021 season, some of which have also been incorporated into our new full hive.

Some of the features we wanted to include in our full hive could not be produced by our existing manufacturer, so the hunt was on for a company who could. Determined to work with a UK manufacturer, we found a company and started small production runs in 2020. We have now been in using these prototypes for a full 12 months and have made a few tweaks to bring the hive up to our exacting standards.

To the product itself, born from frustration of the poly hives currently available and our extensive experience of using them, our hive has been designed to be compatible with standard 460mm x 460mm wooden equivalent hives. In a market where we believe compatibility is key for the end user, we focused on ensuring that all components would be compatible with a standard British National Hive setup. Our hives will accommodate a standard 11 frame DN4 / SN4 Hoffman setup, as we found an issue with smaller 10 frame products available on the market.

As we did with our 2 in 1 Poly Nuc, we have increased the strength of common weak points found on existing products on the market and at the same time increased thermal properties. The range of poly density used in existing products goes from 100 g/l to 160g/l. Our research and development has shown that 120g/l gives the best of both worlds. 100g/l is too weak in our opinion, 160g/l lacks the thermal characteristics we require for our bees.

Poly Hives and Nucs can suffer damage where a hive tool is inserted to ‘crack’ open the hive. We have now reduced the chances of damage by introducing plastic reinforcement on each face of commonly moved sections of the hive. This also means that when cleaning these faces of propolis, you can use a hive tool with confidence, knowing the poly is protected. The new manufacturing process has also allowed us to mould in metal frame runners. We have developed a multi-purpose crown-board which offers a deeper section on one side which is far superior to any basic Perspex crown-board offered by competitors. This crown board can now act for its basic purpose, as a clearing board (when used with porter bee escapes or rhombus escapes), as a fondant feeding board or used as an eke when treating for varroa with ApiGuardÒ.

We have also replicated the 2 in 1 feature of our Poly Nuc which now incorporates a central aluminium divider. With our full hive, this allows the colony to be split into 2 x 5 frame colonies with the respective double closable entrances on each side of the floor, with separation on the crown board and “Ashforth” style double feeder (sold separately). This not only offers huge versatility within 1 product but widens the ability to also create double production colonies (as seen in “The Sustainable Apiary” by Mike Palmer) that can be used as 2 way honey production hives with a Queen excluder and super above the 2 residing colonies. You can also run the box to overwinter 2 x 5 frame colonies which means using less resources as you would in a conventional standard Nuc setup.

We welcome any comments or suggestions that can help us improve our designs or features that could be included in future reiterations.

All of our products are UK Registered Designs with The Intellectual Property Office (IPO)

Due to the soft properties of EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) and the manual moulding method used to create these products we must inform you that every box will have some sign of manufacturing marks, whether this be from removing from the tool or light marks from the core steam vents. These marks are unavoidable and will not impair use what so ever. Any product with moulding filling issues and severe deep markings are kept aside. Please do not expect 100% blemish free from a product of this nature, whilst we strive to give you the highest quality product available to achieve 100% perfect product in EPS would mean high wastage. Not only is this very bad for the environment it is not viable in business.

Frames for illustration purposes only and are not included, please note these boxes are not supplied with bees.